Disposable Love

I thought about breaking up the wedding. Not in a real way, not in a way that involves formulating a plan, buying plane tickets, building a posse. But there was the thought. First of simply showing up uninvited, sitting in the third row from the center, waiving demurely when his eyes caught mine as he stood in front of the crowd, watching his face melt from confusion to love to hate. It must be that way, from love to hate for him to be marrying her and not me. Then there was the delicious thought of finding him during his bachelor party the night before, drunk and malleable he would cave to my advances and have nothing but guilt and regret to accompany his ‘I do’s’. That seemed logical, the last time I’d seen him he’d been drunk and malleable and I’d been the bigger person, pushed him away, moved his hands from my a*s, told him to be good, sent him back to her. I wonder if he’ll think to thank me during his speech.

It is not wanting him. It’s freeing to know he is exactly where he should be, that the life he wanted has settled against her slender cashew form. That mine in return finds welcome space to breath. Still it is an amazing phenomenon to have once been engaged, to have planned and spent and dreamed. He got down on one knee, in our living room �" his living room �" their living room. He got down on one knee while we sat on the couch just after New Year’s, me in a wife beater and grey sweats, him in jeans and a sweater vest. The words I can’t remember but what refuses to fade is when he looked in my eyes, told me he loved me, that he wanted me to know how much he loved me, and then he asked me to be his wife.

It is amazing to have that memory, it haunts like a taunting ghost, like a mockery of solid stable things. Such words should come with a built in guarantee, such promises should hold solid as steel, should invoke magic making anything less impossible. But only if it’s right. For us it was not, but those words. Maybe I mourn them more than anything else. I fell into them, stored future in them, comfort and every way to be safe. I believe there was intent when they were said but how fickle intent can be. How clever and tricky and selfish and fickle.

I’ve seen her ring. So different than mine. She is so different. I believe she rolls my name around in her head. Has been doing so since the first day until the edges are blunt and smooth, the whole thing so compact that she finds space for it to fit under her tongue, pressing on it in those times when it’s important to be reminded of the order of things. That I have grown small enough to swallow, that she can easily place me there. My memories of her are pictures he hid, those held safe behind plastic inserts in family photo albums, arguments I was too tentative to start. What harm in a photo? What harm in things that can be locked away or pressed under a tongue?

 It must be that way for all women. To at some point consider the one who came before, the one who dangles like old Velcro from parts refusing to let go. I hope she always thinks of me. I hope when she believes memory is vapor it will form flesh in dreams, that I will be between them and she will inherit my concern.

Her dress was eerily similar to mine. Fitted, sweetheart, flare. He’d been very specific. Perhaps he’d lost the energy to envision more when the second planning began. He did wear the white tuxedo I’d hated, a bow tie and a bald head. I’d lied when I said I didn’t miss his hair. I’d imagined it holding on until our thirties then lazily receding like gravy sliding from the sides of a cast iron pan. Instead I’d leaned over him as he sat on the toilet shaving the top of his round dome while we both rested solidly in our twenties. I would always kiss the top when I was done rinsing the razor under the faucet trying not to frown as the tiny hairs escaped eagerly down the drain.

It is enough to cause me guilt now in the face of a tragedy I never wished for him. Guilt in having wished other things. Incomplete wishes halted by karma or a want to be better than I know myself to be. Nothing like what now is true and in spite of time and better judgment my first instinct is still to reach out to him, offer him words I know will console. Offer him what I still believe she is inadequate to give. Not my fault, that last time he’d said the same, he’d said I was always honest, always made him feel better. It wasn’t until hearing of his loss I fully accepted that I will always want him to be okay.

Now he is not.

Now there is nothing I can do. 

I know he mourns in the most painful way. I know he imagines laughter and first steps, faces similar to his own, what he should have done or known, how he should have prayed. I imagine the names had already been chosen, he’d researched the safest cribs, the most calming color of blue, thought of playlists to feed through a monthly expanding stomach �" Miles Davis, Anthony Hamilton, Kindred, carefully selected R. Kelly. As I consider she does not find space. There were times were it would have been intentional but now it is simply a matter of reference, I have none for her.  No idea the lines of her face as it carries the full weight of sadness. No idea if she pulls him close, folds against him at night calmed by his heartbeat, the heavy drape of his arm, his incoherent mumbles that are consistently sporadic like well-timed snores. If she pushes him away, eats dinner alone, finds new reason for girl nights and bottles of over-chilled white wine. Do they talk? Make new family plans? Do they find a space to build a bridge over mourning or does its lingering shadow cast what would be the best of their love in thick silent shadow?

I imagine they do. The tragedy is new to me so by now they may have moved past. View it as the blessing in disguise, a lesson in loss and love �" faith. I imagine they are forever strong, unbreakable. That it will be a story told to grandchildren, a family legacy of strength, a rare marriage held steady by the tenacity of vows. I can’t imagine different. My need for them to remain together perhaps trumps their own need for the same.

Reviews

[TLK]

This is an interesting monologue, but I am a bit lost on how to interpret it without context. I understand the need for the orator to imagine a mirroring of her concern in the mind of her 'replacement', but I would also like to know whether this mirroring actually exists... or whether the couple are crushingly unaware of this oddly caring 'emotional stalker'.

I suppose I'm thinking of something that uses the tricks of Raymond Carver's Neighbors: while maintaining an unflinching focus on one pair of people and their relationship, it also tells us so much about the absent pair and how they all contrast as four individuals.

[Sam]

Thanks TLK, I've been trying to decide if the piece is able to stand on its own without additional context and I've spent so much time with it that it's been impossible for me to be objective, but your comments have me thinking about providing more info about the couple to help cement the monologue, thanks again.