I don’t actually even like ducks all that much. But she did, so I kept buying them. It was worth it just to see the look on her face every time and to hear her voice as she gushed over them.

  So now I live in a house filled with ducks. Figurines, paintings, photos, plushes, mps. One of the bathrooms is even wallpapered with a duck pattern. In retrospect, I suppose it’s odd that I kept them all for myself instead of giving them as gifts to her. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to keep inviting her back over. Not that she ever needed an excuse to get me to visit her.

  I’m not sure why we just kept living as next door neighbors instead of ever moving in together. Heaven knows that we spent enough time and nights in one another’s homes that we might as well have. Maybe it’s for the same reason we never got married? By the time it was legal for us to, we were so old and set in our ways that it didn’t seem worth the trouble. We knew who we were and what we meant to each other long before we had the state’s approval, so what did we need it for now?

  I wish we had.

  Too te now.

  Did she even like ducks?

  Or did she just like me trying to show off for her?

  Did she think I was the duck-obsessed weirdo in the retionship and found that cute?

  I should have asked her.