Day 692

“If only there could be an invention… that bottled up a memory, like a scent.  And it never faded, and it never got stale.  And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again… I’d like to keep this moment and never forget it.”
–Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Hours before I was lying in bed reading my just-because present from the Manhattan bookstore, I was sitting in the passenger’s seat of my car.  My hair twirled out of the band and dangled out the window.  My eyes blinked back sun-induced tears.  We were not in Monte Carlo: we were not even in Manhattan.  There were no peasants wandering the streets.  There were no haunting Rebeccas or fat Van Hoppers, thank God.

I thought to myself, “if I could pick a day to live again, I would pick today.  Today: perfect.”

We fell in love, but not today.  We traveled to Gallop, Bryson City, Savannah, and New York City, but not today. We were married in a perfect service on a rainy day, but not today.  Today, I sat by my husband after a trip to the grocery store and a walk around the Forum.  The windows were down;  the sunroof was open;  his favorite music was blaring.

We didn’t talk.  We weren’t, at the moment, holding hands, but I would take the second Mrs. de Winter’s invention and apply it to this moment over all moments.  In this moment, I realized not that I loved my husband but that I loved him more on Day 692 than I did when I told him I loved him on Day 63 or when we married on Day 321.  I think I would keep Day 692 bottled up as if a scent, but I know the scent of Day 693 will be too intoxicating to compare to 692.