same category of “all men.” Although, it had always unnerved me that he liked all the same movies as my father. From the Bonds to all the Rocky
films their tastes were identical. What especially
freaked me out was their jointly shared passion
for useless Godfather movie factoids. Such as,
“Hey, did you know that was a real horse’s
head in that bed.” They both said that to me on
multiple occasions over dinner when there was
a conversation lull. My mother thought it was
humorous and detected their similarities early on.
She claimed that old adage,
“Women always marry someone like their
fathers.” When I heard that I wanted to vomit
like that little girl in The Exorcist. A movie neither
of them liked, but I did. She went on to assure
me, besides their cinematic preferences, it was
only their sense of humors that were similar. This
didn’t help my satanic nausea either, since I hated
my father’s jokes. This sudden need to compare
them was not helping my pre-marriage jitters,
and my future husband’s memory lapse was only
leading me to fear that I would soon have more
horrible Venn-Diagram moments.
That night I laid awake listening to him snore.
Another similarity between them. My father
could always be heard all the way across the
house, and my future husband could shake the
rafters. I watched him until it moved way past a
sign of affection and into creepy stalker territory.
Around the time when the fabric between this
world and the next is about as thin as sheep skin
condom, I went wandering around the house. I
turned on the light in the office and found the
black box I had banished all my therapy exercises and father memorabilia to. That night it
reminded me of his Cadillac coffin and something
was rattling around inside. I opened it and his
sunglasses that I had tapped to the lid, amongst
the flurry of Dr. Lewis’ therapy homework sticky
notes, had fallen off. I found them in my father’s
desk on the first day we arrived on the scene.
They had cleaned up all the blood in his office
the best they could, but occasionally I would spot
some sad Lady Macbeth reminder of his Sambuca
soaked exit.
I put the glasses on that night and that day and
walked around in a mushy pond of temporality
altering memories. Before dawn, both versions of
myself, present and past, merged to uncover the
reason for my future husband’s beautiful case of
amnesia.
It wasn’t that he was just like my father. The
week my father died my future husband was all
about maintaining precious gravitational pull.
From the moment we touched down in Newark
he never let go of my hand or lost sight me for an
instant. When we met my godfather and his wife
at my father’s office and they were laying down
ultimatums and inaccurately quoting scripture, he
was watching me and interlaced his maple sausage
fingertips with mine. Eventually, he took me to
the car and watched a DVD with me. While I was
curled up in the fetal position at the hotel, he was
helping my mother and the kind funeral director
juggle the spectacular spectacle that was my father’s funeral. My father’s mistress was not happy
that she had to have a separate viewing hour, and
she even tried to bribe the funeral director with
an armful of cash for it to be longer than my
mother’s. I later apologized to the sympathetic
man for having to deal with a circus every time
one of my family members needed to take a dirt
nap. My grandmother’s funeral was just as messy,
and he had handled that little theatrical escapade
too. The man was the perfect ringmaster for my
family of depressing clowns, clumsy knife throwers, and loud mouth carneys.
The morning of the funeral I could not get out
of bed. My kidney and bladder disorder decided it too needed to come to New Jersey for this
dramatic affair. It wasn’t helping that my urine
smelled of wine coolers and rum. My own fault,
but necessary to cope with the plane ride. My
future husband carried me to the shower, bathed
me, dressed me, and helped me to the car. There
was no time for him to ogle at the Emersonian
moment that convinced me that the snow was
trying to communicate how finite every moment
is with its powerful seasonal symbolism. When
it was time for me to say goodbye at the funeral
home my future husband wasn’t looking at that
awful red suit. He was too busy holding me up. I
wasn’t eating regularly and had a bad case of the
spaghetti legs.
On the way to the church, he tried to negotiate a truce with my kidneys by rubbing them
and making me take sips of cold water. When
we entered the church he used his body to shield
me from the double ought buck shot stares of
my father’s mistress and her family. During the
ceremony, which as my aunt so keenly observed