her by picking her up at the airport after a
long, stressful day of travel. Or when he
cuts her grass without her asking. “I’m the
type of person to hate to ask people to do
stuff for me,” she said. “I just love that he
will just do stuff without me having to ask
him and not complain about it or any-
thing. If I ever need him, I’ll call him and
he’ll come help me.”
They’ve been there for each other in
hard times, too. When Willie’s mother
died, Renee accompanied him to the fu-
neral. And while the pandemic has been
difficult on everyone, Renee, who loves to
travel and hates being cooped up alone in
her house, was having a hard time at first.
When she made a half-joking comment
about how she was starting to talk to her-
self, Willie made sure to check up on her
more often and visit when she was getting
lonely.
After their first date, Willie recounted a
conversation they’d had about commit-
ment. He said he wasn’t sure he wanted to
get married again. Renee said she was
looking for a c ommitted relationship, but
she wasn’t sure she wanted to get married
either. He liked that — it sounded like
they were on the same page. I a sked Renee
if that had changed in the two years since
they met. It was clear they hadn’t talked
about it since the beginning of their rela-
tionship.
“I don’t know. I think I have backed off
of that, and that’s really surprising to me
that I even can say that!” she laughed. “He
has made me revisit that whole idea of re-
marrying.”
When I asked Willie, he became con-
templative. “I’m not against marriage,” he
said, sounding like he was articulating
something that he’s thought about but
never quite said out loud. “It could be an
option.” In the next few years, he said, he’d
probably downsize and the two would
move in together. “Once we’re cohabiting
in one place, I think that would be the next
move that logically would happen. I could
see it happening.” He couldn’t imagine
moving in and not having some kind of
symbol of their relationship — maybe a
ring or something else if she didn’t want to
get married.
“If the situation presented itself, I
would not have any problems with that
because I definitely see us together for the
long term. ... I wouldn’t mind being mar-
ried to him,” Renee said. But, she said,
marriage isn’t necessarily the end goal.
“Right now, I’m enjoying this too,” she
said. “So either way, I’m good.”
Marin Cogan is a writer based in Washington.
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