He calls me his “sweet darlin’” unironically. He tells me that he dreams of me at night with flowers in my hair.
I joke with him about his southern drawl and conspicuous “yes’m”‘s, mannerisms that at times seem relics from another era, ghosts on his tongue. I poke him gently during marathon viewings of “Lost” — a favorite of mine that I’ve pressed on him in the way you do, at the beginning, when you finally open the door and invite someone into your world — nudge-winking about Sawyer’s verbal idiosyncrasies and their likeness to his own. Indignant, he claims he would never call me puddin’. His hands, large and rough, engulf mine as if they were those of a child. We make each other cry with laughter.
He loves me like there isn’t another woman on earth. He makes me feel cherished and adored, beautiful in ways I’m not sure I could ever truly merit. His eyes, blue-grey, make me think of Colorado spruce and rain puddle splashes and the hush of mountain fog, of fire I’d walk through without hesitating, again and again and again.
