Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage

by Dani Shapiro

Alive. Dead. Lost. Like the names I refuse to cross out in my address book, I catalog those I have loved.

He is taller than I am. He’s funny and kind. He’s strangely good at math. He has a mean backhand. An easy confidence. A shy smile. He still hugs me.

He hates surprises. Especially surprises that include ex-boyfriends, ex-lovers. Most of all, surprises that include ex-husbands.

Apparently, using two spaces after a period has become anachronistic. But tell that to my right thumb.

“An honorable human relationship in which two people have the right to use the word ‘love,’ ” Adrienne Rich wrote, “is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.”