on your tenth anniversary, you take jennie to thailand. the flight on the way was filled with turbulence so strong, you thought the plane would crash. jennie slept through the half of it, but she held your hand through it all, knowing how skittish you get in the roughness of travel.
that night, you tell jennie how afraid you are of losing her. years, prior, it didn't need a verbatim claim—you were young until you weren't. people have come and gone, and there had never been a flight you've been in that's tormented by bad turbulence as if a bad luck following a curse through time.
we have so much time, she said, a hand on your heart that does not still, wary in anticipation. you haven't made peace with the fact that one of you will mourn for the other. and now this.
...in sickness and in health, until death do us part, she follows, voice clear and irrefutable against the brewing storm outside, settling. a bad omen.
now, there is only so much things to pack and so much wine in the cellar. some conjugal properties that you thought should last at the end of the world; at the death do us part that will no longer come, revoked.
"drink with me?" she asks you. "we still have so much of this anyway, maybe we could lessen the baggage out?"
"'lessen the baggage'... with one less bottle, jen?" you ask, laughing.
"two, if you're strong enough for that," she replies sheepishly yet taunting like an old friend for a drink off. "jesus, what were we thinking, buying all these."
"strong enough? says you, the lightweight?" you tease back. she rolls her eyes at that.
"come on, it's been a while since we've both had a drink together," she says. "it's not like you have a schedule tomorrow, no?"
"well, tr—"
"see?" she says. you chuckle defeated against raised eyebrows. jennie, ever the pursuant and the stronger one. "please? you gave me a yes then, i promise this is the last one."
in your tenth year together, you sang, an ode to "until death do us part" because there are so many ways to tell one of professed undying love but songs are better for testaments: i'll follow you into the dark.
you laugh, "okay, but only if i get to pick the second bottle."
"not if i get my hands on a bottle first," she says, already going for one on the wall, and you step forward too, aiming to choose the strongest among the choices.
just our hands clasped so tight, you sang, dancing jennie into an unruly waltz in your bedroom in thailand. waiting for the hint of a spark. and now this: how you touched hands with the same decision, in wine for tonight, in saying yes before the altar to tether one another, convinced, and saying goodbye on papers signed with your fingerprints of crimes without warrant.
waiting for a hint of spark, you did, but there is none.
"congratulations, by the way," she tells you when she's drunk enough for candidness, the first bottle gone and the second one almost halfway empty.
you know what she means, but you are also at the point of unreserved humor. "for what, the divorce?" you ask, laughing.
she laughs at that, too. she's done it first, and two can play the hilarity of separation. "the grammy win, lisa," she says, feigning a deadpan. "god, we're taking divorce too lightly, aren't we?"
"better that than being bitter, don't you think?" you've expected this. artists know the expiration of their contracts, drivers know when to stop—good wives always know. "would you prefer that? us, hating each other? or at least, being bitter about this whole thing?" you ask.
