Summer Romance

by Annabel Monaghan

I’m starting to think there aren’t enough labeled glass jars to contain the mess that is my life.

Today is the two-year anniversary of my mother’s death, which makes it the one-year anniversary of the day Pete announced he didn’t want to be married anymore.

She kept a tissue in the sleeve of her sweater in case something truly funny happened. You’ve got to love a person who leaves the house prepared to laugh.

Theo always smells like cheeseburgers, which I think is the only way to improve the smell of a baby.

I want to be that mother, both steering the ship to safety and being the safety itself.

That’s the thing about dog stories, they only end one way.

There’s something intoxicating about how he’s looking at me like I’m someone I used to be.

Nothing needs to match in nature, and I find it totally counterintuitive the way my yard adjusts to death and welcomes whatever comes next.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I hear myself ask. He barely blinks. “I bet everyone looks at you like this.”

“Sure,” I say. “Sure? Sure’s not yes.”

It turns out we lived in the same neighborhood in Manhattan for a month more than a decade ago.

It’s funny, what you’ll do for your kids but not for yourself.

Maybe that’s the essence of a summer romance: it’s the impossible thing—a love affair with no reality check.

It’s been an unexpectedly painful consequence of her death to realize that, in my home, my mother was the freshly painted shutters that kept anyone from noticing the foundation was rotten.

I hug him and he hugs me back. It’s a longer hug than is socially acceptable, but it’s all we have. I don’t really know how to talk to my dad. But when I see him, I count on this long hug to say everything we need it to.

I love the way summer rain comes out of nowhere and hits you hard like a love affair.

How uncomplicated it is with dogs. They like the smell of each other. They do not perceive a threat. For dogs every moment is just that moment.

He’s left me a toothbrush and I am oddly moved by this, another adult thinking of my needs and comfort. I hold the toothbrush in my hand like it’s an engagement ring.

“You get a dog and you know two things—you’re going to fall in love with it and it’s going to die one day. You knowingly walk headfirst into a heartbreak. That’s the basic madness of dog ownership.”

😭😭❤️❤️

Love is not If you clean up, I’ll help you through your grief. I’m not sure what love is, but I think it’s something different from that.

We’re interrupted by a text. It’s Phyllis: It’s time I met him. Me: Who? Phyllis: Don’t be coy

“Life’s going to do what life’s going to do, Alice. You might as well have a dog.”

Because that’s what life is—joy peppered by loss. It’s why you get a dog. And then you get another dog. Madness repeating itself just to get another taste of joy.

In this moment I am nothing but my heart.