PROLOGUE: First
It was one of those useless December days. Useless because it was too early for snow, and too late for heat.
The apartment was contently warm. The love and sense of tranquility inside made it so. This was the one place where the family could be themselves. They could yell and laugh and chatter on about the day’s events without being hounded for an autograph or a picture, or being pressed with ‘Wow are those really your parents?’ In this one place, they were as normal as this particular family could be.
The wife calls out that dinner is ready and waits for the pack of hyenas that are her children. The padding of feet comes from all directions, and then one by one they begin to arrive.
The two boys, one a mature yet humorous thirteen year old carrying the other under his arm, a quirky and boyish nine year old. The eldest daughter is sixteen, brilliant and beautiful, but slightly in a daze after a long phone call with her boyfriend. And the last two: The husband -the pack’s leader- and the sweet five year old girl hitching a ride on his shoulders. He drops her into her seat and kisses her hairline before taking his place at the head of the table, opposite his wife.
Everyone begins to eat, all except the elder daughter. She’s too busy playing with a heart charm that resides upon a silver chain wrapped around her wrist. Still in a dreamlike state, she turns to her mother and asks her if she can remember her first love.
The other children pretend not to listen, but are secretly curious. They chew a bit softer, so they can hear her response. Who could it be? Their father had always joke about how many men had crossed through their mother’s life. Was it someone they knew? A family friend, perhaps? Or could it someone from ancient times-say the 50s?
The wife peers up at the husband. The husband peers up at the wife. At the same time smiles curl up at the corners of their mouths. They get lost in one another’s eyes, and forget their children, forget their supper, forget that they are in their late thirties (and in the husband’s case forty). Their minds wander back to May 19, 1963: The day they met. They see each other as they were back then: Barely over twenty, naïve, and already married. They recall the need they felt to be with one another, and the effort it took to keep those feelings inside. They think about their forbidden love, and how it blossomed into all of this. A marriage, a family. Bliss.
But most of all, they think of that moment. That one moment when they saw one another and the world around them didn’t matter anymore. They realized that they were the one thing missing from each other’s lives. The other half.
Yes, answers the wife to her daughter. She does remember her first love.
Very, very well.
