Wedding Season
AMANDA MERPAW
First
we need to talk about Maine. our sun-bloated bodies packed into my red Corolla, driving out past town, ignoring the pull of lobster stands, the pull of close-front-seat hands, ordering Chinese with you, devouring it on the dock at your cabin, your parents tucked away inside, the day after your wedding.
the day before your wedding, you kissed me on my salt-sweat forehead, below the wide-waxing milk-moon, i cried; you scanned the water for monsters— nothing there, nothing here, nothing.
i need to tell you i drove nine hours through some of the most goddamn beautiful USA to deny you a dance at your wedding. i drove, chugged iced coffee in my navy cotton dress, Ryan Adams on iPod-repeat, knowing nobody would call me on my way back home, dear. i drove nine hours alone, ignoring offers of company; nobody could know the trip was a grieving.
the morning of your wedding, in Maine, your mother porch-welcomes and waiting, i brought Nutella and orange juice, breakfast best, a meagre offering, toasting to you and your sad-slouch back, spilling champagne on your suit, i stood too close, trusted it would dry in time below that East Coast July sun.
Second
of course, we’ll need to talk about Montréal, first meeting you along Sainte-Catherine, later finding ourselves at Dieu du Ciel on Saturday nights, pints of 9% stout after homemade lasagna at your apartment. you slept on the floor, so close to the TV where we watched Friends and suffocated the week under a pillow of pinot or bordeaux or merlot —
i can’t recall, now. listen, i’m not nostalgic for the details.
a taxi ride at 2 a.m., the driver asking me about the stupid face i wore, wearing it still, surely, riding the 80 bus back along Parc on Sunday morning, meeting you at Drawn and Quarterly searching for comics, stopping at St-Viateur for sesame bagels, wolfing down two, three right there on the snow sidewalk, burning chapped fingers, the thin pink roofs of our mouths, talking about anything but last night. up the stairs to yours, yes, again, yes, i know, never mine.
Third
let’s talk about Toronto, after Montréal, after Maine.
you take a job in my city, sleep over on the worn carpet floor, move into my street, down the hill, invite me to dinner Sunday night, offer a bottle of wine, a hug,
then
ignore me for a cold year, email to say, finally, you’re losing heart to the nothing and everything that transpired between us, across all these terrible great burden beautiful cities—
mostly it’s the never, nothing. you should have let go.
okay, already. okay, okay, i know.
but first, we need to talk about Maine.