Portuguese Red Wine

The old man with the handwritten menus smiles at me and asks if we are celebrating anything. "Yes!" I smile back. "He just got a job!"

We sit at a small table beside the window with a basket of soft white bread and chopped olives.

Scott lifts his glass to prevent me from drinking and carefully I lift mine, but excitedly, I spill run-on sentences all over myself. "This is such an enormous success!"

"I will never have a bigger success than you." He says.
Two tired tears sit watching from my eyelids before my fingertips gently carry them to bed. Then I look down at my full glass of wine, wonder why it was still so full and slurp a sip.

"We were doing a toast!" He laughs.


"Oh yeah. sorry ...clink."

This morning, we awoke in the 1950S.

The alarm clock rings until Scott stops the bell.


I pull back my sheets and blankets; climb out of bed; slip my red pedicured toes into my slippers; wrap my bathrobe around my yellow floral pajama shirt and pants; adjust my pink curlers and make my twin bed.

Scott is in the shower singing Jailhouse Rock. "You'll wake the neighbors!" I sing to him from behind the closed bathroom door. While the coffee maker brews, I set up the ironing board to iron the creases from his new dress shirt and slacks.

He looks so grown up, like my father. It is nice to see him in something besides his black leather jacket, cotton white tee-shirt and blue jeans. With gel in his combed back hair, he kisses me good morning.

When he leaves for his interview, I wish him luck.

Sometimes, growing up feels more like going back in time.

Today,

insanity found me at the

bottom of three cups of coffee

in a straitjacket of cream and sugar.

With Witnesses Watching

I am 25, almost 26-years-old, and I have loved him 2,139 days. And if I die on my 100th birthday, I will have loved him 29,253 days. That is 80 years, one month and two days.

With witnesses watching, I will promise to love him in good times. In bad times. To love him in sickness. And in health. When our bare feet decide to dance spontaneously across from one another. When an argument silences him and makes me scream louder. When his intestines curl into knots and I have no remedy to untie them. When our sleep habits continue to prove us youthful as we spend many nights not sleeping.

In forty-one days, I will promise to love him until my heartstrings play only silent songs of stillness.

Company and Choas

My moments are assembling memories and categorizing them under The Good Old Days. The good old days before babies in backseats; dragging dogs through dirt; four a.m. feedings and necessary naps at noontime.

The good old days when it was just he and I.
The days before creating company and chaos.

"You have one new message"

I stand beside the organic raspberries, my phone pressed to my ear. It’s a message from Scott. "Hiiii Rachey, its Scott, I hope your days goin' good, I'm on the mass pike driving home........um and the-OH MY GOD! I just hit a pigeon, ohmygod I just hit a pigeon, oh my God, I'm ok, I'm not hurt but I just hit a bird and I don't think he died or anything, there's no blood or feathers, but that was terrifying!..."
I press the nine to save. “This message will be saved for twenty-one days.”
I buy the raspberries and leave to find someone to laugh with.

Home Alone

Every bulb is glowing around me, but the bathroom mirror is momentarily reflecting horror movies in my side glancing imagination as I brush my teeth. I wish I had guard dogs to protect me from myself. I wish I had one freckled beagle, one licking lab and one golden sunshine retriever to breath beside me in bed tonight.

Weddings Celebrate Love

All love and not just the love between two people. That's what I've learned anyway.

My sister holds a tray. Her mouth is open into a wide smile. "Want a MIMOSA?" She asks.  Mom is squealing and her arms are in the air. My other sister's camera is flashing me. "Did you know?" She questions me, unsatisfied with my entrance and response to the surprise. The room laughs and I look around. Nearly every woman and girl in my life with whom I love is standing around me. One mother. One future mother-in-law. Two sisters. Two future sisters-in-law. Two grandmothers. Two friends. Six aunts. Countless cousins. And they are all smiling.

My sisters have compiled a pile of lies to get me home. If I had known, I wouldn't have been late, but it’s too late for that.

We all eat and drink and I speak to everyone I can for as long as I can before my aunt hollers...PRESENTS! In the living room, there is a pile of gifts so enormous, I look for the out-of-season Christmas tree. I am told later that it took me nearly two hours to open everything, read everything.

This wedding shower fills my heart with so much love, it feels more like a wedding bath with no plug.

A red air balloon floats by.

"You know, they sound like dragons."