Zander grabbed a notebook and wrote it down and then transliterated it.

"Will you marry me would be: Vee budete zhenit's'a na mne?"

Jax read it.

"Vee – that is 'you,'" Zander explained. "Say that."

"Vee," said Jax.

"Boo-di-teh – that is 'you will' and inflected as a question 'will you?'"

Jax repeated that.

"'Zhen – its – a'" – marry, and 'na mne' – to me."

Jax repeated it a couple of times.

Then Zander wrote: 'Вы будете жениться на мне?' "Show that to her if she can't understand you at all," Zander said. "I think you're doing well. Quinn has this charming accent, so does Alexis."

"Mine is different," Jax guessed.

"Yours is hilarious," Zander agreed.

Quinn laughed. "No stranger than your grandparents and their Aussie accent in English!"

"This family," Jax said. "Has Russians who speak English with an Australian accent. What it needs now is someone who speaks Russian with an Australian accent."

"We have him now," Quinn said.

"Another thing," Jax said. "If you think I can handle it, teacher. How about 'I love you?'"

"Ya l'ubl'u vas," Zander said. "Ya, me. L'ubl'u, love. Vas, you."

Jax repeated that a couple of times. Zander wrote than down in Russian and in transliteration.

"Wait a minute," Quinn said, "If you are going to marry someone and you love them, don't you know them well enough to use the familiar you instead of the formal you? Tee budish zhenit's'a na mne? Ya teebya loobloo."

"I never heard it that way," Zander said. "I think it's like you're putting her above you."

"You let me use Ya teebya loobloo and you've said it yourself!"

"But I did not propose to you in Russian."

"That's true," Quinn said. She told Jax, "I proposed to him."

"For which you used English, I presume, which could have been wise," Jax said.

"She used a Native American tradition," Zander said.

"The Hopis are the only ones I could find who had any tradition for a woman proposing to a man," Quinn explained.

"You tried to say it in Hopi?" Jax asked.

"No," Quinn said. "I'm not as ambitious as you are."

"You did have to bake cornbread for that," Zander said. "That was ambitious."

Jax laughed. Then he repeated his Russian words again, "OK, Zander, are you sure I'm not just telling her that I think she is wearing her umbrella backwards?"

"No, you're good," Zander said, laughing.

When Jax got to the house, it was crowded as usual. It was always full of teenagers, and now it had Oksana's brother and parents, too. Sometimes, he even ran into his own parents there.

"Let's leave," he said to Oksana. "Let's go for a drive." She smiled, checked on Peter, and went out with him.

"OK, why you need quiet?" she asked him. "You usually make the most noise."

"You'll see," he said.

He drove her all the way to Niagara Falls. They went out onto the footbridge.

"It is a beautiful night," she said.

"You're beautiful," he said.

He leaned against the rail, and pulled her over to him. He was so handsome and charming, sometimes Oksana did not believe he really existed.

"Listen carefully," he said. "Ya l'ubl'u vas."

She smiled. She hugged him closer. "That made sense?" he asked, his eyes lit up.

"Yes," she said. "Ya l'ubl'u vas tak-zhe."

"I think I understood that," he said, and he gave her a kiss.

He took the ring he had for her and put it in the palm of his hand.

"Vee budete zhenit's'a na mne?" He tried not to laugh. He thought he got each syllable. "I hope the ring makes it more comprehensible, in context."

Her eyes shone. "Da, ya budu zhenit's'a na vas. Ya l'ubl'u vas. Vee zamechatel'ny." She threw her arms around his neck.

He held her close. "Oh, dear, we're getting beyond my vocabulary. But I think I got the right answer."

She laughed, and put the ring on. "Where you learned that?"

"Zander."

"He's good at teaching."

"He must be, if I just made sense."

"You sure? How you gonna have kids?"

"We'll adopt needy children, how's that?"

"You really OK with that?"

"Yes, I really am, because I love you," Jax said. "Why would I marry someone else just to have kids. We'll have grandchildren, with Zander married. We have to help Jerry take care of his, anyway."

She looked up at him, her eyes half full of joy, half full of laughter.