Scott Cheshire - High as the Horses' Bridles

“On your hips.” I hiccupped.

“What.” She started looking about herself. “ What? ”

“From your shorts.” I pointed to the place, now safely cushioned by the hug of a gray sweatpant.

She folded down the pant at the waist one inch, and said, “Here.”

I knelt down in the sand and I lightly kissed her hip. She patted my head.

Then I vomited on the sand right beside her, not a lot, but enough to cause her to start laughing, and kick sand over my mess like a mother would or a girlfriend would, I imagined, and she led me to the water where she sat me down. She leaned me back and wet my hair and washed my soiled face in the lapping tide. Drunk, too, she stroked my head, laughing out, and remembering to cover her mouth. I never went back to the giant King James.

She moved in three months later, I insisted, and we threw ourselves at each other whenever possible. And this wasn’t just sex, mind you, but face-petting and back-kneading on the beach come sundown, and making out in restaurant bathrooms like we were in high school. I liked to watch her eyes go wet with a kind of boozy zip when we drank white wine. And then we’d fall on each other in the stairwell. Sarah took to me much like one often takes to a puppy, impetuously, absolutely, lovingly. In the beginning we were on fire, and I knew one thing: that I lived in the world, and for the first time I was really living on Earth Time, my feet firmly planted on the hard ground, here in this place of no angels or demons, where clocks make sense and never go backward, only forward, and who knows what all awaits us when we get there, and how we got here and where we come from makes no real difference at all. I believed myself worthy of that time with her. She was a woman who wanted to spend herself in love because, well, her rock-hard parents never let her spend love on them, and I was the kind of man, it turns out, who’d eat it all up, a cheapskate at a buffet stuffing his pockets with bread. I have to say here in the interest of fairness that I really did love her for this.

Sarah and I got married, quietly, on the beach, in the fall of 1997, on Otter Beach by the legs of the Main Street boardwalk. By a local judge. Just Sarah, and me, Amad and Teri. White flowers, flip-flops, and the crash of water in the surf. Tidal foam. It was lovely. I called my parents two days later to tell them. They’d known about Sarah, of course, and were happy to hear it, happy just to hear I was happy. That we were happy. So we flew out to see them as soon as possible. It was one of those rare times in life when happiness reigns; not that we became unrealistic or lived with rose-colored glasses on our noses — and I never did get that saying, actually, because I’ve worn real rose-colored glasses, orange-colored ones, too, and it’s nothing less than wonderful, and in no way stops you from seeing the everyday ugliness that people are capable of; it merely changes the light, and I like light. It felt like we were wearing those white clothes, and holding those white flowers in our hands, for days.

We flew out to New York and took a cab to Richmond Hill. But I remember so little from the trip, and almost nothing from the experience of returning to the old neighborhood. I usually see and file away all I can, so I must have closed my eyes in the taxi. I do remember this: my father opening the door, and then something I never expected. The door opening wide, slamming open, really, and hitting the wall behind: and there he was, standing like a game-show host, in suit jacket and tie, with his arms out and open, saying loudly, “So, this is my daughter!”

Mom was behind him in a robe and one of her macramé hats, I think her hair was short and wispy, but finally growing some. Her face was pale because she mostly stayed inside. She was holding her robe together like I imagined a geisha girl would. She looked so proud of me, and of Sarah. In a low voice she kept saying, “Come in, come in, come in…”

Come to think of it, the house was already looking a little rough. Not dirty, necessarily, or terribly unkempt. But little things left undone were accumulating. Dust on every surface. A musty odor. Things were not put away. It appeared as if they’d been gone for months and had just returned for our visit, with no time to freshen up. Except for Dad. In his suit.

“You look so fancy,” I said. We were standing now in the kitchen.

“Come on,” he said, now arranging us, Sarah and me, like figurines on a wedding cake. Josie, like so, and Sarah, like so. “Okay, let me get a look at you,” he said.

They stood there, Mom and he, looking at us, almost like they were willing us not to move, Just stay like that, because you look beautiful! I was really taken aback. But why should I be? These were my parents, and I was their son, and now I’d given them a daughter. I’d always figured Mom wanted a daughter; what mother doesn’t want a daughter? She stood there looking almost shyly at Sarah, afraid to approach too close, like Sarah would skitter off into some other room. At the time I couldn’t know or even consider the truth because I was too happy to wonder about its reasons, but now I see she was probably just afraid of what I might have said, of what horrible things I’d told Sarah about them. Not that I ever would, or did, or that Mom would seriously think I would do anything to hurt them, or that there were any horrible things to say to begin with. And yet this is something we do all the time with our boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives, and our parents did it with theirs. We exaggerate and understate the family secrets, even lie, all in order to get more love. But I’d always been up-front and honest with Sarah, mostly.

“Look at you both!” His suit was too big in the shoulders, or he was getting thinner. Then again, he was already getting older, which is actually a silly thing to say because of course it’s always true.

“Can we move now?” I asked, laughing.

Mom answered for all of us and ventured forward, her hands out and aimed for Sarah’s face. “So beautiful,” in her new low voice. “Look at her, with a mess like you,” she said to me.

I laughed.

And she said to Sarah, “My boy knows I’m kidding, right?”

Sarah hadn’t said a word yet, just kept smiling, our bags still hanging from our hands.

Dad said, “How about champagne?” He turned to the fridge, took out a bottle from the freezer, and started wrestling with the cork. “Leave your son alone, Ida. You’re suffocating him.” He wrapped the top of the bottle with a kitchen towel to get a better grip.

Mom pulled away from me, faking she was embarrassed. “I can’t help it,” she said.

Dad was pulling at the top of the bottle.

We set our bags down on the kitchen floor, and I said, “Get over here.” I hugged Mom and watched Sarah walk over to Dad. She took the bottle from him, he let her, and she locked it between her knees, and turned the towel in her grip over the cork like she was unscrewing it. Dad watched, totally fascinated.

I watched, and Mom watched.

“What does she do for a living, again?” Dad was clearly talking to me, but still watching Sarah work the cork, the towel now tossed aside.

I said, “You’re allowed to ask her yourself.”

“Ahh!” Sarah said, aiming the cork away and pop! It hit the ceiling, foam easing out of the bottle.

Dad shouted, “I’ll get glasses!”

Sarah offered me the bottle, and I took a swig, I was laughing, and handed it back to Sarah. She took a swig, she was laughing, and then she handed it to Mom, who refused, but Sarah insisted, pushing the bottle — Take it, just take it — while she wiped at her own mouth. Mom took it, and took a big swig. Dad shouted, “Aye! Wait for me!” He handed out glasses, took a swig of his own, and started pouring.