#3 wake up and find me. Even though there was nothing wrong
Is it our silver yet? Or bronze? you asked that morning
with what I was doing, I didn’t want to have to explain; I
and I said: I don’t think there’s such a thing as a bronze
wanted this to be my little secret. I have learned over time
anniversary and silver is old — twenty-five or fifty. Fifty
that we all need to keep some secrets, even if they seem
is golden I think, you said, but fifteen should count for
innocuous from the outside, and I know this is true because
something, especially since I can’t even remember our
when you did finally find out about it, I felt that a piece of
tenth.
myself that was all my own had been lost. The clouds looked like the heads of old ladies floating by; they kept turning the moon off and on. The snow had
I remember our tenth, I said. You were quiet for a minute. I’m sorry, I said, I shouldn’t have said that. It was unnecessary.
stopped falling and covered the yard, making it bright enough
You said: No, no, that’s okay. It’s okay. I’m sorry too,
for me to see where on the deck your father had tucked the
and I slapped the pillows on our bed and said: Haven’t
garbage bin. The bottle was right on top of the other empty
we apologized enough? Let’s say on this, our fifteenth
cans and bottles; it had that label I admired, expressionist
anniversary: It’s over! It’s done. No more apologies.
inspired, a bullfighter (What else? Those Spaniards!) mid-
You smiled. No more apologies? At all?
twist, his cape fanned out like a single scarlet wing, strong
Well, no more apologies for that. Deal?
enough to carry him up into the sky. One wing; that’s all
Deal, you said. Still, shouldn’t it have some metallic-
he needed to fly. Back in our bedroom I tucked the bottle in a baby blanket and stuffed it in the diaper bag. When we were leaving and you took the luggage out to the car
sounding name? This anniversary? Fifteen years. Fifteen! Copper, I said. Maybe it’s our copper anniversary. Aluminum?
you said you sure hoped there were bars of gold in that bag
Aluminum. Definitely not that.
and I thought that even if there was a bottle in there, it was
I was still in my pajamas — it was one of those times —
empty and couldn’t have added that much extra weight.
and mercifully you didn’t say anything to me, didn’t ask if I
It made me wonder if you knew, still makes me wonder
was going to go to class or if I planned on getting dressed,
though you swear to this day you did not. Once we got
what my schedule for the day would be. I’d quit another
home I went up to our bedroom and locked the door. The
desk job, was back to that interminable graduate degree.
bottle was the first thing I unpacked. For years I tucked
Gently, so gently you asked: What about painting? And
it in the back of my closet along with the cigar box that
though I loved you even more for it, I made the mistake
contained a copy of our wedding invitations, a newspaper
of thinking you wouldn’t understand, so successful you’d
from the day we’d gotten married, a cork from the bottle of
become. A partner at the firm. You were finally building
champagne we — or rather I — had drunk during the toasts.
a house, a weekend retreat, for us. Sometimes, I hardly
When years later you finally discovered it you said: Why
recognized you.
would you keep it? But this time your tone wasn’t the same
I sat on the bed watching you loop your belt through
as it had been that Sunday afternoon driving away from your
your trousers, pull your socks over your feet, standing on
childhood home; this time your face was as open and bright as
a single foot at a time. You were still strong and athletic,
the snow-covered yard I’d fished that bottle from. As I said, it
but then it wasn’t as if you were old, just shy of forty. But
was many years later and we’d come a long way by that point.
still, we both felt so old then, didn’t we? And yet in some
I don’t know, I said at first, trying to think of the right
ways I remember feeling much too young because it seemed
words. Maybe I wanted a reminder.
impossible for my child’s mind to manage all that was going
A reminder of what? you’d asked, and I wanted more than
on in our lives at that point. In that moment, sitting in our
anything to wipe away the wounded expression on your face.
bedroom, I yearned for those days when I could ask my
That wasn’t our brightest time.
mother what to do and she would tell me, as if life could be
No, I said, it wasn’t. But I wanted a reminder of a promise I’d made.
84
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August 2015
as simple as a recipe you follow instructions for. Beat the eggs with the cream. Fold the liquid into the flour mixture.