The Twenty Year Affair

Art: Alex Alemany

Honesty allows us to live with not knowing. We do not know the full story, we do not know where we are in the story; we do not know who is at fault or who will carry the blame in the end. Honesty is not a weapon to keep loss and heartbreak at bay, honesty is the outer diagnostic of our ability to come to ground in reality, the hardest attainable ground of all, the place where we actually dwell, the living, breathing frontier where there is no realistic choice between gain or loss.”

― David Whyte

I knew her from the time she was four years old. I was friends with her older brother, who liked to tease and frighten her. For example, he would whisper “Watch this” and then jump up and scream that a tornado was coming. She never failed to do her part by howling and running for the storm cellar. Even then it seemed cruel to me, but it also seemed strange that she never caught on, that the predicted tornado never came.

A decade later she began to morph into a beauty and I began to forget she was my friend’s pesky little sister. She had a lively wit, she was full of play, really good on the piano, and sexy to boot. I was six years older, but I was smitten. Our twenty year on-and-off-again affair started.

My mother criticized her always slightly parted full mouth. My parents were always good…