This Is a Love Story

by Jessica Soffer

I remember I wanted to do everything over again when you were around—be bolder but also more still.

I remember you turned to me and said, Isn’t this something? Just being here? It is, I said. I remember, with you, the reel stopped running. Like: I am. You are. This is enough. Please stay.

Just being with you feels like being chosen, winning a prize.

but really, truly, only that none of them was ever you.

I remember going to you like there was a strong wind at my back.

I remember that whenever I left you it felt as if I’d moved away from a fire.

I long to meet her even now. But it’s more than that: I long to give her to you.

Maybe for you, I think, joy in security, security in consistency, consistency in love.

I remember our love making me feel lighter. You remember it making you feel more solid.

You remember, after that, suddenly a baby was all you wanted.

That you’ve avoided stepping on ants your whole life, and just once, you’d like someone to step over you.

You gather your things together and you imagine gathering things together. You know?

You don’t know what you wish for except more of this. Even on the days he doesn’t look your way until you go to him. You know that when he does, there will be the feeling.

Wouldn’t that be nice. To be his. Or his.

You forget what it’s like to not be reminded of him in everything.

You try not to spiral, but what can you do with this imagination of yours.

You want to tell him that you’d like to fix anything he ever needed fixed

Maybe his tire tracks run so deep that any time you try to run in any other direction, you can’t find a trail.

They were never a family per se. They were a triangle broken into lines.

Is there dignity in your loneliness?

Love, he feels, should be about adding to a whole. Not adding to a hole, you know?

For those who know, for those who feel it, the Park is more than just a park. It is evocative, a symbol. It reminds them of something else, someone else.

You remember when Bea moved to Dublin for three years to teach and how lonely it left you. Ours, you say, was a love story too.

And then I want to say something about how marriage is a relay race. Or long loops around the track. One gets ahead. Then the other. Then the other. Or maybe like the ocean. A wave crashes in two places at different times.

You remember your book club, the joy of laughing with them.

You remember our love like a river, a rock, a fountain, a rainbow. You remember it as an August evening, the holidays, the first spring day. You remember it as sparkle, or maybe I do. Why not? We had our bumps. You remember it wasn’t always easy, but so often it was. How lucky are we? Sometimes, over the top is just enough.

The difference between stopping and ending is that one is intentional. Anything can be a beginning if you say it right. Any moment can be the end.

Perhaps disappointment is as insidious a chemical as the cancer cells themselves.