evergreen

They were sitting in a taverna in Evergreen, Colorado, when he said, “And we’ll live the way we want to live, not like anyone expects,” because that was the time, it was that time, and she said “Yes, we will.” But she was lying, then, or at the very least, agreeing to something she did not really want, she did not really feel. She didn’t want that sort of life. She wanted what everyone else wanted; she expected what everyone else expected. But she never told him. Had she, well, who knows? He might have walked away. Or he might have not. He might, instead, have tried to convince her that that’s what she wanted -- to be the iconoclast, the difference-maker, the idealist. For that was his way, unfortunately, too.

But for the time being, she went along with it all. It wasn’t that difficult, at least not immediately. He was gone, in the service, for a few more months, and she was engaged to a “nice guy.” It all seemed workable.