"Love you," said my ex-husband.
To me.
Last night on the phone.
OK, so it's just a lingering habit after 19 years of marriage. Or maybe he still does love me because, frankly, who doesn't love me (HAR), and he finally realizes that I was the best frickin' thing that ever happened to him and now he's sorry. Probably though, he only said it because he says it all the time to the kids, his mother, his stepfather, the cashier at Scrawl-Mart and whatever young figure-skating, money-counting ditch pig tart he's seeing; whoever. Whomever. Whatever. He hasn't said it to me, though. Not lately. Not since his cheating shit hit the family fan about a hundred years ago.
He said it and then he realized what he said and then the bluff blustery apologies spewing out of his gob made me feel like puking. And then laughing. Hysterical laughing.
"Yeah, yeah," I said. Brusquely. (I love the word brusque – it's so curt, even when it's an adverb.)
And I hung the hell up.
(That's our wedding photo. August 16, 1986. It was the anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. We got married at sunset, on the edge of the pond on my parents' farm. Our reception was held in the barn they had just built. There was a corn roast and porta-potties and food from the ladies of the Eastern Star. We forgot to cut the cake. Marvellous Marvin was the DJ and he was anything but marvellous. I was young and cuter than I thought and stupid as hell. My father looked handsome in his tuxedo, though pensive. He looks like he knew what I was in for, and was worried.)
