It was as if she were disappearing before my eyes, sinking backwards into the seat with each passing moment of silence. She didn't get her license until after we married and I would take her down back roads to let her practice. Her shoulders hunched forward and her head craned out of the window, while her hands were folded in her lap, and I listened to the wind shaking tree leaves and the sound of far off car alarms that had yet to drain their batteries, hoping she would suddenly spring back to life. When she started to drive, we rolled the windows down and shouted as she sped down a dirt road before losing control and sending us into a ditch.
Her face remained turned away from me and the sun caught in her side mirror, reflecting in my face so that it was hard to see her without squinting slightly. For our tenth wedding anniversary we took a hot air balloon ride. The sunlight poured through the back window and shone in the mirror and I could feel its warmth smother my skin. We looked down from the basket and talked about how small everything was. I pressed the lids of my eyes together to fight against the light from the sun and focus on the silhouette of my wife. The roads crisscrossed like stitches across the landscape, pulling trees and countryside homes tightly together. The thick band of my wife's outline gave way to the glaring sun light and dissolved into a field of bright white. As we rose higher into the air, the familiar country roads and neighboring fences vanished.
I blinked to shake the blur of the sun from my eyes, but it remained even as I turned my head away from the whitewashed image of my wife. She was embarrassed to undress in front of me because of a strawberry red birthmark along her inner left thigh that stretches down to her knee. I felt the false leather of the steering wheel in my hands, I knew it was there, but I could not see it. She reminds me to take my ulcer pills every night before I pull her body close to mine and close my eyes. Releasing the wheel, I reached instinctively for the faded white space where my wife had been as if stopping short at a red light. We lost a welsh corgi to an open back door and a rainstorm before we had our first child. There was nothing for my hand to touch. We never had another dog. I simply felt boiling air. Her favorite song is [come up with a song] by [whoever sings the song] because I played it for her on the record player in her father's study. And then I felt myself rise upwards, my chest straining against the seatbelt. I hear her sing it quietly when she doesn't know I'm watching as she works in the garden. My hand grazed the folds of her skirt as we floated in the air and I tried to grab at it before she went out the window.
Her face remained turned away from me and the sun caught in her side mirror, reflecting in my face so that it was hard to see her without squinting slightly. For our tenth wedding anniversary we took a hot air balloon ride. The sunlight poured through the back window and shone in the mirror and I could feel its warmth smother my skin. We looked down from the basket and talked about how small everything was. I pressed the lids of my eyes together to fight against the light from the sun and focus on the silhouette of my wife. The roads crisscrossed like stitches across the landscape, pulling trees and countryside homes tightly together. The thick band of my wife's outline gave way to the glaring sun light and dissolved into a field of bright white. As we rose higher into the air, the familiar country roads and neighboring fences vanished.
I blinked to shake the blur of the sun from my eyes, but it remained even as I turned my head away from the whitewashed image of my wife. She was embarrassed to undress in front of me because of a strawberry red birthmark along her inner left thigh that stretches down to her knee. I felt the false leather of the steering wheel in my hands, I knew it was there, but I could not see it. She reminds me to take my ulcer pills every night before I pull her body close to mine and close my eyes. Releasing the wheel, I reached instinctively for the faded white space where my wife had been as if stopping short at a red light. We lost a welsh corgi to an open back door and a rainstorm before we had our first child. There was nothing for my hand to touch. We never had another dog. I simply felt boiling air. Her favorite song is [come up with a song] by [whoever sings the song] because I played it for her on the record player in her father's study. And then I felt myself rise upwards, my chest straining against the seatbelt. I hear her sing it quietly when she doesn't know I'm watching as she works in the garden. My hand grazed the folds of her skirt as we floated in the air and I tried to grab at it before she went out the window.
