B is for

Beach * Boats

We gave that summer to the fish and we gave it willingly. In fact, we asked them to take it, just for an excuse to go. And so we sold our house and bought a boat and just floated in the lake, because we didn't have a car to drive all the way to the ocean.

We spent three months just floating there, and our days took on a particular habit. In the morning, I'd take the rowboat over to shore, and I'd unchain my bicycle from the tree and I'd go buy some eggs. I was the morning person, so I would cook breakfast. By the time I got back, you were awake and smiling and you'd grab me around the waist and kiss me good morning.

Everything was cut even. I made breakfast, you made lunch. I made dinner, you did the dishes. I did laundry, you fed the cat and took care of his litter. And I made the bed and you swept the floor.

And I kissed you goodnight so you didn't have any bad dreams, and you kissed me goodnight so I didn't have any bad dreams, and those first nights we tried our damnedest to tick each other in, but that didn't really work out.

It was the best summer of our lives, but then fall came, and then winter was coming and the police rowed out to our boat and told us we had to get off the lake because one, we weren't paying taxes and two, the lake was going to freeze.

We got off the lake.

Looking back, we should be grateful we left the lake that day. Because the time on the boat may have been the most perfect time in all of history and the day we got off that boat we found out that I was going to have a baby. You were excited. I was excited and terrified.

You didn't really understand why I was so scared, but then again, you had never been a girl in public high school health classes. They never made you watch The Miracle of Birth backwards, backwards, for the love of all that is holy!

I cried that night, but I still kissed you goodnight. You tucked me in and smoothed away my hair. You made dinner. I made a baby.

You offered to marry me, but I didn't want to get married. You didn't understand that. But then again, I hadn't grown up in a small town like the one we lived in now, and I didn't understand how they would look at me. So nine months later, as I cried again and held the most miniature human being I'd ever seen in my arms, and you cried next to me, but we were both happy we were crying, I was your wife.

That summer, we bought a boat and sailed out onto the lake.