Forever, Interrupted

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

“I just feel like I had him for so little time,” I say. It’s difficult to talk about. It’s difficult because I work so hard to keep the self-pity at bay, and talking like this, talking about all of this, it’s like opening the door to my self-pity closet and asking its contents to spill all over the floor. “I didn’t have enough time with him,” I say, my voice starting to break, my lips starting to quiver. “It wasn’t enough time. Six months! That’s all I had.” I lose my breath. “I only got to be his wife for nine days.” I now begin to sob. “Nine days isn’t enough. It’s not enough.” Susan comes closer to me, and she grabs my hand. She pushes my hair back off my forehead. She catches my eye. “Sweetheart, I’m telling you, you love someone like that, you love them the right way, and no time would be enough. Doesn’t matter if you had thirty years,” she tells me. “It wouldn’t be enough.”