High Point

by Angela Townsend

“Rare Grace” by Jack Florek

The high point of my marriage came at three months. We were questing to experience every diner in the county. On the way to the Golden Eagle, the lights flashed, the bells rang, and we stopped for the commuter train.

Just as the criss-cross arms came down, a man in an ATV flew over the tracks. I am telling you he flew. This was not the ordinary operation of physics. Momentum had nothing to do with it. Metaphysics had something to do with it.

The man in the ATV was not young, and he was not old. He was no closer to one side than the other. I am telling you this is possible. In the instant that he flew, I heard my outside voice shout, “That’s Randy!” Except I pronounced it “Randeh,” and my husband thought it was funny.

He still thought I was funny, which is hard to remember now. I don’t remember the Golden Eagle. I do remember the Excel spreadsheet and my assignment to catalog the diners. He told  me I rated them all too high. I gave nines for generous radishes and eights for the server who doodled an elephant on the receipt. I had to learn to scale. I remember having to learn.

We went out for ice cream at the four-month mark. Our town had a parlor with sugar-free flavors. I called them “sugar-free,” but my husband reminded me they were “NSA,” “no sugar added.” Type 1 diabetics do not mince words when the mint chocolate can’t hurt us. My husband inspected my shoulders for chips but only found himself exasperated.

We sat on the bench, feeding ourselves with tiny spoons. Someone had told the small businesses that tiny lights belong all year. Every awning was a rumor of holidays. I announced that I could see myself happy here for the rest of my life. My husband told me to wait. He picked up my wet heart and brushed off the gravel. He handed it back like a softball. It had not yet seen game play. I did not know this town. It was touristy, and tried too hard.

I wrote our thank-you cards. I tried too hard. There was excess air between my adverbs and the suburbs, where people live. Was his aunt really “magnificent” for sending us $200? What message was I sending his bachelor uncle with a heart sticker? He told me to keep it simple.

He told me he was a Philly boy, with credentials of birth and suffering. He told his relatives that he had carried me to the Keystone State in victory. He didn’t say out loud that Philadelphia wasn’t mine. He reminded me that I was not from New Jersey. I was from a suburb in New York without any reputation.

I remembered my first night of grad school, when I knew I had come under the eaves of home. I am telling you that New Jersey is celestial inside its jean jacket. It told me its secrets. You can choose a place. If you do, it will love you and not stop loving you even if you leave. I am telling you this is possible.

I don’t remember the six-month mark, only that “celebration time” was over and we needed to stop going to diners. My husband brought home wings filled with bones. I told him I had been a vegetarian since I was ten. I told him chickens are bred for death. When someone ceremonially sets a factory-farmed chicken free, their breasts grow so large that they fall forward and suffer a cardiac event. He told me that I should just focus on the protein. I remember watching him gnaw after the marrow was gone. I am telling you that no detergent washed my fingers clean.

I told his mother that she was “resplendent” and addressed his father’s birthday card to “The Living Legend.” He told me the post office would not deliver it that way, but they did. His father can confirm that they did. I bought faux fur scrunchies and mailed them to my mother for her Marilyn Monroe hair. He told me my mother was a dotard.

We fell to sea level. The suburb stepped in. Sidewalks and cul-de-sacs can exceed actual size. I am telling you this is possible. Neighbors smiled in my eyes. I met a man who looked like Jerry Garcia. I told a power-walker that she was my hero. I met a stray white cat whose name was Schnitzel. I am telling you, that was his name. I got on my knees to look at apricot flowers. A seraph in a housedress ran out of the garage to tell me that they are called “happy chappies.”

I don’t remember the last burn mark that left my words impossible to read. I kept writing in every state. I remember Randeh. He is still out there. I remember the distance between tracks and wheels.

Angela Townsend (she/her) is the Development Director at Tabby’s Place: a Cat Sanctuary. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Chautauqua, Paris Lit Up, The Penn Review, The Razor, Still Point Arts Quarterly, and The Westchester Review, among others. She is a 2023 Best Spiritual Literature nominee. Angie has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 33 years, laughs with her poet mother every morning, and loves life affectionately. She lives just outside Philadelphia with two gentle poets disguised as cats.

Jack Florek works primarily in oils and acrylic paints on canvas. He earned his MFA from Rutgers in 2000. He is an American citizen living near Toronto, Canada.

Angela Townsend (she/her) is the Development Director at Tabby’s Place: a Cat Sanctuary. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Chautauqua, Paris Lit Up, The Penn Review, The Razor, Still Point Arts Quarterly, and The Westchester Review, among others. She is a 2023 Best Spiritual Literature nominee. Angie has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 33 years, laughs with her poet mother every morning, and loves life affectionately. She lives just outside Philadelphia with two gentle poets disguised as cats.