reading. This is where our relationship lives. Inside these four walls.
“Why are you with me?” I ask him. It is something I’ve always wanted to know since we’ve been together, but was afraid that if I asked he actually might not be able to come up with a good reason.
“Because you make me feel good,” he says right away. “You think everything I do is great.”
“Hey!” I lift my head up to look into his eyes. “Me too. That’s the same for me.”
“And you’re beautiful.” He starts to run his hand through my hair.
I slap him on the chest. “No I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
“How am I beautiful?”
“Well, let’s see …” He lifts his head to carefully look me over. “Of course, your face is beautiful. And your body. And your skin. Your smile.” He lifts my hair up. “… Your ears.”
“My ears?” I slap him again. I’m embarrassed to hear him talk like that. Deep down I just don’t think it’s true, ’cause I know my looks aren’t amazing.
“Ahhhh!” he jokes, grabbing my hand. “Don’t hurt me! I can’t take any more pain in my life.”
I pull my hand away, roll over onto my back. “Hmm.” I don’t really know what to say. I know he was sort of joking, but for the past while he’s been telling me that he was feeling depressed. It feels strange to hear a guy admit he’s unhappy, because all the other guys I know are just angry. And the fact that he’s still unhappy makes me feel like I’m not good enough, because I should be making life perfect for him, the way he has done for me. Since I met Michael, it’s as if all the bad things in my life don’t exist anymore. Finally, God answered one of my prayers and gave me someone who loves me in a way no one has before. And I want to do the same for him. I want to be the answer to Michael’s prayers.
“I wish I could make a time machine that would speed up time for you but keep it still for me and we could meet in ten years,” he says. It drives him crazy that he’s twelve years older than me, and for teenagers he thinks age is counted like dog years. One human year is the same as seven dog years. So that means he’s basically eighty-four years older.
“Yeah? And who will I be then?” I ask, sitting up on my knees.
He spreads his big hands out over my head as if I were a crystal ball and starts rubbing his fingertips against my scalp. “I see a woman wearing a suit jacket and heels. I see someone who can stand in front of a roomful of businessmen and stun them with her assertiveness and brains.”
By the time he finishes, my hair is tangled in knots. I reach out to do the same to his head, but then I pull away. “I better not,” I joke, closely inspecting his receding hairline. “It might all fall out.”
“Shut up,” he says, playfully pushing me backward.
“Here, I’ll be gentle.” I become serious and replace my hands at his temple. I close my eyes and try to picture him ten years from now. Then I open my eyes again. “What will you be … almost forty?”
“Hey—only thirty-eight.”
“Same thing,” I say. I try to envision forty and I see every old guy in my apartment building. I see Michael in a jogging suit, with a belly and a half-bald head. Then I see him eating a slice of pizza and holding a six-pack under his arm. “Forget it. Nothing’s coming to me. I can’t do it.” I drop my hands, feeling
sad all of a sudden.
“That’s a bad sign.”
“Okay, let me try again.” I replace my hands a third time, close my eyes, and really, really concentrate. I tell myself that Michael isn’t like the men in my apartment building, and this time I like what I see. “You have a little less hair and a little bigger belly, but you’re still good-looking. You are in the big backyard of our house by a little swing set. Our two little girls are playing with you. I am walking toward you, bringing out some cheese sandwiches cut into fours without the crusts.”
“Nice,” he says, and pulls me back down onto his chest. And I think it’s the happiest moment in my life.
Seven
I go to my job at the veterinary clinic almost every day I’m suspended. My