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80 Wedding Date Autumn’s here; a time no couple without a gun to their backs get married. I open thank you notes containing comments by new Misters and Missuses. They’re back from Bali or the Greek Isles and want to see us, have photos to share of how happy we were on their special day. We set a record. No new couple attended as many weddings in their first four months. After our lengthy, separate searches, what better dates could we go on? We had what couples should be forced to prove on their wedding day. We left witnesses— nieces and baby half-brothers remember us as the ones who kissed a lot. Parents, pale from caterer bills, saw it and congratulated us. Brides and grooms received us with envy. On their day it shone from within us, contagiously: the groomsmen slipping you phone numbers on your way to the ladies room, the maid of honor cornering me at the coat check. We were the ones who left banquet halls to find sofas where we kissed the way new husbands and wives 81 wanted to. The open bars, the rubber cordon bleu chicken, the Caucasian two-step, and you: perfect. I loved it all, beaming during slow dances more than the spinster aunts. The bands butchered songs, children cried to go home. Dreaming like a schoolgirl, I wanted it to be us up there, the knives against stemware until we’d lean together, our lips locking amid cheers. Honeymoon done, a blind turn approached. We became our parents before our time. We did it without gown or limo; we did it without a single I do. Autumn’s here. I come to bed in darkness, and though I’m silent with wonder, your earplugs are in. The day uncoils from my body as I ready myself for dreams of tropics, of ceremony, of old friends lined up to wish us well. You don’t move, your black sleep mask keeping out any light which may enter our space. ...

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