36 = 18 X 2

I took my wife to lunch in my hometown today. We passed a cleaning business that was Prime Time Video once. There at eighteen I worked for $5.15 an hour and free rentals, and one night…

She entered as I held the keys to lock up for close, and we held one another. She was confused and scared, she said, and she still loved me, but she needed time. I loved her, too, and in those fifteen minutes her body felt the same in my arms as it had six months before. She left. I released my yearning soul in an e-mail before I slept, saying all I regretted and loved and wished.

But that wasn’t the time she had asked for. I broke it, that thing of fervent prayers that had been within reach for a night. I would have followed her; I knew what she was worth. I cried.

It’s funny now, especially the math. That night was 18 years, a marriage, two children, a career, and three home video formats ago. I will go to bed now. I met my wife, my love, in a college film class, and she is quietly breathing there by my pillow.