What We Left Behind

And there he was. The rich American. The fat American. My Husband. My knight in shining armour.

   Well, ‘shining’ maybe is not the best word. ‘Tarnished’. That is a better word. My knight in tarnished armour. Though, ‘knight’ is not the best word, also. I do not know a better one. It was his job to love me, to open up this new life, in this land of opportunity.

   He did not know my secret. And never will. God willing.

   My husband held a sign with my name on it. Alexandra. It was spelled wrong. Aleksandra. Alex, to my few friends back home in Ukrayina. No not home. Not any more. This was my home now, with this man. My husband. He had seen my photo, through the Internet, and I had seen his. Still, we were strangers to one another, strangers now linked at the hip.

   “Hello,” he said, his strange accent making a slur of the word.

   “Hello,” I said, pitching my voice high. He would expect it to be high and I was used to the charade. I did not know what else to say.

   “Let me git that for ye.” He reached down, one meaty hand grazing my ass, and grabbed the handle of my single bag of luggage. Its wheel was broken and it wobbled as he dragged it to the taksi, tossed it roughly into the trunk, without a care for my things.

   “Well, hurry up!” he said, gesturing to the open door of the yellow taksi. “We’ve got to get home ‘fore four. The Diamondbacks are playin’ tonight. Playin’ the fuckin’ Pirates. I ain’t gonna miss that game. You like baseball?”

   “I do not know it very well. We do not like the Pirates?” I said, and entered the taksi.

   “Fuckin’ assholes, the Pirates.”

   “Hey! The Pirates ain’t so bad,” said the driver. I could see his eyes in the mirror. They were kind eyes. Naive eyes. He looked back at us, a cute smile on a crooked face. “My Pa’s from the Pitt.”

   My husband did not say anything back. Just grunted and gave the man a slip of paper.

   “42nd and third?” the driver said. He smiled at me, not my husband. Oh how his eyes glinted with good humour.

   I looked to my husband, not knowing what to say.

   “Yah,” he said. “42nd and third, like it says on the damn paper.” My husband looked at me and rolled his eyes.

   The driver gave me another of those knowing smiles. I was caught between the gazes of those two men. The taksi started moving.

   We were far from the airport when my husband spoke again. “So, girl. Tell me about yerself. Tell me everything.”

   I told him much during that car ride, for he was my husband. But I did not tell him everything.

Copyright © Aidan Moher, 2010