Flaw Salad

In the living room of your apartment with the mismatched furniture and the mirrored bedroom wall, two weeks after we met, you gave me a plant, a Mom Pot because I was jealous of your mother’s Mother’s Day gift. You hugged me and said, “I’ve had the privilege of dating a lot of amazing women. You’re like all their best qualities, all rolled into one.”

In the bed of a dirty motel room, before the wedding of your high school friend, after we took the photo that eventually became your favorite, you stroked my hair, looked down, and said, “You make me feel incredible.”

On the sofa of my apartment with the horrible drapes and the mirrored bedroom wall, just like yours two states away, we huddled over a Chinese delivery menu in the aftermath of our first biggest fight, the one that made you drive eight hours without a second thought. You laughed a sad laugh and said, “See, this is what I’d miss.”

In our apartment on the hill, with the big, wooden pillars and the big, wooden floors, with our hamster in the buffet, long before the cats, you locked the door behind our hectic day. As the bolt settled, keeping the cold world out and the two of us in, you said, “Command decision. It’s just us tonight.”

On the sidewalk outside the reception, while our families and friends drank and danced inside, we sneaked out for a break, a little moment just for us. You smiled and said, “We did it.”

In the bedroom, my bedroom, of our house in the so-quiet neighborhood I never really liked, you lingered as I iced my knee. I paused the marathon of memorized reruns that oversaw my convalescence, and you said, “You don’t even know how to have a conversation anymore.”

At the bar where we held our Thanksgiving Eve tradition, the one with frivolous hot drinks and nauseating stale popcorn, which had brought us such joy in years past but had now turned into another of our countless fights, you said, “Compassion? What have you done to earn it?”

In the office I’d decorated with the spacious desk and the free church-basement chair, now covered in fur from the sheddiest of cats, on the night before our trip, Christmas in the Keys, when I couldn’t bring myself to pack, we sat and watched each other through tears, waiting for a sign or an answer. You said, “I’m not ready to give up.”

In the courthouse, where we waited for the clerk to file our paperwork, while the sparkling wine chilled in the cooler in your trunk, a special surprise from our favorite Missouri winery, you said, “We can always get remarried.”

On the phone, the cat complaining loudly in the background, unhappy in your new apartment, you listened to me cry and ask if we’d given up too soon. You said, “Probably.”