“I’ll marry you before eight in the morning, or after five,” said the notary. “I have a shop.”

“What do you sell?”

“I make jams and jellies.”

She pronounced us husband and wife while we stood by the bay at sunset.  

The next morning, he kissed strawberry jam from my lips.

Deborah K. Shepherd, mother of two and grandmother of two, lives and writes on the coast of Maine with two dogs and one husband.