I have to get all fan-girl about Abigail Thomas.  A friend turned me on to her writing. A Three Dog Life was good and I bought Safekeeping and dip into it only every once in a while because I just don’t want to finish it.  It’s made up of short memoir-ish vignettes.  She’s a grab-the-big-complex-picture-in-minimal-words kind of writer.  I just love it.  I’m going to drop one of my faves from it here:

I Ate There Once

She never thought he’d get old this way.  Never thought his defenses would come down one by one, dismantled, she realizes, by children.  She imagines a split-rail fence coming apart over the years.  He wasn’t wise, she understands now, he was depressed.  They had both mistaken depression for wisdom.  She has married again, the third time, and she sits up front with her new husband, the nicest man in the world.  Her old husband sits in back, bundled in blankets, blowing his nose in his old red kerchief, wearing his brown hat.  He has gotten so gentle.  Especially since she has remarried.  He treats her like a flower.

They have their own language.  It isn’t secret, but it is their own.  Certain sights carry weight for them.  They remember everything.  She once told him she remembered the exact moment when she knew it wouldn’t last.  That they weren’t going to stay together, that their little vessel had not been made very well, that it had sprung too many leaks and then in anger both of them had gouged holes in the bottom.  Sink, damn you, they thought.

“I know when i knew it, but I didn’t say anything.  We were standing under that tree,” she said. “I forget the name.”

“It was a mimosa,” he said. “The mimosa tree on the corner.”

Today they are driving upstate to see their daughter graduate.  Her new husband is driving.  She loves his kind profile, the way he keeps asking her former husband if he is warm enough. It was he who remembered the extra lap rug.  They are like three old friends, companionable, everybody on their best behavior.  They pass a sign for a Mexican restaurant, coming up on the right.  It is the only place to eat on the parkway.

“I’ve always wondered what kind of place that is,” says her new husband, slowing down for a look as they approach. “Unlikely spot for a restaurant.  The food must be terrible.” The restaurant, only barely visible through trees, vanishes behind them.  As it happens, it was here that she and her second husband had eaten their wedding supper, twenty-five years ago.  They were by themselves and had been married about an hour.

“I ate there once,” she says.  Her expression doesn’t change.  She doesn’t turn around.

“So did I,” says a voice from the back.