As the water taxi sped across the lagoon, the two young honeymooners gazed ahead in awe.

Wilbur squeezed Maggie’s hand and leaned into her as they sat at the back of the small boat, the sun glittering on the water in front of them.

“I love you, Mr. Budd,” she told him, her words as natural as breath.

“I love you too, Mrs. Budd.”

Maggie laughed, softly, at how funny and official that sounded.

They held hands as the boat chugged its way toward the city, their fingers intertwined like tangled roots. The ninth of August 1974.

Wilbur turned away from the view in front of him, toward the person he had known since childhood.

“We’ll always be like this, won’t we?” Maggie asked him.

He smiled reassuringly. “Of course. Why wouldn’t we?”

They kissed as the lagoon merged into the Grand Canal. “I don’t know. Time changes things.”

“But look at Venice. It’s not changed in hundreds of years. This could be 1574 just as easily as 1974.”

She looked over toward the city. “Aye. Let’s ignore time. Let’s be Venice.”

He watched as she held up her Pentax camera, a wedding present from her father, and aimed it toward the Doge’s Palace, its pink and white stone facade and intricate arches rising directly above the lagoon like a Byzantine fever dream.

“Forever,” added Wilbur, laughing.

She put a hand through his tousled hair, which was just about the longest it ever got to. “Yes, forever and ever and ever…”