Joy

I wrap a ruby-red scarf tighter around my neck and pull a white knit cap over my red hair. December has arrived, bringing snowfalls, nights in front of the fireplace, and the endless need to warm up under the covers.

Now, though, I’m venturing outdoors.

Sometimes, on Saturday afternoons, I surprise Griffin.

I like to show up on the tail end of his tours.

He’s still translating, but he’s also doing something he loves even more. He’s introducing tourists and natives alike to the curiosities of Paris that are hidden in plain sight. He’s not operating boat rides along the Seine, or leading trips through the Louvre. Others can do that better and enjoy it more, he has said.

But there’s no one—not a soul in the whole wide world—who knows the corners of Paris better than him, the spots with unexpected delights that can be found all over this metropolis. A few times a day, he’ll guide travelers to the oddities of our city, showing them the street that runs under a residence in the 17th arrondissement, bizarre sculptures that jut out of buildings, sundials that do work, and sundials that don’t do their jobs at all. At other times, he mixes up his repertoire and takes his customers on tours of the best chocolate shops, always ending at what I call heaven with a cup of hot chocolate.

That was my idea. After all, who doesn’t like chocolate?

Sometimes he leads tours in Spanish, sometimes in French, often in English, and occasionally in Portuguese, since he now knows that language.

That was his dream, and he stayed the course.

Perhaps he was always meant to be an explorer. His journeys have simply become more local, in the city we both now call home. But we’ve managed to break out our passports a few times in the last several months. We’re not world travelers, but we saw the Northern Lights in Iceland, and they were as majestic as a queen’s glittery crown. We flew to Copenhagen last month and wandered through the charming streets, and we’re taking off for Tokyo in a few months to finally see what Griffin calls the neon city.

“It’s more fun going places with you,” he’d said when we watched the stars in the cool night sky near the Arctic Circle.

“Everything’s better together,” I’d replied.

Life has been good here, too. Come What May is rolling out in time for the Christmas season, and I’m hopeful it’ll be a hit. My sister and parents will be visiting for the holidays, and I plan to take them shopping at all my favorite outdoor markets and the most fantastic department stores, too. After that, Griffin and I will take the train to London to see his parents for New Year’s.

Really, what more could an American girl in Paris ask for? I’m speaking the language capably every day, mixing up concoctions in the lab during my working hours, and coming home to a man who makes me laugh, who makes me smile, and who loves to whisk me away. Sometimes, we take a trip around the world and we don’t even have to go anywhere. That’s what making love with him feels like.

I guess I’ve always been a goner for a man with an English accent.

And now I get to listen to one pretty much whenever I want.

Yes, that’s what I call having it all.

Today, I join in when he shows a group of Americans from San Francisco the angel I spotted in Île de la Cité one fine Sunday afternoon many months ago.

“I’m not sure this angel means anything,” he says, pointing to the cherub carved into stone above an awning. “But it means something to me. The woman I love noticed it one day when we ate ice cream and wandered these streets. I’d never seen it before, not in all my travels. I learned then that some things are right in front of us, and we just have to look up.”

He gives them all a few moments to look up, snap photos, then say good-bye.

When they disperse, he takes my arm and links it through his. I ask how his day has been.

“You tell me, you little spy.”

“I like to keep you on your toes with my random appearances.”

“And you do. You always do.”

I raise my face and meet his gaze. “What do you want to do tonight?”

He narrows his brow as if considering my question. “Sip champagne on the rooftop?”

“That’s always a good idea,” I say as we stroll by the oldest clock in Paris.

The golden hands tick tock their way around the face. “That clock is when I knew I wanted to be with you,” he says, a happily wistful tone to his voice.

“It is?”

He nods. “I remember thinking about time, and how we can’t ever retrieve lost hours. But we can make the most of the hours in front of us, and I wanted to spend those with you. It took me a while to sort out how that would happen. But now I have, and I want to keep savoring every minute.” He takes a beat, snapping his fingers as if he’s remembering something recently forgotten. “That reminds me. I had another idea for what to do tonight.”

“What’s that?”

He drops to one knee and flips open a maroon velvet box. My heart beats so loudly I can hear it, I swear, and a rush of breath escapes my lungs. Warmth spreads all over me as I gaze at a gorgeous diamond solitaire.

“Let’s get engaged tonight,” he says, holding my gaze. “I love you madly, Joy. I love you so much I’d follow you around the world. I’d make you the center of my world. That’s what you are to me, and as we’ve made new dreams together, I have one more. Item number six. For you to be my wife.”

My smile is as wide as the river. I drop to my knees, throw my arms around his neck, and cry the happiest tears of my life. I murmur one word as my answer. “Oui.”

Fitting that it’s the same sound as an English word I rather love.

We.

That’s what we are.