Two Sides to the One Picture
“George, you [expletive],” my grandmother scrawled on the back of a photo of my Armenian American grandfather standing proudly beside his Lincoln, circa 1970. He taught me to swim — and to bet a trifecta during horse races. He smoked cigars after Sunday brunch and drove fast down the Hollywood Freeway. His laughing eyes made me feel important. I didn’t know about his gambling or the infamous jewel heist he orchestrated that fractured our family. After he died, my rose-colored glasses faded like that photograph, and forced me to reconcile the grandfather I adored with a scoundrel I’d barely known. — Jennifer Cannon
The Cute Couple
“Cute couple,” the woman at the dog park said, before her eyes shifted downward to our sleek dachshund and fluffy Shih Tzu. “The dogs, too.” Decades ago, when David and I first met, I didn’t see it. David, a compact Chinese man, is six years younger and 30 pounds lighter than my zaftig Jewish self. He was barely out of a marriage; I’d been widowed for years. Yet, our affectionate bond never confused others. Eventually, I understood the absurdity of the barriers I’d been erecting, seeing us for what we obviously are: a cute couple married for nearly 20 years. — Elayne Klasson
An Old Joke That’s Only Half True
“It’s because you don’t believe in God,” he’d joke whenever I questioned things. We were each other’s first boyfriends: a devout Christian and an activist who met at a book fair in the Philippines. I supported divorce, abortion, transgender rights; he stood on faith and moral conviction. It seemed impossible, but our arguments always ended with his arms around me, my lips kissing the birthmark on his left pinkie. A year after we met, we split. He made his old joke. We laughed like always. I don’t think he remembers that I once prayed for someone exactly like him. — Oyeng Santos
No Answers Needed
My father paced in the anteroom while I stood there in my wedding gown, not ready to get married, lacking joy, but equally unprepared to lose the relationship. I’d shared little of importance with my father for so many years. He kept trying questions on me anyway. The bouquet already seemed to be wilting; there was no backing out now. At the question, “Who gives this woman?” my father released my arm. He called when my marriage ended, asked no further questions, just wanted to know I was OK — that gesture, the real bouquet, was the one that lasted. — Dorothy Dean Walton
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