by Christopher Maggio<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The first time I think of her as my wife is when she, without my asking, reaches into her seat pouch and hands me her barf bag, so now I have two.<\/p>\n
Over jet engines, I hear her by the window oohing<\/em> and aahing<\/em> at the Santa Monica Boardwalk below, but my eyes stay shut because the next<\/em> to last thing I want to do is look down, and the last<\/em> thing I want to do is look down at a spinny ride (even if the Pirate Ship is where I proposed).<\/p>\n The plane levels, the fasten-seatbelt sign dings off, the chocolate edibles\u2014which my sister-in-law handed to me (\u201cFor the flight.\u201d) as my wife and I ran through the rice\u2014kick in.<\/p>\n Turbulence knocks over my cup, donut-shaped ice clattering like dice across my tray table, but the spill\u2014which I wipe with an empty bag of pretzels until she hands me a cocktail napkin\u2014provides a fleeting distraction.<\/p>\n She pulls out her left earbud\u2014our song, Al Green\u2019s \u201cLet\u2019s Stay Together\u201d\u2014and asks if I\u2019m doing ok, to which I ask, \u201cEver get the feeling? That everyone on the plane? Is watching you?,\u201d to which she asks, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we both rest our eyes for a little bit?\u201d<\/p>\n I awake first, and beyond her, the desert is blue, but no, this isn\u2019t Vegas, this is the Pacific Ocean; this isn\u2019t our first vacation, this is Vacation Number \u2026 well, we\u2019re on something that is a vacation except it\u2019s more than that.<\/p>\n I try flipping through one of the mangas that we brought, not even bothering with the words, just the pictures, but I\u2019m not even a page in when the city-smashing robots start spinning, and I\u2019m closing my eyes again, praying it will pass.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know,\u201d I say, \u201cone etymology for the word \u2018honeymoon\u2019 refers to all the mead the Teutons would drink after the wedding,\u201d and she leans forward over her armrest, so close that I can count every freckle on her nose and says to me\u2014\u201cNerd.\u201d<\/p>\n More turbulence, this time through black clouds, so with flashbacks of my first plane ride ever, as a kid to Florida with my parents, Mom\u2019s rosary wrapped around her fingers as she secured my oxygen mask over my mouth, only this time I clutch my wife\u2019s hand, my palm pressed over her wedding ring, thinking if the plane crashes, but if we hadn\u2019t met, we wouldn\u2019t be here<\/em>, yet I would choose a few years together over a lifetime apart.<\/p>\n We land: ten hours flown, zero barf bags used, and courtesy of the International Date Line, the first day of our marriage lost\u2014but when she smiles and suggests, \u201cSushi first, nap later?\u201d I say yes, knowing we\u2019ll reclaim it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Christopher Maggio is an assistant professor of humanities at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He\u2019s also a previous winner of River Styx’s Micro-fiction Microbrew contest, and his work has also appeared in University of Pittsburgh’s “The Original.”<\/p>\n
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