They had discussed marriage the way people at bars discuss ballplayers that can’t hit left-handed pitchers.
It came up again, Jennifer brought it up again, after three years and one miscarriage.
Johnny Riorbak felt like Jennifer had jumped off a park bench and snatched a dragonfly out of the air.
“You wanna be married, or you wouldn’t bring it up.”
“I don’t ‘wanna be married’ Johnny. I wanna be married to you. There’s a big difference.”
So Johnny said they should drive from their home in Flint all the way to Key West.
He would tell her everything.
Every…
Thing…
If she still wanted to be married to him after he told her everything…
Every…
Thing…
…Then they could get married in Key West, pay someone to stream it for their friends back home.
Jennifer was picking out clothes for the trip before the Tiger game started on the west coast.
Johnny had a confessional itinerary in his head.
All the things he never told her that he’d tell her on the way to Florida.
He stashed cash in a camera bag that didn’t have a camera in it to pay her airfare home if she couldn’t take it or wound up hating him.
They pulled off the freeway near the Michigan border.
His first confession, before they had gotten to Detroit, had been hiding underneath clothes racks as a child shopping with his mom and looking up women’s skirts.
Jennifer laughed and Johnny loved her laugh like he loved breathing.
His confessional itinerary was tattering in his mind.
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