An open letter

Hey –do you remember apple pie and glasses of room temperature milk, spurts that would come out of our noses as I would stab my fork into the last bite of cinnamon –covered pastry sitting on your plate, just as you went for it, and we would both laugh so hard your mother would come into the kitchen, fully ready to administer the Heimlich maneuver she was certain would become necessary at any given moment? Remember mini-putt, and how I would jump in front of the little pink-speckled ball, making sure you’d miss your shot? Remember how I’d make sure to show our scorecards to the acne-covered 16-year-old-boy working behind the counter as we handed in your clubs? Remember Ally McBeal, how you said you hated it, but would hum the theme song under your breath as I would fall asleep? I never called you on that.

Remember me honking your car horn as we’d sit in traffic and then ducking in my seat, saving all the angry faces and upturned fingers for you to contend with? Remember eating Timbits until we felt sick, and then going for ice cream right after? Remember playing thumb wars during your best friend’s wedding ceremony? I won. Both times.

Remember me blowing off studying for my final to go for a late night walk with you, in the dead of winter, and we pushed each other into snow banks? Remember your neighbor coming outside in her terrycloth housecoat to tell us to be quiet?

Remember when you told me you loved me in Italian, even though you knew full well I had no idea what Ti Amo meant? Remember how that became my favorite phrase ever?

Remember how we dunked each other in the pool in Barbados, spraying water and shrieking with laugher, much to the dismay of the wrinkled, Botox-ed, bottled-blond women floating serenely by us on their air mattresses?

Remember going out for a ridiculously expensive dinner to celebrate my new job, knowing the waiter fully realized we couldn’t afford it? Remember driving out to watch our new place being built, walking around in the mud with flashlights, peering into the construction, giggling and saying, ‘that’s where the couch will go, that’s where we’ll sleep?’ Remember holding hands as we walked back to the car, not saying a word, because really, everything had been said already?

Remember when you got food poisoning and you threw up for three days straight? Remember me going back to Subway’s that very night, full of righteous indignation for the high-school student whose sloppy work ethics made you sick in a way I couldn’t bear to see? Remember me being in the hospital with a ruptured appendix and you sleeping in the tiny bed with me until the nurse came in and asked us to stop our ‘inappropriate’ behaviour?

Remember when I had a blinding headache and you spent a full hour massaging my skull? I had tears running down my face because your hand made it hurt so much more, but I thought it was so sweet, and I didn’t want to tell you.

Remember dancing in your basement to the Cowboy Junkies? Remember us falling asleep, entwined as though we didn’t want to acknowledge that we were in fact two separate entities, and then waking up at 5 a.m. and me tripping over the newspaper on your doorstep, eager to get away before your parents realized I had stayed over?

Remember how we smiled when the salesgirl at the Gap told us we were the best-looking couple she’d ever seen?

Remember the ‘missing person’ report I made of you and taped to our front door when you were working so much and I never saw you? Remember how our kitten would pee on our new bedspread every night without fail, but when we locked him out of the room, his meowing would make you cry and you would last about five minutes and run out to get him? Remember me getting up at 3 a.m. for four nights in a row to change the sheets while you sat and cuddled with him?

Remember me coming back from Vancouver, and you picking me up at the airport and asking me what was wrong? Remember me not knowing? Remember your face, ashen, yet angry, sheepish, yet stone, telling me to leave? Remember me not looking back? Remember?

Remember?

I do.