She gasped. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. He does that all the time,” I told her.
“We never finished. You wanted to say the words, ‘I do.’”
“We wanted to,” I said. “But this went beyond anything we ever could have imagined.”
“Well, say them now. Goose, do you look forward to spending your life, your afterlife, forever and ever in Patrick’s arms and in the embrace of his love and his smile?”
Goose smiled. Even knowing what we knew, it was a sad sort of smile. “I do.”
“And Patrick, do you look forward to the same, and do you promise to lean on one another for strength when sometimes you forget how strong you are, and do you promise to always remember all things are better when you do them together?”
“I do.”
“Then kiss, already.”
We did.
“I now pronounce you spouses forever.”
A cheer went up, one that rocked the room.
“And now, we must take our leave as well,” Jefferson announced.