Kathy Fish

Today When I Asked You About a Couple We Knew in Canberra

What were their names?

He worked with you. Their daughters babysat for us. Remember they raised chickens in their backyard before it was cool to raise chickens in your backyard? She called me “darl’” and for the longest time I thought she was calling me “doll.” Do you think they’re still alive? I bet I wouldn’t know them now if I passed them on the street. There are so many people like that now. I could fill an auditorium with them.

You wagged your head at me the way you do and put your headphones back on, rested your feet on the ottoman, and looked down at your screen. Your back was to the window and it had started to snow.

I waved my arms and you slid the headphones up again, resting them atop your head like inverted mouse ears.

But what do you think? What’s the point of anything if you can’t remember people? I really liked them both so much. He’d joked that bombing the White House would be a waste of good explosives. What was going on in the world then? How we laughed! I can’t even remember what he looked like. Small and thin, that’s all. Bizarre!

You looked at me as if I were describing the roundness of the earth or the greenness of the grass. It’s not that bizarre, you said, pulling your headphones back down over your ears. Something on your laptop was making you laugh. Outside, white mittens had formed on the little fists of the pine trees.

Later, when I closed my eyes, it came to me: Their names were Arlo and Helen Freitag. They had four daughters and a basset hound. One Boxing Day, we sat around their dining room table as Helen told a very long story. I can’t remember the story and I can’t remember the basset hound’s name or even the names of their daughters, but I remember the fan sweeping our faces and the baby crying and how full and hot and drunk we were. When she finally finished we were all so relieved. Then Arlo Freitag pulled his wife close and kissed her fully on the lips, and for some time.