bangarang
My mother said she'd marry my father. "However," she said-- this is always how she tells the story, "I have a condition."
"A condition?" He asked, heart sinking, because what can a twenty-seven year old just starting out in the world promise? They lived in a crumbling ranchhouse with bars on the windows, in a Los Angeles barrio that, years later, unnerved them so much that, driving through to see the old place just before dark, they would not roll down the windows.
"Quit smoking or I'll leave you."
there was a moment that hung between them like a pane of glass
when he met her eyes and she his
and he thought "speak"
and she thought "speak"
the moment before speaking and where speaking led
this was what she remembered, years later,
when he would not speak and she watched the back of his head
retreat retreat