Judith*

We did it one day when no one was looking. Save for the judge. And the clerk. Though I’d hardly count the clerk because I doubt she was paying attention. Maybe they were in between arraignments.

Everyone signed. And then everyone was happy. They moved on to other couples; we moved on to Ever After. I wasn’t showing yet.

He said I love you all the time. Like a refrain. Then the baby died. And I had nothing to show anymore. I named her Judith and cried. After a while, I stopped believing in refrains. The first time I knew was the last time I let him say it.

“I love you.” He kissed my forehead and made for the door.

“Do you?” I crumbled when he left. Like a grieving widow. I suppose in many ways I was.

I wanted to give him back those words. Tell him I didn’t want them. Though I desperately did. Want them to be real, to not disappear like he did when our pain was alive and throbbing.

I knew where he went and it wasn’t here. And it wasn’t me. I love you couldn’t soften the absence and the blows. What is love if not a cradle?

It seemed everyone was looking the day we did it. Weddings: Fifth floor. Annulments: Sixth. The courthouse smelled vaguely like mustard and crime. We smelled like a statistic. (If statistics had a scent, it might be burning brakes.)

“I loved you,” I said and made for the doors.

“And now?”

“And now you smell like mustard.”


* Before you start freaking out, it's just a writing exercise. (Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental etc. etc. etc.) The first line dropped in and the rest just went from there. Since the writing workshop earlier this year, I've realized part of my style is choppy, incomplete sentences and irony--not something I can get away with in journalism. So it's fun--despite the morbid topic--to experiment at times and indulge inspiration.


Photo by Bernd Vogel from Corbis