'I'd want a trillion lifetimes that I could spend with you'
The Story So Far
Shannon Barry
Issue date: 9/28/06 Section: Opinion
As the sun hit the hills, lowering ever so gradually, it eventually disappeared.
He palmed a white seashell in his hand. It was so worn from the ocean, throughout the center and on the side, that it almost looked like a rose.
He pulled out his leather wallet, now indented from credit cards inside and miscellaneous business cards he had collected from other people on the train. For maybe, their paths would cross again. And in work, and in life, it was all about networking. About connecting with other people.
He slowly opened the wallet, flipped the photo insert to the right, past the picture of his now 25-year-old son, Patrick Michael.
Past his 1-year-old granddaughter … past his first dog Lucky … and there she was.
The long brown hair that had taken so many years to grow, secured in a ponytail with a silver, beautifully designed floral clip from Anthropologie. The store she always wanted to treat herself to, but always came up with an excuse for not entering: She was too broke; she shouldn't throw her money away; there were a million other things she could buy instead.
Her slightly lazy eye that the rest of the world didn't notice, but she had once admitted she wished it would just disappear.
And though they usually came in pairs, just one dimple placed randomly below her left cheek. It seemed to grow to five times its size each time she smiled.
And he loved it.
He wouldn't exchange any of these characteristics … her strong opinions, her obsession with the unknown, her random impulses for the chance to be with anybody else … if even for a day.
***
She pushed out the passenger door to my Honda as she pulled out a blanket and wine. Leaning from the front to the back seat to grab these items, her right shoulder brushed up against me. She glanced back, for just a second, and I couldn't have been happier.
She wadded up the blanket in her arms, making it more accessible to move and I unchained Lucky from his dog harness, now attached to the seat belt in the back. I put his choke chain around him and snapped the leash, as his tail wagged back and forth, putting it through my arm to hold him tight.
He palmed a white seashell in his hand. It was so worn from the ocean, throughout the center and on the side, that it almost looked like a rose.
He pulled out his leather wallet, now indented from credit cards inside and miscellaneous business cards he had collected from other people on the train. For maybe, their paths would cross again. And in work, and in life, it was all about networking. About connecting with other people.
He slowly opened the wallet, flipped the photo insert to the right, past the picture of his now 25-year-old son, Patrick Michael.
Past his 1-year-old granddaughter … past his first dog Lucky … and there she was.
The long brown hair that had taken so many years to grow, secured in a ponytail with a silver, beautifully designed floral clip from Anthropologie. The store she always wanted to treat herself to, but always came up with an excuse for not entering: She was too broke; she shouldn't throw her money away; there were a million other things she could buy instead.
Her slightly lazy eye that the rest of the world didn't notice, but she had once admitted she wished it would just disappear.
And though they usually came in pairs, just one dimple placed randomly below her left cheek. It seemed to grow to five times its size each time she smiled.
And he loved it.
He wouldn't exchange any of these characteristics … her strong opinions, her obsession with the unknown, her random impulses for the chance to be with anybody else … if even for a day.
***
She pushed out the passenger door to my Honda as she pulled out a blanket and wine. Leaning from the front to the back seat to grab these items, her right shoulder brushed up against me. She glanced back, for just a second, and I couldn't have been happier.
She wadded up the blanket in her arms, making it more accessible to move and I unchained Lucky from his dog harness, now attached to the seat belt in the back. I put his choke chain around him and snapped the leash, as his tail wagged back and forth, putting it through my arm to hold him tight.
Be the first to comment on this story