Snow Over Thirty Years

The snow started falling right after I ate that stupid frozen lasagna that tastes like cardboard no matter how much cheese you pile on top. Big, fat, sloppy flakes smacking the kitchen window like they’re pissed off at the glass. I’m standing here barefoot on the cold tile, tea gone cold in my favorite chipped mug the one you said looked like a prop from a 1970s diner—and I’m fifty-one years old and my chest hurts the same way it did when I was twenty and too stupid to know what I was throwing away.

I can still smell the garage where we first really talked. Motor oil and coffee and that cologne you wore, the expensive one that came in the heavy glass bottle. You were leaning against your silver SL500, sleeves rolled up, Rolex catching the fluorescent lights every time you moved your hands. You were forty, already had the dealership running like a damn Swiss watch, three locations, guys in suits calling you “sir” even though you grew up fixing carburetors in your dad’s backyard. I was the kid fresh out of community college, interning for free because I wanted to learn how to sell dreams on four wheels. You taught me how to listen to an engine the way some people listen to hearts.

We’d stay late inventorying cars nobody was gonna buy till spring. You’d toss me the keys to whatever six-figure toy just came off the truck—once it was that black 500SL with the burlwood so pretty I was scared to breathe on it—and say, “Take it around the block, see if she talks to you.” I’d come back shaking, half in love with the car and stupid in love with you. You’d just smile that half-smile, the one that never quite reached the billboard, and say, “Good. Now you know what perfect feels like.”

I remember the night the heat went out in the showroom and we sat on the hood of a pearl-white CLK, sharing a bottle of something that cost more than my rent. You told me about your divorce, how she took the dog and half the business and you still sent flowers on the dog’s birthday because you’re that kind of man. I told you about my mom crying because I didn’t have a “real job” yet. You listened like I was the only person in the world. Then you reached over and tucked that stupid piece of hair behind my ear and I thought this is it, this is when he says it. But you just said, “You’re gonna be dangerous when you figure out how brilliant you are.” And I died a little because brilliant wasn’t what I wanted to be. I wanted to be yours.

We had so many almosts. The company Christmas party when you found me hiding in the service bay because heels and small talk make me want to set myself on fire. You handed me a beer and we sat on the lift, legs swinging like kids, watching the snow come down on the cars lined up like soldiers. You gave me your suit jacket because I was freezing and pretending I wasn’t. It smelled like you. I still have it. Still smells like you when I bury my face in the collar on the nights I can’t breathe.

I remember the yellow rose. June 7, 1994. You walked into my tiny office holding it like it was made of glass. Stood there in your perfect charcoal suit, tie a little crooked because you hated them, and you opened your mouth and nothing came out. I waited. God, I waited. My heart was so loud I was sure the whole floor could hear it. But you just handed me the rose and walked out. I sat there smelling it until the petals dropped and I told myself that was your answer. Silence = no. Silence = I imagined everything. Silence = get over it, kid.

Then he came along. Same age as you. He said “I love you” on the second date, loud enough for the waiter to hear. Proposed six months later with a ring so big it left bruises when I clenched my fist. My mom cried happy tears. My dad shook his hand like he was buying a car. I was twenty-one and terrified of being the girl who waited forever for a man who never spoke. So I said yes. I said it loud.

I kept every promise. Thirty years of keeping vows. I learned how to smile when he introduced me as “my wife, the pretty one who doesn’t work.” I learned to cook standing rib roast exactly the way he liked it even though red meat makes me gag. I learned to pretend I came when I didn’t. I had his babies and nursed them while he flew to Vegas with the boys. I built a life that looked perfect from the street—big house, pool I never swim in, his-and-hers Range Rovers in the driveway even though I always loved Mercedes more. I disappeared so completely sometimes I’d catch my reflection and not recognize the woman staring back.

Then came the lipstick. Not even a classy color—some cheap neon orange that screamed desperate woman who thinks she’s getting better life. I found it on the collar of the shirt he wore he came from a trip. I sat on the marble bathroom floor—the one he had to have imported from Italy—and waited for the tears. They never came. Just that same dead weight I’ve carried since the day I let your rose die in a coffee cup because I was too scared to ask what the hell you meant by it.

He cried when I left. Actually cried. Offered me everything—the house in Aspen, the boat he named after me even though I get seasick, the entire classic car collection he knew I loved driving when he wasn’t around. Signed it all over like money could buy back thirty years of being invisible. I took the house because the kids still are home and I didn’t want them to lose that. Took the SL500 you taught me to love—the red one he bought to “make me happy” after the third affair I pretended not to know about. It still smells like leather and regret.

I drive it too fast sometimes. Windows down, hair whipping my face, screaming along to songs we used to play in the showroom when nobody was around. Springsteen and Tom Petty and that one Bonnie Raitt song that makes me cry so hard I have to pull over. I kept your mixtape. Still have it in the glovebox. The label’s worn off but I know every track by heart.

Today I turned fifty-one. Put on the red sweater he always said made me look cheap. Drove the SL to the Blue Café because it’s still there, still has the same cracked vinyl booths and the same waitress who calls everybody “hon.” Ordered chocolate cake because it’s what we used to get when I was too broke for dinner but too stubborn to go home. Sat there picking at it with a fork, watching the door like a damn fool.

You walked in wearing that same navy coat you had thirty years ago, the one with the frayed cuffs you refused to replace. Hair gone more salt than pepper, different fancy glasses , but God, it was you. No ring. Hands I used to trace with my fingertips when you were showing me how to check oil like it was the sexiest thing in the world. You ordered coffee, black, no sugar, same as always. Stood there waiting for it and I felt you before I saw your face.

I stood up. My knees actually knocked together like some bad romance novel. I wanted to say your name but it got stuck behind thirty years of regret. Thought you’d look at me and see crow’s feet and gray roots and a woman who threw away the only real thing she ever had because she was too young to read between the lines. Thought maybe you’d found someone who understood quiet love, someone who didn’t need trumpets.

So I ran. Left my coat, left the cake, left you standing there with your cold coffee and my heart in your hands all over again. Drove home too fast, snow flying up over the windshield like a thousand tiny ghosts.

I’m sitting here now in the dark, still wearing the red sweater, snow piling up on the porch railing the way it did the night you almost kissed me in the service bay. The house is too quiet and I hate quiet and I love quiet and I’m fifty-one and I’m still so in love with you it’s embarrassing.

That rose you gave me? Still pressed in the book you lent me the one about the sailor who couldn’t find his way home. Petals long gone to dust but the stain’s still there on page 127. I never took it out. Some things you keep even when they’re ruined.

I never stopped hearing you. Every time I drive the SL and the engine sings, I hear you. Every time I make that awful strong tea you liked, I hear you. Every time I park in the garage and smell motor oil and possibility, I hear you.

I’m still here. I never left. I’m just louder about it now.

If you ever walk back into the Blue Café, I’ll be the woman in the red sweater with snow in her hair and thirty years of “I love you” stuck behind my teeth.

I’ll be waiting. Quiet this time. The way you taught me.