Eternal Flame

One of my wife’s friends—let’s call her Kim, because that is her name—once asked Mary, “How did you meet Tom?”

Now, Mary didn’t blink. She didn’t crack a smile or offer up one of those polite chuckles folks use when they’re buying time to tell the truth gently. Nope.

With a face so flat and serious it could’ve passed for a pancake on Ash Wednesday, she said, “He burned me at the stake in 1642, and I swore revenge in another lifetime.”

And I’d like to point out—because I feel this is important—neither one of them had been drinking at the time.

Kim just sat there blinking, probably wondering if she ought to Google “reincarnated witch revenge” or call for backup. I sipped my coffee like I hadn’t just gotten accused of witch-burning in mixed company.

Mary carried on like she hadn’t just implied we were locked in some cosmic payback loop. It was, all things considered, one of the most romantic things she’d ever said about me.

Now, it’s not entirely far-fetched. I do tend to light fires.

Campfires, mostly, sometimes, our barbecue grill, and once, I tried to start a fire in the fireplace without opening the flue, and I ended up smoking out the living room so badly that the dog hid in the bathtub. Historically, I have had a complicated relationship with flames.

But I never burned anybody, not even in a metaphorical sense, unless you count overcooked toast or forgetting our anniversary that one time. But to be fair, I didn’t forget, I just misremembered it by 24 hours, which doesn’t qualify as “close enough” when you’re married.

Still, there’s something oddly comforting about the idea that Mary and I have been at this for centuries. I picture us back then—her with a pointy hat, me with a torch and pitchfork—only to end up here, sitting across from each other, arguing over whether the thermostat should be at “warm” or “desert inferno.”

You have to admit, it puts things in perspective. That dishwasher argument we had last week? Probably just a continuation of something we started long ago.

The way she always knows when I’ve had one too many Cowboy Coolaids? It could be centuries of practice.

And her uncanny ability to remember every dumb thing I’ve ever said? After a few lifetimes of mistakes, they can pile up.

Truth is, though, I wouldn’t mind if it were all true. If the whole ride—this long, strange loop we call love—is just another go-round between the same two souls trying to figure each other out, then I must’ve done something right. Even if that something involved kindling.

We never did explain the joke to Kim. She left with that unsettled look folks get after a ghost tour or a family reunion. But Mary winked at me when the door closed behind her, and I thought, Maybe I did burn her at the stake in 1642.

But if I did, she sure got the better end of the deal this time. I take out the trash, I rub her feet when it rains, and she’s got the Wi-Fi password.

If that ain’t karmic balance, I don’t know what is.