Jennifer Pieroni
Stark trunks along the highway: this was the first instance of the start of the season. He listened through the static to the radio broadcast of a football game. She could talk to him like this. He would keep his eyes on the road and continue to listen to the game and he would still hear what she said.
The friends they had visited gave them an anniversary card, and so their conversation naturally led to their families and marriages, to their weddings.
She admitted she'd cried. He had too as the officiant declared them husband and wife. The other couple had not written their own vows. They said they liked entering the tradition of marriage.
She turned the radio off. "I can't believe you don't remember that we wrote our own vows," she said.
"I was listening to that," he said. "And, just so you know, I do remember."
"You said we didn't. It was an issue." Her face flushed again.
"It was hardly an issue. I didn't want them to feel badly."
When she thought about the other couple they seemed solid. When they argued it was mostly a joke, over sharing the bathroom or the use of spice in the stew.
"I don't believe you," she said.
"I have vivid memories."
One of them did. Or both of them didn't. Their memories were such personal impressions. It frightened her to wonder what would happen to his wits and hers as the years passed. She turned the radio back on and rolled her window down an inch. The air smelled like ice, like star-shapes forming and reforming. It wouldn't be so bad to be so wrong.