Once, when we first started dating, I lied to him. I had rehearsal for a dance performance one night in Central Square and he insisted on taking the T with me even though he had to be at work. He reasoned that he needed to protect me even though I'd been riding the train alone since I was thirteen and had done just fine surviving. Growing up I learned to value independence and would have to be near death to ask for help let alone an escort. I'd gotten myself out of what might have been traumatic experiences on several occasions and was confident, maybe even cocky, that I would be able to do it again. Still, it was the first time in my life I'd had someone dote over me the way he did and I didn't fight too hard when he said he'd take me to the turn style of Harvard Square. I'd taken the train an extra stop because we were early and I wanted to stop at Peet's to buy a Cafe Freddo. Central Square is just a ten minute walk from Harvard. I figured I'd enjoy my coffee on the way and get to rehearsal on time. We were at the turn style (it was in the days before the T converted to their new system and there were still revolving, round, metal poles that were easy to pull back and walk through without paying) when he asked me where the rehearsal was. I lied and said it was in Harvard Square because I knew that if he walked with me to Central he'd be late to work. He must have caught the inflection in my voice, the shift of my eyes, the nervousness that comes from the unpracticed lie. In an instant he was raging about how he knew I was lying and threatening me, "Don't you ever lie to me again. That was the first and last time I lied to him. I wish he had lived by his own tenets.
After he told me the real reason he didn't want to be with me on the morning of my twenty-first birthday, I said that I didn't mind him going to the mall to find something, although I didn't need a present because I was grateful enough to have him with me on my birthday. I went home to spend time with my brother and father, who were also celebrating their birthdays, while he went to the local mall. He wasn't away for long and came back with a dozen red roses wrapped in the pink patterned paper pictured above. It was the first time he ever bought me flowers and even though I'd been preaching about how I didn't want flowers for four years since our first Valentine's Day "together," the sight of the roses brought tears to my eyes and a smile to my lips. It doesn't take much to charm someone who's not used to attention.
In addition to the flowers, he bought me two books that I already owned and I felt terrible about telling him I had them on my bookshelves. My mother started a fight with me that night about drinking and driving. She equated my boyfriend with irresponsibility, aptly so, but back then I didn't realize it behind the blinders of love. I wanted to point out the fact that for the past two years I'd been leaving my car at home in the driveway to go drinking and stumbling my way home, but thought it would only make things worse. After nightmare rides in the car with my father as a child you'd think she'd trust that I knew enough not to drink and drive.
I didn't drink at all on my twenty-first birthday. I drove my boyfriend to the park that we would get married in the following March. We sat on the stone overhang and watched the sunset. I clung to memories while he was away at war and the memory of the sunset was one that I'd relive over and over. The fact that I might never see him again had something to do with my collecting needless objects like the paper wrapped around the flowers (I kept every petal of every rose too). Each object was a memory, an emotion I wanted to hold onto to fill the void he left each time he got on a plane. Now, looking back on things with vision as clouded by the present as it was then by love, I want to eliminate every object that brings back memories I once tried so hard not to forget.
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