EMILY PRATT SLATIN

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She/Her/Hers Lesbian

Retired Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer, living in Vermont.

She Was My One And Only Marriage

Amelia and I are filing for divorce.

This morning, we were at the Mirabito gas station in Richmondville getting gas for her Bronco when the lawyer from Vermont called me. Divorce, like most adult problems, apparently begins with calendar availability.

Amelia was sitting in the driver seat when the lawyer called. Amelia said she would have to drive several hours back to Vermont from Erie, Pennsylvania, for the appointment, but she would do it because she wants the divorce finalized as soon as possible.

I told her that if this is truly what she wants in her heart, then I will grant her the request. I do not believe love gives me the right to keep someone in a marriage they no longer want, even when letting them go is the exact opposite of what I want.

It does not mean my feelings changed when hers did. In fact, I still love her.

After getting gas, we went to the bank so Amelia could open an account in her own name. We met with a nice woman who helped us through the process. She had no way of knowing that the account represented one more practical step toward the end of our marriage. To her, it was simply another account opened during an ordinary day at work.

There are milestones in relationships that people photograph. Engagements, weddings, anniversaries, houses, road trips, and the first time two lives become joined closely enough that separating them again seems impossible.

Nobody takes a photograph when one person opens a bank account in her own name in preparation for separating.

When Amelia and I left the bank, we got into her Bronco. As we were leaving the parking lot, she told me that I should not worry because there would be other women in my life. According to her, I should have no problem finding another relationship.

I think she was trying to make me feel better. It did not make me feel better.

Amelia does not understand that I am not worried about whether another woman might eventually want to be with me. I am losing my wife, my live-in best friend, and the person I chose for my one and only marriage.

Before we married, I told Amelia that she should not expect me to be exclusive. I also told her that regardless of how our marriage ended, whether by death or divorce, I would never marry again.

Marriage was not about exclusivity. I married her because she was Amelia. She was quirky, wild, and utterly fascinating.

There may be other women in my life. There may not be. I cannot predict that, and right now I do not particularly care to try. Another relationship would not be another marriage. Another woman would not be another Amelia.

She was my one and only marriage.

After the bank, we went to Walmart in Cobleskill to get groceries. It is my favorite Walmart. Having a favorite Walmart is a strangely specific preference, but adulthood eventually provides people with strong opinions about stores, parking lots, and which roads are worth avoiding.

We bought the groceries and continued with the day. The ordinary parts of life continued as if nothing important had happened. Meanwhile, our marriage was being converted into a legal process.

When I returned to Mom’s house, I went directly to my bedroom. Mom’s house and I have had the same relationship for many years—unless I’m occupied somewhere else in the house, outside, or somewhere in town, I’m here in my bedroom. It is the one room where I can close the door, sit quietly, and stop having to explain what I am thinking.

Wordlessly I sat in my chair as I gazed out the window at the carriage house. It feels like the little girl who grew up here never really left. She’ll look at you and smile. She’s a sweet girl—a typical 90’s child.

She lived here before I knew anything about marriage, divorce, lawyers, separate bank accounts, or how quickly a life can change after someone walks into a room with a letter.

She did not know Amelia yet.

She did not know that one day she would leave Stamford, spend years trying to become useful enough that nobody could discard her, retire from a life of emergency services, move to Vermont, and meet her future wife. She could never have imagined that after Mom died, she would return to this house and sit in the same bedroom while trying to understand the end of her marriage.

For years, I believed that the different versions of me belonged to separate periods of my life. Childhood Emily stayed in Stamford. Work Emily belonged to my two decades in emergency services. Vermont Emily lived on the farm. Crazy Emily was the one who liked to explore abandoned buildings, hop freight, and chase adventure. The writer watched all of them from somewhere outside the story and tried to make the entire sequence appear intentional.

I know better now. I do not regret marrying Amelia. I would make the same choice again even knowing how it ends. A marriage does not become a mistake simply because it did not last for the remainder of both people’s lives.

Whether our marriage ended by death or divorce, I would marry only once. Amelia was that once.

Years from now, someone will ask if I ever married, and I’ll say yes. I was married once, a long, long time ago. But I won’t say how young I was, or how long it lasted. Time is a poor measure of what a person meant to you.