SoftPlush Angel
Greetings, my former husband! I suspect youll never lay eyes on these words, and perhaps that is for the best. All that needed saying has long since been spoken. With the passing of years, one sees the youthful follies through a far clearer lens.
It has been twenty winters since the court officially dissolved our marriage. I recall that day with striking clarity: the magistrate urged us to think carefully, not to rush a decision, for we had a fourteenyearold daughter. Yet I was resolute. See that we are freed from one another at once! I demanded.
You fell silent, neither confirming nor denying your stance, and the motion was entered. From that moment the household ceased to exist as a unit. Our lives ran side by side like parallel tracks, strangers passing each other in the street. We no longer spoke. Why bother? There was nothing left to share. Then, of course, there was our daughterBlythewho puzzled over why Mother and Father were no longer together. She remembered no quarrels, no harsh words; we had lived merrily, handinhand, bathed in happiness
You never declared love in the conventional way; it was never required. Your affection lived in your eyes and deeds. You were ever the giver of unusual presents, each trinket bearing some hidden meaning.
I remember New Years Eve, when you hung a comical plush angel upon the fir. As the clock struck midnight you declared, Let this little angel stand as a token of our love! From that year onward the angel perched above the front door, and every New Year it would be hoisted onto the tree, a guardian of our bliss. In hindsight, it certainly did not keep the storm at bay
I fell, headlong, into a passion as fierce as a galea dark, relentless fire that swept everything before it. It felt like a devilish enchantment. My lover at the time was already married and a father of two daughters. We trampled over all propriety, leaving his wife and my own husband in anguish. Enveloped in sin, we saw nothing but the heat of our desire.
Half a year of that madness brought a sudden clarity. Lord, I thought, how different we are! Like night and day! What have I done? A single, recurring nightmare haunted metrying to enter my home, only to find it surrounded by an impenetrable mire that sucked at my feet, pulling the house ever farther away.
When I finally clawed my way from that abyss of sin, youmy other halfhad already built a new family. I understood, without judgment, that everyone longs for love, stability, peace. Since then many rivers have flowed.
Youth, a daughter, a granddaughterthat is all that still ties us, Igor. Too little? Our destinies have simply taken divergent paths. The next New Year looms, and I shall hang our angel once more upon the tree. It has held together well, though its wings have snapped off.
