What a beginning to my second year! Today was stressful, surprising, and ultimately joyful, and I am so proud of my charges. Allow me to share it with you.
Today, Ramona had come over to Jesse’s house, as has become her habit on Wednesday nights. Sometimes they watch a movie, with Ramona practicing her sign language as she translates for Jesse. Sometimes they play games, and sometimes they simply sit together and watch birds, or the stars. Tonight, however, Jesse had something else planned.
Ramona could tell that he was nervous almost right away. She said nothing of it over dinner, as it is difficult to talk with one’s hands while one is eating. They have gotten into the habit of simply sharing one another’s presence, enjoying the quiet, but the comfortable silence between them was not as comfortable as it usually was. So when the meal was over, Ramona set her fork and knife down and asked, “Jesse, what’s going on?”
He swallowed and straightened up. Ramona, tomorrow is a year from when we met, he reminded her.
She smiled. “Yes, I know.”
He glanced up, taking strength from that smile. It’s been a wonderful year, he signed, then flexed his fingers. His hands were shaking. I haven’t been so happy in a long time.
For some time, Ramona found Jesse hard to read because he does not have a voice. Tone, inflections, hesitations and emphases—all of these things by which humans normally add meaning to their words—were unavailable to her. But over time she has learned to see indications of Jesse’s emotions in the speed of his signing, his facial expressions as he speaks, and the movements of his mouth and his eyes. In that moment, she read clearly that he was thinking of his wife Victoria and the grief that followed her loss. She reached across the table to take his hand, filled with compassion and understanding. “You’ve made me very happy, too,” she whispered.
He read the words on her lips, and his resolve steadied. His grip tightened on her hand, and he continued, using only one hand to sign now. I want to keep making you happy. I want to— He hesitated, grimaced, then gave up on finding the right words. I want to ask you something.
Ramona sat up straight as he reached into his pocket. “No,” she said suddenly.
Jesse did not hear the word, of course, but he felt her flinch through his hand. He looked up, startled, and there was a moment of silence between them.
Ramona sighed and pulled her hand free. “You’re going to ask me to marry you, aren’t you?” she asked, signing as she spoke.
Astonished—as was I; as long as Ramona did not know his plans, I could not read her reaction, but I would never have expected this—Jesse only nodded. In his pocket, his hand tightened around the small velvet-covered box that contained the ring he had purchased.
Ramona pressed her hands to her eyes for a moment, then took a breath to steady herself. “Please don’t misunderstand me. I love you, Jesse, and I do want to spend my life with you. But I don’t want to marry you. Not yet.”
This reassured Jesse, and the first pricking of pain fell back again. It did not, however, fall far, and Jesse slowly pulled his hand out of his pocket again. Why? he asked.
Ramona’s eyes were very soft. “Because I only recently started to feel like I deserved to be with you, and I’m starting to wonder if you’re in the same place.”
Jesse only stared. I, however, could see the long weeks of thought that Ramona had put into this, analyzing herself, Jesse, and the two of them together. While I have been focused on other charges, she has struggled, searched, and found stability in the answers to her questions. When I think of the timid, anxious woman she was a year ago, I can hardly recognize her.
“Do you know that you’ve never spoken of your wife to me?” she asked. “Not outright. You’ll answer my questions if I ask about her, and you’ll mention her in passing, but we’ve never really talked about her. At first I thought that might mean that you’re still stuck on her, that I’m just a replacement—”
Jesse made a slashing movement, forcibly denying, his eyes widening at the very thought.
Ramona caught his hand and squeezed it, smiling. “I know better now,” she said. “But I put some more thought into it. Grief can change a person, can drag you down so that you don’t remember what it’s like to be happy. And trust me, I know, when you sink that low, you start to wonder if you deserve to be down there.”
Jesse ducked his head, tears stinging his eyes.
Ramona got up and came around the table, kneeling beside his chair. The low light shone on her hair, and on her wet eyes. “We’re happy together, and so you want me to marry you because you don’t want me to leave. But I don’t want that. I want us both to be ready to believe in happiness again. I want you to know that I am not going anywhere. I want you to feel it in your bones. I want you to be so sure of me that marriage is just a formality.” She was crying openly now, but her smile did not fade. She reached up and ran her fingers over his cheekbone. “When you’ve made it to that point,” she said, speaking clearly so that he could read the words on her lips, “ask me again.”
Weeping himself, Jesse took her hand and pressed it to his lips, holding onto it with both hands. He slid from the chair and they clung to one another, halfway under the kitchen table and both crying.
I would never have thought that this would be the result of someone refusing a proposal of marriage. But Ramona is right—it will be better for them to wait. And Jesse is better off with Ramona’s assurance that she will stay with him, that whatever promises they might make to one another are already as good as sworn. I am so proud of her I could burst.
If this is how my second year is to be, I look forward to it with all my heart.