I have fallen in love with you. We have already started drawing imaginary blueprints for the house we will one day have. A backyard for the kids. A fire escape, because you like fire escapes. You say you want a garden.
I do not have a green thumb, I say.
I do, you say, and I know you do. Your occasional attempts at husbandry – at tending to tomatoes until we can eat them, for example, or nurturing plants in your office – indicate, to me, your inherent belief in the future. We talk about the future, using when, never if. I cannot always see this future unfolding. You do not know how much tending to I need.
We met because our separate roads converged on a night in January, merged, and then diverged, finally, permanently, nine months, two weeks, and one day later. We met because we did. We met because we couldn’t not meet.
HendersonHouseofCards@wordpress.com
William Henderson has written for local and national newspapers and magazines, including the Advocate, the Boston Globe, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, Euonia Review (forthcoming in June 2011), and the New England Blade (formerly In Newsweekly), where he served as editor. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Journalism & Communications from the University of Florida, and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Emerson College, where he studied creative non-fiction. He earned a Hearst Award in profile writing in 1998. Currently, he works as a freelance writer, editor, and copyeditor, and is a full-time father to his children, Avery and Aurora. “How we met …” is part of an in-progress memoir, House of Cards. He can be reached at wil329@yahoo.com or on Twitter, @Avesdad.
