Evening Rain, A Sort Of Love Story...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas | If you added it up, my time with Marcy amounted - somewhat - to something or another. What that was had not exactly cleared itself in my head. Things were bouncing off the national walls, ripped-up from the streets and sidewalks like thin slices of American cheese.

I hate cheese, all cheese. But that was the only metaphor that came to mind. 

In any case, Marcy didn't work out. I think I tried making it work, but I'm no sculptor or chef. I cannot work with stone, nor with soups. Marcy wanted children and a cabin in Taos, New Mexico and a lot of travel between cabins here and there, everywhere, in fact.

I could see the cabin life; the children no, I could not see that. A child is one huge, ever-ballooning responsibility that costs way more than a campground of cabins. In the long run, I mean. Marcy had picked names for the two kids she wanted, Sofia and Pete. I thought those names would certainly make for a good novel about two well-raised kids in love with the world.

What I said to Marcy on the day she said would be her last night with me as she went for a walk in the rain was this: "Something has to end, so that something new can begin."

She bit her lower lip with what looked like genuine feeling, nodded and then blew me a kiss...

-30-

[Editor's Note:...From my collection of short stories. Perhaps I'll post one here every now and then, mostly then...]