I remember when Lucy Grace rode in the backseat of my Civic to the gourmet hot dog cart five minutes from the office, and the carefully curated mix CD I’d loaded played “I Want You” by Bob Dylan. Lucy Grace said she liked that song, a point I weighted with false significance for the implications she, too, liked songs that dated back to before either of us were born, and because, in that moment of Dylan’s haggard voice singing I want you so bad, I couldn’t help thinking she shared in the sensation I felt. I.e., I want you. So bad.
In some alternate universe, I held her hand then, but in this one, we had two other work friends in the car, and if I’m being honest, it was a reach to think that—even if the desire were mutual—she’d have gone so far as to lend voice or a squeeze of the hand to innuendo. Lucy Grace was reserved. As I studied the bounce of her curls in the rearview mirror, she likely as not spoke literally that she liked the song, no further implication about the song’s meaning or the profundity of her connection to the music. It might have been the first time she heard it. And it is a very good song.
I remember years earlier, traveling similar roads by moonlight and streetlights and headlights, all of it too bright when I was too drunk to responsibly be behind the wheel. Drunk on two-for-one fruit-flavored beers, a gimmick of a downtown bar in my new city where I’d moved nine or ten months before. I belched and tasted peaches. Drunk on a crew of three of my childhood best friends making the road trip to see me. Drunk on my first months of being single after my preceding three relationships had dove-tailed one into another, a daisy chain of serial monogamy that left me attached for five years, and here I was joyously liberated and afraid of dying alone.
Good music played, though I don’t remember the song, the band, only that it was me and my particularly musically inclined friend Peek and we were talking music when the GPS instructions were fuzzy and the signage was haphazard and I wound up turning onto a set of light rail tracks not intended for automobile traffic. The way Peek recalls it, we almost died—overdramatizing it some, but if a train had been on its way, his assessment would’ve been merited, and that’s if he’d lived to make the assessment at all.
I got us home and grew more conservative about how much I drank before I got behind the wheel, internalizing a lesson it’s embarrassing I hadn’t absorbed earlier.
I remember my buddy Darren’s father died when we were teenagers—an early morning jogger struck by a drunk driver. That’s when I should have learned the lesson (as if I should have needed any catastrophe at all to master this swatch of common sense).
Darren and I grabbed Mexican food not so long ago. A dinner I brought a little social anxiety to because we hadn’t kept in great touch since we went to different colleges and never lived in the same town again, over twenty years out. We were mostly Facebook friends by then.
We fell into an easy rhythm, though, catching up on our marriages, our families, our jobs. I congratulated him on opening his own law practice and he met it with on-brand mix of self-deprecation (just how small boutique could imply, working from home, meeting his few clients at Starbucks, writing it off when he bought their coffee) and grandeur (he made as much as he ever did at the big law firm back in Manhattan; his work-life balance and cost-of-living expenses alike were healthier than ever). He asked about my teaching career and revealed he’d looked me up on RateMyProfesssor. He said my students loved me, though they also thought I was a pushover when it came to grading their essays.
We only talked about his dad insofar as an acknowledgment Darren still helped organize a walk/run in the man’s honor, a virtual option born out of COVID persisting in ways that allowed for interested parties to still participate without the inconveniences of a trip home. A subtle jab, maybe, that I’d never participated in-town or from afar. An acknowledgment that the adult trips home wore on him too, to the point he was grateful he could log his mileage on a website and call it a day without the rigors of travel and divided time and attention between all the people he ought to invest in with his limited time.
A story from my wedding came up. An uncomfortable truth: neither of us attended the other’s wedding. He was invited to another the same weekend as mine and chose that one instead. He didn’t invite me to his wedding, though given the time and location, I probably would have bowed out just the same.
I remember a scene from my wedding weekend, grabbing a late breakfast at the diner near our hotel, where I met up with a couple I was close to from childhood and a couple I was close to in college. I’d been in both of their weddings and bringing these couples together over syrup-slathered sweet cream waffles felt right—all the more kismet when my father-in-law-to-be wandered in for a cup of coffee and joined us.
I thought of this wedding in the light of a celebration of the people close to us—Heather and I, at the dawn of our new life together. Wasn’t that the spirit of a wedding? Bring together family, old friends, but also fostering new connections, infinite permutation of people we might spend time with over years to come. A new beginning.
In hindsight, I’ve come to recognize weddings—at least our wedding—as more of a farewell tour. A year later, we found ourselves living in a new town where we’d settled because we were expecting and needed reliable, full health coverage and it’s the first place either of us landed a job that fit the bill. Then there was parenting, and a striking number of our friends parenting too, everyone in these new stages of life incompatible with long-distance friendships that necessitated degrees of travel and scheduling phone calls across time zones.
Years later, I tried to rally a group of college friends to return to campus for the twentieth anniversary of graduation, Alumni Weekend. From what I could gather, I lived farther away than most, had the most planning to do for a cross-country flight and lodging, besides coordinating with Heather’s schedule for childcare purposes. They stayed home. Only three friends agreed to come, it turned out, and one canceled at the last minute.
Years from now, I’ll remember this period. Heather and I coordinate logistics daily, a shared Apple Calendar representing shared responsibilities, two halves a shared life. It comes with resentments sometimes. That I spend more time out of the house—teaching twelve credits per semester, plus steadily increasing service responsibilities on campus. Heather gets more consistent time to go to the gym, though and tends to have more visitors come into town.
Lucy Grace came up in conversation. I don’t remember why. But we both knew her, different contexts, different perceptions. One of my great unresolved crushes of adult life—a woman I burned bright for before she shot me down when I asked her to dinner. I lingered in her orbit of for another year or two while we still worked in the same office. I haven’t seen her since. Heather knew Lucy Grace as a coworker—smart, but socially awkward. Difficult to talk to. What would the two of you have even talked about? Heather asks, over a decade out, recognizing that I’m not a big talker myself. I’d be the quintessential dog who chased cars, who lucked out and caught one at a red light. I’d gnaw on a bumper, a tire, but have no idea what to do beyond that, never having imagined the pursuit would end.
I’m more prone to mourn possibilities of what might have been than the things—the people—I’ve had. I less miss the people from the wedding than the potential of our son knowing them as honorary aunts and uncles, and I’m at peace not really knowing Darren and the boys anymore because I once had them in my life every day.
I don’t think of Lucy Grace most days, but did when I played Audrey Hobert in the car, riding with Heather and Riley. “Don’t Go Back To His Ass,” from her sharp, concise debut album that I loved, that our son did not, opining the shift in music. He’d been obsessed with “Gangnam Style” for months. He knew the whole dance. He collected eighty-three cover versions on his YouTube Kids account—Liked in order to informally bookmark them for future reference. But Heather said the Hobert song sounded good, probably because she spoke literally, that she liked the song. It was the first time she heard it. And it is a very good song. No need to weight the moment with false significance when we were already married, possibilities realized.
I held her hand.
Michael Chin was born and raised in Utica, New York and currently lives in Las Vegas with his wife and son. He’s the author of seven full-length books, including his novel, My Grandfather’s an Immigrant, and So is Yours (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2021) and his latest short story collection This Year’s Ghost (JackLeg Press, 2025). His short work has previously appeared in journals including Bat City Review, Prairie Schooner, The Pinch, Passages North, and The Normal School. Find him online at miketchin.com.
Dodo Eraser 
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