Dear Sean

Six

                        “Well, I dunno, she’s never been my favorite relative. She’s always tryin’ to pinch our cheeks like we’re little children, and she calls Cousin John ‘Johnny dear,’ which he hates. She’s also got these wobbly chins and warts covering her nose, and it’s disgusting when she touches your face with her fat, greasy fingers.”

The driver let out a booming laugh. “Yeah, I’ve got a great-auntie jus’ like that—grabbin’ our faces all the time and saying she remembers when we were babies!”

Paul laughed along with the man. “Yeah, yeah, jus’ like Betty!”

We were in London four hours later, after talking with the nice man driving the lorry.

“Alright boys, London. Good luck with your auntie!”

Paul saluted and the man left with one last wave.

London. The real posh world. But we weren’t yet inside the city, only at another motorway. I sighed and stuck my thumb out again, straightening my bowler hat.

We got on a few more cars after that, staying only a short while on each car, until we found a French family near the border that was driving back home to Paris.

Stupid bloody howling kid. I’m never having children.

I looked out the window moodily while Paul, decidedly in a chatty mood today, tried to make polite conversation in broken French.

“Oui, oui. Ooh là là.”

I had a distinct feeling that his interjections didn’t fit into the conversation.

Meanwhile the child next to Paul was crying, and no one seemed to bother to do anything about it. He squirmed and kicked and shouted until his face was red, his mouth wide open, his nostrils grotesquely flared, a drip of snot leaking from his nose into his opened mouth where two teeth protruded, fat tears beading in the corner of his eyes he’d squeezed shut.

“How much longer until we get there?” I whispered to Paul.

Paul mimed checking his watch. “Paris?”

“Cinq heures,” the woman said.

Paul knit his eyebrows together in concentration. “I think she said five hours.”

I muffled a scream into my bowler hat.

            By the time we were in Paris, we’d been traveling a very long time. We got a room in a hotel in Paris.

            “Look at this shithole hotel, this should be cheap,” Paul said enthusiastically.

            “Sure, if you like it…” I said dubiously. I pushed one door open (the other one hanging, broken, off its hinges) and entered the musty-smelling lobby.

            I let Paul try to communicate that we needed a room for the night.

            Paul spoke slowly, in bits of French then turned to me. “Two beds?” Paul asked.

            “No, I think one will be enough,” I said, my lips curling into a smile as I recovered slightly.

            Paul sauntered over a few minutes later, holding up our hotel key with a triumphant smile. “I spoke French!” he chirped as we started to climb up the stairs to our second-floor room.

            “Yeah, sure,” I said affectionately.

            Our room was a lovely. So lovely, actually that I decided to stay in Paris instead of going to Spain.

            “Ugliest, dirtiest, smallest room I’ve ever seen…but it was cheap,” I remarked.

            “It’s fine. Better than another car,” Paul reasoned.

            I shuddered at the thought of taking another car full of unpleasant, loud, crying children, for hours on end until Spain…

            I let myself fall on the bed, the mattress groaning loudly in protest. Paul took off his shoes, always one to be tidy and clean, and settled next to me.

            My chin came to rest on the top of Paul’s hair, which tickled my neck whenever he took a breath. I let my thumb absently swipe across Paul’s palm, while we sat there quietly.

            “You know… we could just stay here,” Paul said, twisting around to look at me.

            I planted a kiss gently on his lips, taking my time to linger on the edge of his mouth, which always produced a little shiver on his side. Paul was bloody perfect. “Sometimes I swear you can read my mind.”

            So we decided to stay and enjoy Paris. Paris might have been a beautiful city or a terrible one, I didn’t really notice. I said before that sometimes it’s only about whether you have the right person with you. All I could notice was Paul, and he was definitely the right person.

One day I hope you'll find someone like that, someone to share your life with. And when you do--when you really find someone that's so perfect, you know that this is it, please Sean, do this for me: don't let that person go.

I let Paul go, he slipped right between my fingers and I will never forgive myself.

I'm a bad example, don't make the same mistakes as I did.