AMICABLE
For twenty years and counting, my ex-husband and I meet for breakfast when I return to Olympia to visit my sister and her family. Most often this is in August, a few weeks after the birthday we share. One year he gave me an exquisite notebook and made me promise to write in it, perfectly anticipating my disinclination. One year I gave him the same favorite novel I’d presented him the year before. My throat still tightens when we sit across from each other—tightens to a degree that doesn’t seem to be diminishing. One year we were thwarted in our search for a decent place to have a cup of coffee. In the first coffeehouse he was tormented by flies. They landed on his arms in twos and threes and flung themselves at his balding head. In the second, an agitated, dreadlocked barista played a recording of chants. The voice of the chanter was unsteady and sour, and he gasped between phrases like a man held under water. We fled to the Fish Tale Brew Pub and ordered foamy, dark beers I knew would make me drowsy for the rest of the day. It felt good and sad to drink so early in the day. That year we decided no more gifts. Seeing you is gift enough, he said, and I knew he meant it.
In the early years of our marriage, we read different books in the same room, in quiet accord. We loved our weekends, sharing the zippy buzz of coffee-then-alcohol-then-coffee as we hopped from bookstore to café to bar in Seattle’s U-District. Our apartment was a series of oddly proportioned rooms carved out of a rambling old two-story house. Upstairs, our neighbor strummed his ukulele and sang woeful tunes. I remain dissatisfied with my understanding of what went wrong between us, although I have learned that this is a common enough affliction. We have both remarried, with varying degrees of difficulty.
I persist in looking forward to each annual outing. For what remains of my visit, I swallow with difficulty—a rough stone in my throat—as I hang out with my niece and nephew. They are, of course, moving along their own trajectories, and their presence, soon enough, won’t be guaranteed each August.
Early on in the protracted Season of the Break-up, drunk and exhausted, I started shouting at him at 1 a.m. in front of the Capitol Theater. My ex deplored outbursts and upsets. He pleaded with me to settle down.
“You broke my heart! You broke my heart!” I shouted.
What happened next? Did I stumble? Did I fall in the street, skidding forward on the heels of my hands? He must have driven us home. I probably apologized for making a scene.
Valerie Vogrin, 64, Moro, Illinois - USA ✯
“Valerie Vogrin’s collection Things We’ll Need for the Coming Difficulties was awarded the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction (Willow Springs Press, 2020). She is the author of the novel Shebang, and her short stories have appeared in journals such as Ploughshares, AGNI, Hobart, and The Los Angeles Review.”