moon june spoon

david broke my heart.

jeff was a stupid actor with feathered hair and jeans two sizes too small with a faded patch in the crotch.

mark was muscle bound, with a mean streak and flinty eyes.

stephan was a foppish brit who blighted everything he touched.

shawn was a soft spoken vet, all heart, no edge.

they came, with roses or cocaine, with a song in their heart or sex on the brain. they pitched the woo to my mom, and then, they were gone. leaving varying levels of destruction in their wake.

by 12 i'd given up the dream of my mom meeting a nice guy and settling down. i was beyond the need for a step-dad. also, i had no belief that she could be trusted to pick a winner. i'd settled into the idea of our being a twosome. my taking care of her. she needing me to.

by 17, we'd been through... what? the ringer? the mill? the shredder? i didn't feel anything when i thought of my mom anymore. except iciness. and fatigue. i counted the minutes to graduation; my freedom from the smell of welfare housing and government cheese. my ticket to ride.

blake was a tall lunk of a man. heavy steps. not too bright. filled the vending machines at the college my mom went to. drove a rusted out gremlin. it was so old, it had no drivers' side floor. just the pedals and a clean view of the icy utah streets below.

i was openly apathetic towards him. dismissive in that smug way of teens who are gratuitously less smart than they think they are.

he was a mormon. he lived for football. he had no politics. he didn't like to read. he was- basic. and one thing i knew about my mom, she was anything but.

i gave it six months.

a decade later, they are still together.

blake's still a mormon, miami dolphin loving, non-reader. but he's gained a rabid hatred of neo-conservatism and a soft spot for social programs. he couldn't love slim more if she were his own daughter. he takes care of his parents, even when he has pnemonia. he's a practical joker prone to cake fights and surprise attacks with water balloons.

he loves my mom.

in june, at age 52, for the first time ever, she will become a bride.

i will be her maid of honor.

yes.