Page 15 of Untangled
“Well, when two people love each other very much…” I joke, and he nudges me under the table with his foot.
Tonight feels easy, like we’re living the good old days right now. When I’m eighty-four and Violet is fifty-two, and her baby has a baby, I think I’ll look back and be wistful for this very moment.
“We could’ve made another one if we’d stayed in the car last night,” he volleys back.
“Nope, sorry, against the rules.”
“The card game? Or yours?”
“Both. Shop’s closed for the foreseeable future. Needs maintenance,” I reply with a laugh.
“I can help with that!” he offers.
“Why don’t you get today’s card and we can work on theemotionalmaintenance first.”
He reaches beyond the baby wipes in the center of the table to pull the card from the deck.
“Alright Molls—what’s your favorite date we’ve been on, and would you change anything about it?”
“Dang, no kissing today? It’s always one step forward, two steps back with these,” I say.
“Should we peek at tomorrow’s?” he asks.
“Absolutely not. The mystery is part of the fun.”
“Fine enough. Favorite date—go.”
My mind whirls with a near decade of memories. Concerts, trips, fancy nights out and cozy nights in. It’s wild how much life we’ve lived together when I scroll through it like this. I land on one particular date, early in our relationship, and it’s so predictable I feel myself cringe.
“It’s that night at the fair, isn’t it?” he asks, and I nod.
“Mine too. I think about it a lot, actually—about what made that night so great. It had everything we loved as kids—fried dough, rides that weren’t quite up to safety standards, fireworks, those lemonade shake-ups—plus the freedom of having adult money and no curfew. Add the blissful bubble of a new relationship and that night was like dopamine on steroids.” His face brightens with the memory, his hard-earned smile lines deepening.
“Dopamine on steroids,” I chuckle. “That’s exactly right. It was total sensory overwhelm. The lights, the smells, all the people pressing in, the crackle of the fireworks. Remember we tried to time a kiss to each boom?”
“Of course, because that was my idea. I wanted an excuse to kiss you. By making it a game, I bought myself about thirty kisses.”
“I would’ve kissed you anyway, you dork,” I reply.
“But then we would’ve missed the fun of watching the fireworks andcreating our own.”
“Oh my god, you’re ridiculous.”
“And yet, you married me.” He lifts his glass in a faux salute.
Violet coos and Daniel adds, to her directly, “And now we have you, don’t we? Who knows, without the firework game maybe Mommy would’ve been bored of me.”
I roll my eyes but ask, “So would you change anything, looking back?”
“No, I wouldn’t. It was perfect, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You wouldn’t sit out The Gravitron and spare yourself the embarrassment of puking in the trash can after? That was like our fourth date. It was a bit early for that sort of thing.”
“Nope. I’d do it all againexactlyas we did it, because it led us right here.”
He looks at me, he looks at Violet, and at my hand on the table before threading his fingers through mine. “Would you change anything?”
How do you compete with such a perfect answer?
