While I was sitting there in silence, Mike told me his plans for the wedding in the Ukraine as soon as we got back there. He wanted me to invite my son and his wife, relatives and friends, who, in his opinion, had become his friends, too.
That evening in the gorgeous restaurant at the Hilton, we celebrated our engagement. Early in the morning, we were sitting in the plane on our way home. Mike had his eyes closed, smiling, and holding my hand, on which a ring with three diamonds was sparkling, while I was thinking about the tricks of fortune.
How did it happen that, in barely half an hour, I’d lived a whole life? From humiliating and deadly fear in that little perfume shop up to the highest degree of happiness in the jewelry store across the road. How did it happen that during this half an hour I changed my principles and agreed to marry a man I didn’t really know? A man I first suspected of betraying me and selling me to the slave trade, and then agreeing to spend with him the rest of my life in sorrow and joy. How did it happen that after living forty-five years of my life in one country, I would be able to see America, and maybe not just her? Oh my heavens, I was really going to leave my homeland, follow this man, and leave everything I had here. My son, grandson, friends, work, the very country itself! Did I trade all these for three little shiny stones?