The Longest Day of the Year

 The freckles on my shoulders were prominent, and the sunburn on his nose had started to peel over. It was a warm evening in June on the longest day of the year, and it felt like it would never end.

The birds chirped as the sun poured down on a tiny playground we inhabited. On the outside, we had been kissed by summer just as we had been for the last 12 years. In truth, we’d spent the better half of the day at the courthouse across the street giving it all up.

As we sat on the swing set, it was impossible not to feel the oldest I ever had, and younger than I had ever been, and I couldn’t decide which feeling to hold onto. I wished our legs weren’t long enough to reach the mulch, us both still young and small enough to believe we could change. I wasn’t ready to start over, but maybe the hard part was over and a deep breath was coming. 

To live was to live with Sam, he had become everything to me. I never had a family, my mom died of cancer when I was 18, and my dad was never in the picture. From an early age, I had the understanding that I was going to do life alone, and then out of luck or divine generosity, I met him my senior year of college. And that was that.  

Over a decade had flown by and now Sam had a couch for a bed at his friend’s. He still lived in our house, meaning his name was still on the lease, and his smell still woven in the bedsheets, but today was the day he had finally gotten an apartment of his own. We had decided a week ago that this was when we would file for divorce together. We’d get out of this just as we’d gotten into it twelve years ago: together. His hair was longer than when we met, and his skin riddled with lines in places that used to be smooth. Sun spots on his face from trips we’d taken to his family home in Michigan. Today, we sat like two kids playing, who needed their parents to pick them up and take them home. Two kids who just ended their contractual obligation to love each other, forever.  

After we graduated, we went to his parent’s house for the first time. I was so excited for a vacation, a trip that I didn’t yet know would become tradition. Back then it felt like our love could endure all. Like it could survive on a stranded island, without food or friends or family. Without hope. 

From that first trip, I remember the moments with his mother the most. Being there with her made me miss my mom in ways that I could most times forget. Sometimes I felt like I never had a mom to begin with, like I had fabricated my whole life before 18 because no one was there to add any details. 

His mom made me feel like I was a prize that Sam had won – something I had never been. I was a girl from a broken home, with no money. All I had was a deep longing for more. But Sam, Sam could have had anyone. He was brilliant and entirely charming. He was quiet when he was supposed to be and could make a joke out of thin air when someone needed it. He was tall and firm and could hug you into calmness. He was gorgeous with tanned skin all year, and warm, wavy brown hair. I spent so much time wondering if they would turn into curls if he grew them out. I still wondered. If this were a normal year, we’d be preparing to go to his parent's house in a couple weeks, if this were a normal year we wouldn't be so scared to speak right now.

I looked up from the dirt and turned to Sam to speak. He was already looking at me, ready to take in whatever thoughts were coursing their way through me. 

“Do you remember the first time we went to the lake house without your parents?” I asked him as I kicked my feet in the rocks beneath my swing and turned my head back towards them.

“I remember... of course I remember.”

“I loved being with you. I loved being on the beach with just us. I loved showering together. And cooking. And feeling like grown-ups.”

“I know, I did too. What was that, 2015? We were 24?” I could feel his eyes all over me as he asked this question that he already knew the answer to.

“Yep. Barely people yet.”

“Barely people yet,” he agreed, so softly that I knew he didn’t really feel that way. 

“Anyway, I loved all of that. But it didn’t feel entirely right to me. I never told you, but I really missed your family being there, and taking care of us,” I admitted. He looked like he was thinking about it. “I loved being included in that."

“They loved including you.” He said it so earnestly, that it almost made me sad. “You know, they’re still around for you.” 

“That’s not typically how divorce works,” I countered. He was kicking his feet around now too. 

“I don’t know how it works, I’ve never been divorced before,” he said through a laugh. He ran his hand in his hair, and when it flopped back down I wondered what we were doing. Because there it was, his charm. How could I let it go? I let a moment pass before I said, “Are you as embarrassed as I am about getting divorced? Who gets divorced at 34?”

“The same people who get married at 27.” 

“Were we stupid?”

“We were madly in love.” And as he said it, it felt strange that the word were was the most fitting.

“So… stupid?”

“Insanely stupid.” I couldn’t understand how we could still talk like this. Like nothing was happening. Like we’d go home and he would kiss my neck in front of the mirror. He’d help me undress and we’d move to the bed. We might make love, or we might not, and either way, our skin would cross paths all night. I began to wonder, when was the last time this felt like it would be forever? The last time we made love and were dying to do it? I wondered when the last time I called myself his wife was, and if it would hurt to never do it again. Or if I would slip up and say it until I died.

“Remember when we skinny-dipped?” Sam asked. 

“Vividly, actually, because it was fucking freezing and my nipples were hard as rocks.”

“See? I’m sort of kind of glad my mom wasn’t there for that!” and as he said it, he looked down at my chest. I was hunched over and he could see down my shirt the slightest bit, and I wondered if he was going to miss that. Was he allowed to still look down my shirt? Were we still married? Did divorced life start tomorrow? 

“We’ll never get to be young with someone else again.” And all of his sarcasm was gone, leaving just the sincerity of his loss, and the wonder if I felt the same. 

“They should all be jealous!” I said. 

“I think they were.” And of course, he was right. We had been the couple that was hard to be around, so in love, so perfectly matched. It made people believe in love, and simultaneously wonder why it hadn’t claimed them yet. I wouldn’t want to be around young us now. 

Sam looked back at the playground behind us, focusing on the kids playing in the jungle gym. “Why don’t they have playgrounds for adults?” I let the question hang in the air for a second, biting the inside of my lip as I thought.

“They wouldn’t be the same. It’d be kind of weird don’t you think? It not only sounds creepy, but the charm of playgrounds is the kids. It’s so exciting for them. It doesn’t get old. I think we’d get sort of bored if we just ran around tagging each other all day.”

“Would we?” He asked. 

“I don’t know, what do you think?”

“I think I could play tag with you my whole life.” And that’s what it had felt like. Our entire relationship had been a decade-long game of tag. Me loving him, him loving me, it never overlapping in the same way. Playing tag. Tagging one person to love the other more so the other one could handle life. When I thought I was sick, or when he worked long hours for a new promotion. When I got depressed, or when his grandpa died. The time we got pregnant and I hated that he wanted to keep it. I can think of the first day we started playing the game. It was his turn. I couldn’t believe that it was possible he could want me that much, so I tagged him. I really used to love playing the game, I used to have the energy. 

“I think we might get tired.” I was so tired. 

“I think you’re probably right.” I focused on a park sign, with the sun setting behind it. 

PARK HOURS ARE DAWN TO DUSK. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PERSECUTED. 

“You know when I was younger, I thought this sign meant you’d be electrocuted. Like, death row,” I told him. He lifted his eyebrows as he said, “You thought they wanted to kill little kids for playing a little after the sun went down?”

“Not kids really… people like us. Trespassers! Grown-ups who didn’t get the playing out of their system.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever be done playing.”

“Too whimsical,” I joked. 

“Much too whimsical,” he smiled. 

“I wish I could have known you when you played on playgrounds,” I looked into his eyes and felt like I was looking at a kid.

“Apparently I still do.”

“Apparently,” I agreed. 

“It’s weird that there are still things to learn about you, you’d think we’d have covered it all in the past 12 years.”

“Like?”

“Like that when you sign divorce papers you get so sappy,” he teased, and I let out a laugh. 

“It’s sad,” and I said it so genuinely, that the moment broke and my laugh turned into a cry. Sam reached for my hand and held it for a second, and then a little tighter before letting it go. I looked away, and he ran his hand through my hair and down my shoulder. The worst part of today was that I may have loved him more than ever. It was goodbye and he was just getting better. He was always going to get better, and I was just going to get further from him.

Sam might have been tearing up, but I doubted it. He wasn’t a crier in general, not for movies, not for dead dogs, but I’d seen it happen. When you’re together 12 years, you see it all happen. I’m going to miss the “all” part of marriage.

I ran my hands up and down the swing’s chain links. I pictured my future. I hated it. I imagined dropping off the kids and getting a glimpse into his new life. Seeing him with someone younger, prettier, funnier. Someone that his mom would compliment endlessly. He wasn’t shallow, but he was great enough to get anything he wanted. I felt lucky while I was in it. Now I wondered if it would be easier to have less to give up. 

“Do you think we’re ruining their lives?” He thought for a second and asked, “the kids?” I nodded. 

“By subjecting them to a weekend with their grandparents?” I laughed at his joke, but we both knew they were probably having the time of their lives swimming and eating ice cream before dinner. He went on, “I think we’re doing what most people do. We gave it a good try. They’ve got plenty of time to ruin their own lives.” He smiled like he wasn’t sure he believed what he was saying. 

“It’s hard to imagine someone loving them like we do. Like, them being married someday.”

“I don’t think anybody could.” Because they were ours. We made them together when our lives entirely revolved around one another. I thought to myself, all of the love I have for him must transfer to them, it can’t go nowhere, it can’t be for nothing,

“They're two and five… When I think about it, they’ll probably only remember us apart. We’re just going to be their divorced parents,” I couldn’t stop thinking that our marriage would feel like a made-up story to them.

“God, that’s awful! You’re a very pessimistic divorcée.” Sam paused. “I feel like you’re my entire life... I can’t imagine them not knowing how good it was with us.” Sam, always so lighthearted and serious all at once.

“I know, but they won’t. They’ll only know you with your new wife.” The moment got stale. Who was this wife I was already so afraid of? 

“How come it feels impossible to stay friends?” He said it so tenderly, like a final plea for me to stay in his life. 

“There’s just too much. You’re everything. If you’re here you’re all I’ll see.” 

“I can’t imagine never talking to you again. Never having a real conversation.”

“I know. You’re my entire family.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. I had a way of pitying myself that he never seemed to get frustrated with. He just let me feel it. 

“Don’t be sorry. I’m just scared. I have the kids, I know that. But you’re the only adult I have.”

“I know.” The truth was, Sam had a lot more going for himself than I did. The reason he moved out was because he had friends to stay with, I didn’t.

“Fuck this.” I joked.

“Fuck this,” he agreed. We laughed for a bit before the moment got cold. He quietly said, “I don’t want a new wife.”

“You will,” it was in between being a question and a statement, but Sam just sighed. “We’re only 34, there’s time to do it over,” I wasn’t sure why I was pushing this. Maybe just to keep the moment going. 

“I don’t want to do it over. I got everything I wanted for a little while.”

“For a little while,” I nodded. “You know, when we got married I kind of thought we’d beat the odds.” I took a breath before getting the rest out. I always appreciated that Sam never cut me off, he always knew when I had more to say. I was going to miss someone knowing me so well. “And I knew that was stupid, but I also thought, why not? Why couldn’t it be us?”

“I wouldn’t have gotten married if I didn't think it was forever. You were all I ever wanted.” 

“And now? Would you do it all again knowing this is how it ended?” His eyes finally began to well up as he strained to say, “of course I would.” There was no other option for us. We had become adults together. We were more than a couple, we were people who couldn’t navigate life separately. It was impossible to imagine a world where there was no Sam to lean on. This time I grabbed his hand and he looked down because he was crying, too.

“You know, I’m mostly scared to go home tonight, for it to be so quiet, no kids, no you. I haven’t done that in a long time.”

“It would be so easy to just be together tonight.” He said it in a way I knew wasn’t an invitation, but a vulnerable thought. 

“So easy.” And Sam smiled back at me, then looked outward. “At least you have our things. My apartment will be all new.”

“Yeah, well, mine will be haunted.” I joked. I didn’t know who got the worse end of the deal. “Would it be worth it to stay together just so we don’t have to feel these things?” 

“I think it might be too late… those papers we signed were divorce papers.” That charm.

“I don’t regret any of it,” I said.

“I regret some of it,” Sam joked. I knew we could have done without some of the bad stuff, but I couldn’t see our story without those things. 

“Are you scared?” I knew he was, but I needed to hear it. 

“I’m fucking terrified.” And a weight lifted, because I realized I wasn’t going through it alone. We sat for a few moments in the quiet, listening to people and cars as they passed.

“Are you ready?”

“I will be.” I paused. “Can we just swing for a while?”

“As long as you’d like.” And the game would continue, just for a little longer. Maybe it was a timeout, I’m not sure. That didn’t matter as we went back and forth and up into the air. I leaned backward and stared at the sky. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like Sam or I was “it.” I didn’t feel divorced and I didn’t feel married – I just felt like I was swinging with my best friend, and we were just two kids who would leave the park at dusk and go to our own houses. As we moved in unison I decided that today I would feel young, and take in the warmth of his presence for a bit longer. And I thanked God that it was the longest day of the year, and dusk would hold off for a while.