She was twelve, bald from being near death, and she wanted to be his wife.  She had asked, Will you let me be your wife?  He had taken a step closer to her hospital bed to take in her eyes, to glean how she had meant it.  He couldn’t tell.  I will, my little girl, he said, as soon as your parents give me permission.  Not them, she said — Will you?  He felt that word “you” drape him, and pull from him words that he heard to be, I will marry you.  He thought her eyes held him weakly, disbelieving.  No marriage, she said, just your wife.  He took a couple of steps back, and then had to sit down.  He was her father’s age, and he had needed to step out of her sightline to take in what she was possibly imagining.  Still sitting, he asked her, No husband?  Just your wife, she said.  It surprised him how quickly he was then at her bedside saying, You’ve been that to me for a long time now…maybe since before you were born.  She smiled.  You remembered, she said.  He had.  She had always told stories about her life from before she was born, when all things were possible but for her birth into this sickly life, and, among them, for a while, had been a story in which she had known him from elsewhere and had made a decision to come into this life to meet again.  His remembering made possible their holding of hands.  She passed away within days thereafter, and, yet, still she stayed with him, his fourth wife, a reminder to him of how a story must invariably be called upon to trump the stark inexplicable realness of life.