At turns hilarious and gut-wrenching, this is a tremendously fun slow burn

Goddammit. “Who didn’t feel like some sort of betrayal to…”
Elliot picks up my unfinished sentence with a gentle “Oh. Yeah.”
I meet his eyes.
“I’ve never had one of those,” he adds quietly.
Actually, this is a minefield. Blinking down to the table, with my heart in my windpipe, I barrel on: “So
that’s why I said yes when he proposed, impulsively. I’d always told myself the first man I was with and
didn’t feel wrong about, I would marry.”
“That seems like… some sturdy criteria.”
“It felt right.”
“But really,” Elliot says, drawing a finger through a drop of water that’s made its way to the tabletop,
“according to that criteria, technically wouldn’t that person be me?”
The waiter is my new favorite human because he approaches, intent on taking our order just after Elliot
says this, preventing me from the awkward dance of a non-answer.
Glancing at the menu, I say, “I’ll have tacos dorados and the citrus salad.” Looking up, I add, “I’ll let him
pick the wine.”
As I probably could have guessed, Elliot orders the caldo tlalpeño – he always loved spicy food – and a
bottle of the Horse & Plow sauvignon blanc before handing his menu to the waiter with quiet thanks.
Turning back to me, he says, “I knew exactly what you were going to order. Citrus salad? It’s like Macy’s
food dream.”
My thoughts trip over one another at this, at how easy it is, at how in sync we still are right out of the
gate. It’s too easy, really, and it feels unfaithful in a really surreal and backward way to the man who’s a
couple of miles away, installing a television in the small home we share. I sit up, working to infuse some
emotional distance into my posture.
“And she retreats…” Elliot says, studying me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. He reads every tiny move I make. I can’t fault him for it; I do the same thing. “It
started feeling a little too familiar.”
“Because of the fiancé,” he says, tilting his head back, indicating elsewhere. “When’s the wedding?”
“My schedule is pretty nuts, so we haven’t set a date yet.” It’s partly the truth.
Elliot’s posture tells me he likes this answer – however disingenuous it may be – and it stirs the anxiety
in my belly.
“But, we’re thinking next fall,” I add quickly, straying even further from the truth now. Sean and I
haven’t discussed dates at all. Elliot narrows his eyes. “Though if it’s left to me, it will happen in whatever
we’re wearing at the courthouse. I am apparently really uninterested in planning a wedding.”
Elliot doesn’t say much for a few loaded seconds, just lets my words reverberate around us. Then he
gives me a simple “Ah.”
I clear my throat awkwardly. “So, tell me what you’ve been doing?”
He’s interrupted only briefly when the waiter returns with our wine, displaying the label for Elliot,
opening it tableside, and offering a taste. There are ways in which Elliot’s confidence throws me, and this is
one. He grew up in the heart of California wine country, so he must be comfortable with this, but I’ve never
seen him taste wine at the table. We were so young…
“It’s great,” he tells the waiter, then turns back to me while he pours, clearly dismissing the man from
his thoughts. “How far back should I go?”
“How about start with now?”
Elliot leans into his chair, thinking for a few moments before he seems to figure out where to begin. And
then it all rolls out of him, easy and detailed. He tells me that his parents are still in Healdsburg (“We
couldn’t pay Dad to retire.”); that Nick Jr. is the district attorney for Sonoma County (“The way he dresses
is straight out of some bad crime show and I’d only say that in this safe space, but no one should wear
sharkskin.”); Alex is in high school and an avid dancer (“I can’t even blame my gushing on brotherly pride,
Mace. She’s really good.”); George – as I know – is married to Liz and living in San Francisco (“He’s a suit,
in an office. I honestly can never really remember what his job title is.”); and Andreas is living in Santa
Rosa, teaching fifth grade math, getting married later this year (“Of all of us to end up working with kids,
he would have been the least likely, but turns out, he’s the best at it.”).
The whole time he updates me, all I can think is that I’m getting the cream, skimmed from the top.
Beneath it is still so much. Volumes of tiny details I’ve missed.
The food comes, and it’s so good but I eat it without giving it any attention, because I can’t seem to get
enough information, and neither can he. College years are outlined in the monochromatic ways of
hindsight, graduate school horror stories are exchanged with the knowing laugh of someone who has also
suffered and seen the other side. But we don’t talk about falling in love with someone else and where that

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leaves us now, and no matter how much it’s with us in every breath, and every word, we don’t talk about
what happened the last time I saw him, eleven years ago.

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O
then
monday, july 28
fourteen years ago
ur first summer with the cabin, my dad and I were there nearly every day, with only one trip home, late
July, for a visit from his brother, Kennet.
Kennet had two daughters, and a wife, Britt, whose idea of affection was a cupped hand around my
shoulder. So when I came to her, whispering in mild horror that I thought I’d started my period, she handled
me with the anticipated emotional sterility: buying me a box of pads and a box of tampons and having her
younger daughter, Karin, awkwardly explain the basic application process.
Dad was better, but not by a very wide margin. Once we returned to the cabin that weekend, he referred
to Mom’s list, where, at position twenty-three, she had written: