Home: Part 8

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

January 1982

 
Kathy and I were married on her birthday. She was svelte and muscular at the same time, and the top of her head reached to my chin. Embracing, we fit well together. We told nobody about the civic ceremony, thinking that the secret—“a little, dirty thing,” Kathy called it at the time—was something we’d always share for the rest of our lives. A year later, after they thought they’d gotten to know me and after Kathy had said I’d asked her to marry me, her parents suggested that a formal church wedding was appropriate. We never told anyone the truth.

Our first house was small, just two bedrooms and single bathroom. The kitchen and dining room were one room, really, and what functioned as a living room was barely large enough for a sofa, a chair, and a television set. We learned to live with few possessions, and if Kathy was every unhappy with our life at that point, she had learned how to keep that a secret, too.