With Vicky: Living

Tonight, she’s making pasta. I can hear her singing in the kitchen—still badly—and the rain has finally stopped. I’m sitting at the table, watching her dance around the stove with a wooden spoon in her hand, and I think: This is it. This is what it feels like to be alive with someone who loves you.

Vicky seemed to understand anyway. She reached over and stole the last spring roll off my plate. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll wait.” Last week, I came home from a really bad day. The kind where nothing catastrophic happens, just a thousand small failures stacked on top of each other until you feel like you’re drowning in mediocrity. I walked in the door and Vicky took one look at my face and said, “Get in the car.”

Vicky nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”

I used to think she was dramatic. Now I think maybe she’s just braver than me.