When my mother-in-law brought a step stool to our wedding photographs, I waited for my bride to respond. She did — but her mother’s answer made me question something I had never doubted about the woman I’d just married.
“You’re doing it again,” I told Mia.
“Doing what?”
“Deciding where I’m going before I get there.”
She laughed and stepped on my foot.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Apparently, I’m not very good at it.”
We were practicing our first dance between the kitchen table and the refrigerator, the night before our wedding.
Mia was nearly three feet taller than me. We’d found a comfortable hold that worked for us, and abandoned a turn that threatened the kitchen table.
We were practicing our first dance.
“Again?” she asked.
“Until you stop trying to lead.”
She restarted the song.
I have dwarfism. People had spent my life explaining what might be difficult for me, often without asking what I could do.
“Again?”
Dating added another question: Was the woman beside me comfortable being seen with me?
With Mia, I’d finally stopped looking for the answer in every room we entered.
We’d met at a friend’s barbecue when someone bumped into her and sent her lemonade down my shirt.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
We’d met at a friend’s barbecue.
“Well, this is one way to introduce yourself.”
She laughed so hard she snorted, then handed me napkins instead of trying to wipe my chest herself.
***
On our third date, she asked whether the staring bothered me.
She laughed.
“Sometimes.”
“What should I do?”
“Just keep holding my hand.”
She did.
She never spoke to me like a child or rushed to help with things I could manage.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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