Five Tuesdays in Winter

by Lily King

She seemed amused, entirely uninterested in changing him. He knew it was like that at first with anyone. He also knew it might mean that she didn’t care about him at all.

Soon Paula would begin complaining that he didn’t understand her, didn’t appreciate her, didn’t love her enough, when in fact he loved her so much his heart often felt shredded by it. But people always wanted words for all that roiled inside you.

It is strange to think that they both still walk this earth somewhere, that they have also had several decades more of life, that right now they are each lying down or standing up or reading a book or on an airplane or in a hospital room or a taxi or sitting in an office.

Becca, though, I married. I don’t know how other people do it, not stay with the girl whose ankle socks made your stomach flip at age fourteen, whose wet hair smells like your past—the girl who was with you the very moment you were introduced to happiness.

Adults hid their pain, their fears, their failure, but adolescents hid their happiness, as if to reveal it would risk its loss.

Hanne would have children someday. She would have her own family and these future people were the ones she would give her heart and her affection to. Oda would be the old lady they were forced to see on holidays then laugh about in the car on the way home. This right now was probably the closest they would ever be.

I remember feeling happy among strangers, people I’d only known for a few weeks, which made me feel like things would be okay in my life after all.

On the way back to Vermont I thought about words and how, if you put a few of them in the right order, a three-minute story about a girl and her dog can get people to forget all the ways you’ve disappointed them.

Though I will never cast an eye on you, he’d written, I will always love you, all your days.