(Six)
I issue a proclamation in the first grade: I am never getting married. You’ll change your mind, my uncle says. Everyone laughs. My rage becomes something to prove.
(Sixteen)
Like most church events, my second cousin’s wedding reception features a slide show of the bride and groom growing up without each other, a few pictures at the end from when they met.
For a second I doubt my proclamation (narratives beguile me—do it for the plot in pictures). For a second I see their staged loving gazes and forget marriage means screaming and staying.
(Twenty-three)
Our favourite regular at the campus library cafe is a law student, he of the sharp jawline, the wolfish eyes, the latte-extra-shot. Every day I pour a heart into his steamed milk. Customer crushes make the shift go by faster. One afternoon we collide at the running track and then he isn’t a customer crush anymore. Things he says to me:I don’t sleep with anyone unless I love them. I love you. You didn’t know? I wear my wedding ring everywhere. We never have sex anymore. I doubt she would even care if she found out.
Things he doesn’t say to me: I’m sorry.
The closest I’ve gotten to a marriage is not my own. Out of some perverse impulse, I keep his letters in a box in the back of my closet. Dear Conjurer of Words, they start. Dear Minx of My Heart. Postcards he sent from Paris, Bali, Ottawa, trips he took with his wife.
Now his social media is filled with photos of him and a young blonde woman that could have been me. That bastard still has my copy of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
(Twenty-nine)
Years ago, my mother tells me, Pastor Schmidt said he would support my decision if I wanted to leave Dad. This is how I find out retreat had been an option. Not taken.
Now that we’re eating keto, she says later, his moods are much better. No one tells you diabetics should be on a keto diet. It was a blood sugar issue all along is her conclusion. What does that change, I want to ask.
My mother wants to know if I’m seeing anyone special. I am single for the first time in my adult life. Wrangling my own emotions keeps me busy enough.
Wives submit to your husbands they said, but submit what? Paperwork to reacquire something lost?
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Sharalyn Barg grew up in rural British Columbia, Canada, and lives in Calgary. She likes long walks in the forest and any excuse to use the word “poecilonym”. This is one of her first publications.