I tell people I’m married. It just makes it easier. No one asks questions about my wife. And it makes me look better, more stable – a happily married man. Well, maybe not so happily, or else what am I doing in bed with you, but a stable married man. Married for twenty five years.

The truth is, Alison left me after three years. What we had, I know I can never have again. There isn’t a day when I don’t think of her. Different images come to mind. What she looked like that night I first saw her, tending bar, pushing back sweaty tendrils of dark hair in rhythm with pulling beers and pushing them across the bar. How her skin smelled every time I got close enough to her. How amazing it felt to hold her in the courtroom where we got married. The way she noticed things and told people about them, with that full-bodied laugh. How she looked in that hospital bed, connected to all that machinery. I try not to think about that. How can I be glad that that was only for a short period of time when it meant that my time with her was so short?

So, as far as everyone else is concerned, I’m still married. Who wants to hold an aging boomer in their arms while he cries about his dead wife? No, I’m just that guy, that commitment-phobic guy, the one who just wants to have a good time. And when I get home and am by myself, I pour myself a glass of bourbon and toast her picture.