Hot Pot Magazine

By  Jianna Heuer

We moved to our house in Rockaway Beach one month before our fourth wedding
anniversary. Our new backyard was a jungle of weeds towering over us. We couldn’t
see through it, around it, or wade into it. At the broken gate, you and I smoked
cigarettes and stared. The two of us contemplated what to do, not daring to throw a butt
into the mass of vegetation for fear of setting our new purchase on fire. 

 It was too big a job for us, two first-time home buyers, fresh from a decade of living in
Manhattan, now living where the city meets the sea. A hired crew removed five years of
overgrowth. They hauled the plants, cinder blocks, cat shit, dead mice, wires, and other
detritus away; only uneven sand and rocks remained. We had so much energy then,
and no doubt in our minds, that with the help of the internet and a lot of hard work, we
could take this moonscape and make it a fecund haven.

Seven years later, an eight-foot gleaming white fence houses lush green grass and
bright orange planters filled with sunflowers, daybreaks, and cherry bombs. A flourishing
butterfly bush commemorates your mom, who died from COVID-19. We built the shed in
the corner together, the jewel of the yard painted in bright peacock blues. We erected a
canopy with a fire pit and seating where we evolved from smokers to nonsmokers,
hosted movie nights, and entertained countless friends for intimate dinners and raucous
parties.

Sitting by the fire, we shared our ideas for the future and made plans to realize them.
We had so much hope and enthusiasm. We built a beautiful bookstore, a dream that
started as mine but became just as much yours. We thought we planned for everything
but didn’t prepare for a pandemic. 

In this yard, we discussed the money we weren’t making at the shop, the customers that
weren’t coming, and the events we couldn’t have. After years of trying, we eventually
had to work out how to dismantle our dream. The couches in the tent sag from the
weight of it all.

A wine glass was left behind where you always sit. We came together yesterday and
the day before, and the day before that to bitch about a patient giving me a hard time
and to celebrate the new class you are teaching. We meet here to mourn the death of
another loved one or discuss the end of my relationship with my father. We drink our
Malbecs, Proseccos, Pinots, and Blancs and talk, laugh, and cry. Sometimes music
plays, but mostly not because we always have so much to say.

I’ve started worrying the well of our connection will run dry, drained by what we’ve lost. I
fear we will amble back here, and there will be nothing more to discuss. What if I end up
alone in this unstable canopy in the gusty winds, with the fireplace whose grout is
rupturing? I don’t know how to replace grout.

I used to smoke half a pack a day; you smoked more; that’s how our relationship began.
If not for our cigarette breaks in that vestibule that separated Christie’s from Simon and
Schuster, would we have gone to that happy hour, kissed on that steaming subway
grate, and be married now? 

I quit for a while but started again when we closed the bookstore. You still don’t smoke;
you are better than me at quitting things. When you end something, you end it for good.
You are so generous with your love until someone pushes you too far or takes
advantage of you, and then you cut them off with the precision of an obsidian blade.

Remember when you used to obsess about our little yard? You knew when it needed to
be mowed and weed-whacked. Every day, you watered the flowers religiously. Then, the
bookstore was your obsession. Now, I don’t know what you are obsessing about. It
doesn’t seem to be me or our little plot, our sanctuary from the rest of this
neighborhood, that let us down and did not dream what we dreamed, did not want to
read our books, drink our wine, or play at our open mics. Did we build all of this to let it
fall back into disrepair?

This place is my oasis still, but I wonder if it’s yours anymore. I see that far-away look in
your eyes and know you are too busy in your head to lay here with me and see the
beauty of the light changing on the page of my book as I read, to sit in stillness and
watch the dragonfly land on the string of globe lights, and breathe in the scent of the
salty beach air. You can no longer see past our neighbor’s German Shepherd’s
incessant barking, the planes constantly flying overhead, the screech of tires down our
short street, and reggae-ton blaring from the SUV that goes too fast on Beach Channel
Drive. We are in the weeds again, but with less vigor to help us cut them back.

Jianna Heuer is a Psychotherapist in New York City. She writes Nonfiction and Fiction.  Her work has appeared in Months To Years, The Inquisitive Eater, Across The Margin, and other literary journals. Her flash non-fiction has appeared in two books, Fast Funny Women and Fast Fierce Women. Check out more of her work here: https://linktr.ee/jiannaheuer