The Map of Us

by Jules Preston

I felt responsible because the absence that we both felt was my fault.

I should have known then that our marriage would falter, at least in some small part, due to musical differences.

I would learn about him in the days and years ahead, including the fact that we were not really made for each other after all.

Openness is obviously a huge part of any successful relationship. A basic level of honesty.

They remind me of my grandmother and my mother and of love.

The rest was just introductions. What had happened had already happened. It had started over a thousand years before.

The key in the back door turned but was not happy about it. The door opened, tearing away the knitting of a decade of spiders.

She held his glance for a moment more than was perhaps appropriate.

‘I never want to leave your side,’ he said. It was statement and a question and a plea and a proposal and a warm breath on a cold day and a desperate heartbeat. ‘Yes,’ she said. And that was enough. True to his word, he never did.

Some things don’t change. Most things do. Eventually.