They say when one flower blooms, it’s spring everywhere. You, Julie, my spring, my love, sat in the passenger seat next to me. We’d left Los Angeles that morning after dropping off our dogs with the sitter, laughing at the idea that our dogs thought the sitter, a woman, looked like jowly Winston Churchill. “She just needs a cigar,” her dog, a Jack Russell, would say. 

As we drove on the freeway into Las Vegas under dark storm clouds, rain blew down hard against our windshield. After the West had been in a severe drought for three years, we were in a storm. We hadn’t seen rain for most of a year. It felt good. It’d be adrenaline for the flowers. 

I was at the wheel of your car, wearing my favorite baseball cap, the one that said Descanso Gardens, a place we’d discovered north of downtown Los Angeles on one of our first dates. Lots of flowers. Now, on our first real trip together, you had wanted a latte, nonfat, and found a Starbucks on your cell phone. Following your directions, I took the exit into the southern tip of the city, and you pressed your foot on an imaginary brake as if you were driving. 

“What? You think I’m going too fast?” I asked you.

“Dietmar” is all you said, stretching it out like my mother might when flustered.

“What?”

“Just don’t skid off the road. I want to keep my car a while.”

“Why would I want to skid?”

“You’re sometimes not aware. That’s all.”

“I’m from Montana. I’m used to snow, rain, and big SUVs like this fucker.”

“You don’t have to swear. I was just pointing out a fact.”

I didn’t want to argue. Lightning struck. It felt like your personality suddenly. 

I came to the stop sign slowly. We did not skid. Still, what you had just said stood out like your blond hair on my black sweater. 

At that moment, I realized that you, the love of my life, lately had been hurling odd remarks at me. Was something eating at you? Just last weekend, as we passed a dead cat in the road, you had said, “That’s something you’d do, hit a cat.”

“I love cats. I wouldn’t run over one.”

“What if it jumped in front of your car?”

“Then I’d probably run over it.” 

“See,” you’d said.

“And what if a skunk did that in front of you? You’d hit it and we’d have the skunk smell.”

“Skunks are terrible animals. They deserve to die.” 

We had been dating half of a year, a few years after your fiancé had died in a car accident, and my late wife passed thanks to a falling person from a bridge.  You and I recently decided we wanted marriage and kids. Could I do so with someone who thought I’d kill a cat or skid her car purposely off the road? Evie was never like this. I missed her.

As I was about to turn left into the Starbucks lot, a red car approached us, rain still lashing against the car. You reached up to hold the dashboard as if I was going to turn in front of the car. I’d never done anything for you to question my driving.

“I’m careful,” I said. “I don’t have a death wish.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“Your hand on the dashboard.” 

“You don’t always see things,” you said.

 “I observe.” 

“Give me a break,” you said. I then made the left turn just fine.

“I did brake.” I glanced at you, and you rolled your eyes. 

I had loved Evie in part because we had never argued. You, though, had pointed out my marriage hadn’t been perfect because we’d never argued. “You get to know a person with a little confrontation,” you said. “It’s a a natural part of a close relationship.”

We must be close, then. I just had to argue better. I said to you, my love, “Is this the way it’s going to be all the way to Denver? You chopping at me?”

“Chopping? Is that how you feel?” 

“Yes.”

“You’re damn moody.”

“God damn it,” I said, starting to feel that fist in my gut. “I’m not!”

“Watch it!”

As I parked, I banged into the front bumper of another parked car, a Mercedes. Our heads might have jerked forward. A dent may have occurred. 

“Look what you made me do!” I shouted.

“I made you? Listen to yourself.” You then tugged at the engagement ring on your finger. “Off damn ring,” you said. “You don’t deserve my wearing it.”

As you pulled at the ring that I’d spent good money on—not zirconium but a real fucking diamond—I pounded the steering wheel the way a drunk Johnny Depp might slam cabinets.

“You’re high fucking maintenance!” I yelled.

You burst open the door, slammed it. I hurried out, too. Just then, an older man, hunched and with short gray hair at the door of Starbucks, shouted. “We saw the whole thing. You hit the car.” His gray-pony-tailed wife stood next to him, nodding.

“Both bumpers look fine,” I shouted to them. “They’re rubber.” And then to you: “I’m rubber. You’re glue. What you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.”

Now you stepped over and stood in front of me. I was ready to shout something else. My mind scanned what possible horrible thing I could say. Maybe about your dog. Your dog is too fat. However, your face softened. What? What was going on?

“I’m sorry,” you said. “I love you.” Then you pulled me closer, and a scent lifted from your neck, that of roses. You kissed my cheek, then lips. How am I supposed to deal with that? 

“A love story!” shouted the pony-tailed wife happily.

“I’m sorry,” you said again. “I don’t mean to be critical.” 

“I—I—I—” was all I could get out. How could I take this change? I held my hand on the hood to balance myself. Could I survive love?

The rain had settled to a drizzle. I nonetheless felt wet. 

“I’m trying to be better,” you said. “I kind of like your getting mad.”

“I don’t. I hate when I lose myself. I don’t like me this way.”

“I know,” you said. “We just… I don’t know, have to love each other.” You kissed me again. I kissed back. “Better?” you asked.

“Yes.” But you were shattering my world. What if this happens again? What am I supposed to do or say? What if I can’t control myself? 

A gust of wind came and blew off my hat into a puddle. Now my hat was wet and muddy on the inside.  

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