It is difficult to distill the rich tapestry of our relationship into a brief highlight reel. And no amount of words feel truly adequate to capture both the depth of devotion between us and the wellspring of gratitude we feel for the community that supports us. Our parents and families, our old friends and new friends. That means you, dear reader. We can’t begin to tell our story without first thanking you for being an integral part of it.

***

We met on a balmy summer evening in Brooklyn.

It was a Tuesday. We had just started talking on Bumble the day prior, and decided to meet for a drink at a bar in Bushwick called Boobie Trap. We sipped on margaritas and drew caricatures of each other on Magna Doodle boards. This bar had board games on floating shelves, available for all patrons’ delight. Daniel was tasked with getting Scrabble down from an upper shelf. He is not a praying man, but in that moment he called upon a higher power to cradle his ego and ensure he was just tall enough to reach.

His prayer was answered. We arranged our tiles on the board, spelling messages like “BROWN” and “ZING” (triple word score). We walked through the park at sunset. We stayed up and talked and laughed until the wee hours of the morning, sharing old fears and coining inside jokes with the ease and intimacy that usually takes many years to cultivate.

It was consecrated with a kiss, and all Tuesdays were sacred henceforth.

We haven’t gone a day without talking since that humid July night. I introduced him to soup dumplings. We started meeting in Chinatown nearly once a week after work to share a bamboo basket of steaming xiao long bao. We’d end the night playing air hockey at a 24/7 arcade on Mott Street and sharing ice cream in flavors like black sesame and taro.

By October, we took our first trip together, driving upstate to the Catskills in a rented sedan. I had my first uncontrollable giggle fit. He, ever the chronic insomniac, had a rare night of deep sleep. We got cider donuts and admired the foliage. It was my first time apple picking. When we were done — a big sack of Macintosh and Jonagolds in tow — I said, “That was kind of boring.” And Daniel’s relief at the thought that he would never have to pay money to do farm work again commingled with a quiet sense of certainty that he had found his match.

He reignited my urge to write poetry and gave me prompts for art projects. I taught him how to sleep again and inspired love songs about the smacking of dominos.

And then the pandemic descended. Every week, in order to avoid public transportation, Daniel would skateboard three miles down eerily empty streets from his shared apartment in Bushwick to my 1 bedroom in Clinton Hill. We held each other close as the ambulances wailed outside our windows day and night. We banged our pots and pans every evening at the nurses’ shift change; binge-watched Tiger King; made obstacle courses for my cats, who were starting to feel like our cats; wiped down our groceries with Clorox and wiped away each others’ tears. Quarantine was our incubator, nurturing and accelerating our romance.

A year into the pandemic, Daniel felt like he should try out living alone, just once. Beneath this urge lied a sweet suspicion that he might never have the chance to live alone again. And so he found a rent-controlled railroad apartment, in a creaky old building where every other male tenant was named Joey. He furnished it with treasures from Facebook Marketplace, then saged it with his buddy. But the sage could not keep away the cockroaches. And then came the migraines from the perpetually off-gassing vinyl floors. And then came a plague of boredom and loneliness, and a pestilence of yearning for his girlfriend.

In total, he slept about 4 nights in his apartment over the course of ten months, and spent the rest with me. He’d had a taste of solitude, and decided it no longer satisfied his palette. And so he broke his lease, and we moved in together.

We made a home in a new neighborhood — a home replete with dozens of houseplants and unending feline antics and the Puerto Rican motorcycle club playing salsa music outside our window. We hung Grandma Judy’s art on the walls. We discovered the glory of a Taiwanese bakery. From our balcony, we witnessed sunsets over the skyline and 4th of July fireworks a little too close for comfort. Our days are punctuated by the meticulous and mellifluous manner in which Daniel washes the dishes, the hot cup of coffee I bring him in the morning, the many monikers with which we refer to our cats.

And sometime in this period, about a year after making a home on Scholes Street, we returned again to Chinatown. We shared a basket of soup dumplings, but neither of us could eat much, so filled we were with nerves. We both knew what was coming. We waited our turn for the air hockey table at the arcade, every puck clattering in the pocket inching us closer. We got some taro ice cream, even though it was 30 degrees outside. We walked slowly, taking our time, stealing glances at each other. And on Canal Street, with cars whizzing past, Daniel got down on one knee and asked if I would be his wife.

If you’re reading this, then you know I said yes. (At least, I hope you know. If you don’t, what are you doing here? Did you mean to look at the wedding website for Baniel and Detty?)

So what’s the moral of this story?

I think if you lead with tenderness and an open heart, you might find “FATE” spelled on a Scrabble board. If the time is right, maybe you’ll uncover love in a basket of dumplings. And if you’ve found your person, the washing of dishes on any given Tuesday can make for the sweetest of splendors.

The Cash Grab