August 29
2. When I told you I was pregnant, you told me to come back to get married. I had sent a letter. Your brother in law still has it. I guess I would keep such a thing too. So he and Suartini still remember how I described Julian, then a tight, nameless bundle of pulsating division, as the size of a Jackfruit seed and they laugh about that. You said your mother was saving two pigs to roast for the ceremony. I said no, you should come here. You said no. (You said, in a different conversation, that you couldn’t come without your brother in law because you couldn’t read the signs in the airport, which I found ridiculous. I didn’t know until over a decade later, until you were already married to someone else, your son a lie of omission, that you didn’t come, not because you didn’t want to, not because you didn’t love us, but because your father thought you would never go back. He’s dead now. We visited his grave with your sisters less than a month ago and Julian wept. I wonder if you still think of us every day – like you told me you did already seven years ago now – as you drink coffee in the morning while sitting on the porch of the house you built for me, even though you had already married her. I wonder if you regret that decision. But it doesn’t matter. I had two chances to marry you. Twice I thought you didn’t love me. And I think I would not have stayed anyway. But I could be wrong.)
3. You said to me, as we stood in the kitchen (was it the garden? I think it was the kitchen) that you would marry me if I were younger. I had only just thought something similar, that if you were older I would marry you. When you voiced the thought I suddenly felt rejected and asked why couldn’t we? And you said, then come back home with me now. I said, I can’t do that.
4. I married you because I loved you. Isn’t that why most people get married? But I knew you would leave, or I would. I knew you were gay; I am the first and last woman you loved. That day in Lima, decades later, when we walked all day and talked and reviewed the past, I felt continuous with you and understood why I had married you all those years ago. You are a soulmate. We were too young. We couldn’t talk about it so we raged and threw ourselves against each other which didn’t help and hurt us both and then you left.
5. I always know ahead of time when you won’t like something (are twins always like that?). When I told you I was getting married you pushed me away and said – I never want to see you again.
1. Then I thought – I would follow you anywhere. And then I wondered, is that true?
Tiny Events 