• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 254 0

up at her company, gaining titles and invaluable experience, and making more and more money. She also spent a significant amount of time traveling on consulting assignments. Though we finally lived together, months would go by when we’d see each other only on the weekends. For many couples, this extreme amount of time apart would be a real blow to the relationship, but for us it was just par for the course. It actually made the transition to living together a lot easier—if Liz had been home full-time, she would have immediately realized just how much of a lazy slob I was and probably would have kicked me out.

Chapter 2

a few weeks

here, a couple of

months there,

nothing more than

a few seconds

when viewed through

the lens

of forever.

In early 2004 I received an e-mail from one of my college roommates, Biraj Bista, inviting Liz and me to Kathmandu for his wedding. I was excited. Going to Nepal had been high on my list of things to do since I’d met Biraj, but I never dreamed I’d actually have the money or the time to be able to go. It took a little convincing to get Liz to agree to the trip because we didn’t have a ton of money at the time, and she knew that I would be unable to contribute a significant amount since I made less than half of her salary. But thanks to all of the frequent-flier miles she had racked up traveling for work over the past four years, the flight would be free. She knew how important this trip was to me, and she told me we’d make it work no matter what.

What Liz didn’t know was that I planned on proposing to her a few days after our arrival in Nepal. I’m not exactly a traditionalist, so I wasn’t going to ask her dad for permission or get down on one knee or hire a skywriter to write out my words with airplane exhaust. I always wanted our engagement to be different; I had hoped to surprise her with a ring in a foreign country with the idea that we’d someday make a special return trip there with our children, and this trip to Nepal came at the perfect time. We arranged to go on a short trek through the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. I pictured us hiking to the top of the mountain, at which time I’d whip out the ring and, crying, she’d scream, “Yes! Yes!”

But surprising Liz in any way was a tall order: our finances were closely intertwined, and marriage was a foregone conclusion for us. I’d saved almost no money, so my only hope for getting her the ring of her dreams was to take out a loan for the full amount. As soon as I’d secured it, I called A.J., my closest friend and my only friend who’d already taken the marriage plunge, to ask him where he bought the ring he gave to his wife. He put me in touch with a jeweler in Minnesota, an old friend of his parents who had designed pieces for his family. After eight years together and countless lectures about the “Four Cs,” I knew exactly what Liz wanted, and A.J.’s jeweler was able to custom-make it to my specifications. I sent the guy a check, sight unseen. The ring arrived in the mail the day before we left for Kathmandu, and it was fucking gorgeous.

After a flight halfway around the world, we met up with Biraj and some of his friends, and as if we still were back in college, the beer began to flow. Liz lasted as long as she could that first night, but eventually her eyes began to close. I walked her to the hotel, put her to bed, and went back to drink with the guys. We talked of Biraj’s upcoming wedding, and about the women in everyone else’s lives. When the conversation turned in my direction, Biraj asked when Liz and I were going to tie the knot. Without thinking, I told him that I planned on asking her to marry me when we reached the summit of our trek. There were congratulations all around and, of course, enough beer to require me to close one eye to walk a semistraight line back to the hotel.

I woke up early the next morning with one of the worst hangovers I’d ever had, but we were in a new country and we had to explore it. I thought back to the night before. What had I told the guys? Did they understand that