Phone. Wallet. Keys. A modicum of dignity. An ocean of guilt. For me, the humiliation of Bobby Chandler beating me up in fourth grade. For her, a grandmother’s dictum that life is short, eat dessert first. A wad of ones, enough to tip a reasonably competent stripper. Childhood phone numbers long since assigned to someone else. Ticket stubs from our first date (The Cell).
A breath mint. A cannabis gummi. A packet of aspirin, because people who drink like we do shouldn’t take Tylenol. For her, a tasteful selection of hippy-chic jewelry, including the bangle I bungled buying in Belize — I paid three times the going price but didn’t mind a bit. For me, Carlton Fisk’s on-base percentage in the 1975 World Series. For both of us, the nagging doubt we ever fully answered what our oldest son asked when he was eight years old: “Would you let me train with deadly weapons?” (“What’d you have in mind?” we asked, to buy time.)
Snatches of dialogue from The Cell. Our wedding rings. A little ditty about John Mellencamp’s “Jack & Diane.” Our disagreement about whether to let the boys eat dessert first.
For me, Barry White tunes and the bad decisions I’ve made when in his thrall. A condom beyond its use-by date. A powdering Cialis pill. A flame for my high school girlfriend.
For her (my wife, not my high school girlfriend), a divorce attorney’s phone number. The password to my short-lived Tinder account. A vow to cut off my balls with rusty gardening shears if I ever act on one of my high school girlfriend fantasies, because she (my wife, not my high school girlfriend) has invested too much time in my sorry ass to start over.
The stench of roasted hair from Monsieur Pamplemousse III (a.k.a. Pompey), the third family Newfoundland, when our oldest son took it upon himself to scientifically determine the canine combustion point using only a magnifying glass and the sun. Pride that our now twenty-something boys are kind and accomplished, and that I can still kick their asses in a game of horse.
The pock-pock-pock of the neighborhood pickleball court. A rough guess as to the size of our remaining mortgage. Embarrassment about the time we fought near unto death over a toilet paper roll. Hope that if we could only find the right words, we might make what’s between us right.
For me, the conviction that I’d have taken Bobby Chandler down if I’d only trained with deadly weapons. For her, given the country’s divided state, a deadly weapon.
For both of us, my mother’s preposterous claim to never have gone to bed angry the entire length of her 50-year marriage, which, if true, only proves that my parents are aliens.
For me, a leaden feeling when I count the times I made her cry. Regret over not having said “I love you” when she lost her grandmother and her job on the very same day and not having said “It’s going to be all right” when our son was hospitalized with Covid, and refrigerator trucks were parked outside for the corpses.
Relief that our son recovered and graduated and, to our knowledge, hasn’t yet trained with deadly weapons. For me, a wash of pride when I catch her making a micro-adjustment to her hair in the reflection in a storefront window, the effect of which I can’t discern, but which obviously makes her feel prettier. For her, a tattoo she got when our sons said she was too old and her preposterously oversized airline “personal item,” which always contains moisturizer, sunscreen, and a nip bottle of Jägermeister.
The horror of getting old. Relief at getting old. A smile at the prospect of quietly enjoying our dotage. The yet-to-be discovered seeds of our doom: a tumor, perhaps; a clogged artery.
Sadness about what we have forsaken, forgotten, or ruined. Grief over prior Pompeys, over my lost step on the basketball court, and the fact that I’ve succumbed to the allure of pickleball, where my sons kick my ass.
Our lasting preference not to dwell on the losses but to focus instead on what we still have. A promise made yesterday. A knowing glance. An unspoken wish to forgive and be forgiven. The audacity to believe that what’s between us is and always has been right.
Provincetown resident Scott Pomfret is the author of Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir (Skyhorse Publishing, 2012) and of many short stories. He is writing a comic queer alternative history novel set in antebellum New Orleans and is an M.F.A. candidate at Emerson College.
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