The Signature of All Things

else. The question that Ambrose had placed within her body was twisting into something else. It was now turning into her question. She had not known that she had a question for Ambrose, but now she did have one—most urgently. She let her question rise through her torso and out through her arms. Then she placed her question upon his awaiting palms:
    Is this what you want of me?
    She heard him draw in his breath sharply. He clutched her hands so tightly that he nearly hurt her. Then he shattered the silence with one spoken word:
    “Yes.”

Chapter Sixteen
    O nly one month later, they were married.
    In the years to come, Alma would puzzle over the mechanism by which this decision had been reached—this most inconceivable and unexpected leap into wedlock—but in the days after the experience within the binding closet, matrimony felt like an inevitability. As for what had actually transpired in that tiny room, all of it (from Alma’s chaste climax, to the silent transmission of thought) seemed a miracle, or at least a phenomenon. Alma could find no logical explanation for what had transpired. People cannot hear each other’s thoughts. Alma knew this to be true. People cannot convey that sort of electricity, that sort of longing and frank erotic disruption with the mere touch of hands. Yet—it had happened. Without question, it had happened.
    When they had walked out of the closet that night, he had turned to her, his face flushed and ecstatic, and he said, “I would like to sleep beside you every night for the rest of my life, and listen to your thoughts forever.”
    That is what he had said! Not telepathically, but aloud . Overwhelmed, she’d had no words for a reply. She’d merely nodded her assent, or her agreement, or her wonder. Then they had both gone off to their respective bedrooms, across the hall from each other—although, of course, she had not slept. How could she have?
    The following day, as they walked toward the moss beds together,Ambrose began speaking casually, as though they were in the middle of an ongoing conversation. Quite out of nowhere, he said, “Perhaps the difference in our stations in life is so vast that it is of no consequence. I possess nothing in this world that anyone would desire, and you possess everything. Perhaps we inhabit such extremes that there is balance to be found within our differences?”
    Alma had not an inkling where he was tending with this line of conversation, but she allowed him to keep speaking.
    “I have also wondered,” he reflected mildly, “if two such diverse individuals as we could find harmony in matrimony.”
    Both her heart and stomach lunged at the word: matrimony. Was he speaking philosophically, or literally? She waited.
    He continued, though he was still far from direct: “There will be people, I suppose, who might accuse me of reaching for your wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth. I live my life in strictest economy, Alma, not only out of habit, but also out of preference. I have no riches to offer you, but I would also take no riches from you. You will not become wealthier by marrying me, but nor will you grow poorer. That truth may not satisfy your father, but I hope it will satisfy you. In any case, our love is not a typical love, as is typically felt between men and women. We share something else between us—something more immediate, more cherishing. That has been evident to me from the beginning, and I pray it has been evident to you. My wish is that we two could live together as one, both contented and elevated, and ever-seeking.”
    It was only later that afternoon, when Ambrose asked her, “Will you speak to your father, or shall I?” that Alma definitively pieced it together: this had indeed been a marriage proposal. Or, rather, it had been a marriage assumption . Ambrose did not precisely ask for Alma’s hand—for in his mind, apparently, she had already given it to him. She could not deny that this was true. She would have given him anything. She loved him so deeply that it pained her. She was only just confessing this to herself. To lose him now would be an amputation. True, there was no sense to be made of this love. She was nearly fifty years old, and he was still a fairly young man. She was homely and he was beautiful. They had known each other for only a few weeks. They believed in different universes (Ambrose in the divine; Alma in the actual). Yet, undeniably—Alma told herself—this was love.