“Oh you and your always wanting to follow the rules,” he teased, dismissing her question. “It will be fine.” He looked into her eyes a little longer than usual. She smiled back at him, ready to concede that it would be okay, when he muttered, “Damn!”
“What?” Annie was thoroughly confused at this point. “What’s wrong?”
“You have blue eyes,” he stated and then swore under his breath again.
“Yeah -- so?”
“I put down ‘green’ on the license. Damn it. I was so sure I guessed right.”
Annie was stricken. He’d guessed her eye color? She couldn’t believe he didn’t know for sure. They’d been dating for four years, not four days. Her heart plummeted to her feet, but she was determined not to show it. How picky could she be to let something like that bother her? Besides, it was so sweet of him to get them a joint license. He’d actually put her down as his wife. That had to count for something; much more than getting her eye color right. But the fact that he’d gotten it wrong started to wear away at her heart, in one little spot way at the bottom, where she thought could ignore it.
“That’s okay,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “Did you get my Tab?” She thought she’d change the subject to divert her attention from the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Damn,” he said again. “I forgot.”
Annie made a conscious decision not to say anything. It was better that way. She wasn’t going to say it was alright and she wasn’t going to get mad about it. It simply didn’t seem worth the time or effort. Instead she found happiness in the fact that for the moment, she was a tiny bit closer to becoming Mrs. Eric Morgan.
As it turned out, being Mrs. Morgan didn’t make much of a difference. Several years later, Eric came home from work one day and announced that he’d stopped at a sporting goods store during his lunch break and bought a fishing license. The state fishing opener was that weekend and he was going on the first of several trips he had planned for the summer.
“Guess what?” He waved the white piece of paper in front of her face as she cut up a red, juicy tomato for the salad she was making for dinner.
“What?” She reached for the dishcloth to wipe the juice and seeds from the tomato off the counter. She then ran the cloth under a stream of hot water from the faucet to rinse it off before she neatly folded it and placed it on the divider between the sinks.
“I got a joint license this year -- just in case you decide to fish.”
“That’s good, I guess,” she replied. “We do have that family reunion to go to up at Breezy Point. It might come in handy.” She wiped her hands on the blue terry cloth dish towel and reached for the license. Suddenly she was reminded of the first joint license he’d bought for them so long ago. She smirked a little as she wondered if he’d gotten her eye color right this time. Before she could get hold of it, he whisked it out of her hands.
“There’s only one problem,” he said, a sheepish look coming over his face. He put both of his hands behind his back, the license safely hidden from her. “I kind of had a little problem with one thing on the license. You’re going to think this is really funny --”
“You didn’t forget my eye color again did you?” She laughed as she took the cover off the pot boiling on the stove to stir the contents bubbling inside. As she removed the lid, a drop of spaghetti sauce made a leap for freedom and landed on the shiny white surface next to the burner. She frowned, grabbed the dish cloth and wiped it up without missing a beat.
“Not if they’re brown,” he said with a nervous chuckle.
Annie put the cover back on the pot of spaghetti sauce a bit too loudly and turned to face him. “You’re kidding me, right?” she said, still smiling, but feeling her heart drop a few inches.
“Well, not really,” he looked nervously at the floor, at the stove, out the window, anywhere but at her face. Or more specifically, into her eyes. No wonder he doesn’t know what color they are, Annie thought angrily. He never actually looks at them.
“I stood there for the longest time, trying to remember, and I just couldn’t,” he went on to explain. “I just drew a blank. At first I thought green but then I remembered that’s what I put down the first time. Remember how funny that was? Anyhow, I was holding up the line, and I had to put something, so I just said brown.” He was folding and unfolding the license in his hands as he spoke. “But that’s not right, is it?”
“You tell me,” Annie closed her eyes and stood there with her arms folded across her chest. She leaned against the counter, crossing her right foot over her left, and waited.
Eric sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. “Come on, Annie. You’re being ridiculous. You know that, don’t you? Don’t you have to get dinner on the table?”
“Quit trying to change the subject.” She was losing her patience. “It shouldn’t be that tough.”
Eric was silent for a minute and then said,” They’re hazel, aren’t they?”
She opened her eyes. “You tell me.”
He did as she said and when their eyes met, she was stunned by the anger and coldness she saw as she looked into his eyes. He scowled and looked away.
“Your girlfriend must have the brown eyes, huh?” She tried to make a joke out of it, but neither one of them found it very funny.
Tears gathered in her eyes as she shoved the pages of the divorce decree into its manila envelope. It had been one of the moments in their years together that she’d never forget. It was the incident that woke her up; that made her pay attention. How could he not know the color of her eyes? What man who loves a woman doesn’t remember a thing like that? The gnawing in her gut made her wince as she remembered more. If nothing else, it would confirm for her that they’d made the right choice; it had been the only choice, really.
It was a month after Dillon died when she’d found the note. It all happened innocently enough -- she was getting some of Eric’s suits ready to bring to the dry cleaner’s. Even though she hated the reason for being home from work, she found herself enjoying having unhurried time for household tasks. Usually she was hurrying to the dry cleaners to pick up Eric’s suits or shirts on her way home from work when time was already cramped. It was a luxury to be able to be able to take her time, especially in the middle of the day, when everything wasn’t so crowded with afterwork shoppers. Of course it would have been so much better to have Dillon along in his little car seat as she ran her errands, but she was trying to find the good in small things. It seemed to help her heal. Maybe if she told herself that enough, she’d finally believe it.
The T.V. in the bedroom was tuned to “Live with Regis and Kathy Lee”. Kathy Lee was carrying on about her precious little dogs, Chablis and Chardonnay, her hand resting on her pregnant belly as she spoke. Sure, Annie thought jealously, her baby will be okay. No sooner had she thought it, when she reprimanded herself for being so horrible. She wouldn’t wish her tragic fate on anyone -- even Kathy Lee. No one deserved this kind of pain.
“Oh, Reeg,” Kathy Lee’s voice droned on in the background as Annie went about emptying the pockets of Eric’s suit coats and pants. He was usually good about taking everything out of them, but every now and then he missed something. Since she had the time, Annie was being extra careful to check every last pocket. The last time she’d brought one of his suits to be cleaned, a tube of lip balm had been left in the inside pocket of the jacket. The suit had almost been ruined because the dry cleaners had missed it too. Eric had been furious, more at himself than anyone, but Annie decided it was worth it to be more vigilant now, to prevent potential disaster later.
She was rooting around in the inside pocket of his dark gray suit jacket. No lip balm to be found, but there was a piece of paper or something there. Probably a receipt, she told herself as she removed it and looked at it. He had been searching for the