...As night drops her cloak across the park, we walk the zigzagging trails through the property to the water’s edge, giggling at everything and nothing while the sounds of at least a hundred campers slither around us. At the water's edge, briny sulfur makes us wrinkle our noses, but we tiptoe out onto the wooden pier as it angles into the marsh. We sit cross-legged in a huddle, surprised the breeze's touch is so chilly here in mid-June. We fasten our eyes on the spiraling fairy-like light that angles from the Assateague lighthouse. We take turns making up outrageous stories until we are squirming from the sting of biting insects and jump up to race back to our cabin for more bug spray.

Later, I will be the last one to drift off. The top bunk is a hugely uncomfortable mistake, but I refuse to relinquish it. I smile as I think of our evening: the Pandora Gay Pride station I blasted on my cell phone which our neighbors may not have appreciated; our raucous game of laser tag that probably also did not endear us to the nearby glampers; building up the campfire with the popping of the pine cones we threw in for good measure while the blistering flames singed most of the marshmallows past edibility; the love the three of us share no matter our growing pains. Sleep eventually worms its way behind my lids.

Since our first year in Chincoteague when they were seven, they have never wanted to ride bikes out to Assateague, but the next morning I force them to do it again for the fifth time... 

...I drain the rest of my cosmo. The last of its sharp flavor fades from my palate just like I fear the vestiges of youth are slipping from my face. “I’m your wife, but, somehow, I’m not worth consulting about something that affects us both?” 

“We’re married, not shackled.”

An old argument. I nibble at the bread, cursing myself for the carbs. Damn him!

I look through him toward the crowd at the bar—  a mixed group of young to middle-age professionals just off work. That perks me up. I concentrate on sucking back unshed tears and tilt to the side a bit, to better display my decolletage. My husband never notices my breasts anymore.

I make eye contact. He’s younger than me, his athletic figure poised casually against the bar, a black and tan held loosely in one hand. His eyes rake my body in an appreciative manner and he boldly meets my gaze again....

In the restroom I rail against my spouse. I can say in a whisper to the mirror everything I do not bother to say anymore to his face. “Cold-hearted, selfish bastard!” Arguing with him always ends with him reminding me that he makes more money than I do: that I can take low paying teaching jobs in my obsession with helping struggling kids only because he makes a decent living.

I touch up my lipstick, and adjust my push-up bra. I refuse to show him that he can still hurt me. As I leave the restroom, still lost in my mental rampage, I run right into Cutie.