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Stir crazy after a day-off spent in the apartment, I begged Adam to leave his homework and go to see Spiderman 3 with me. It took a surprising amount of arm-twisting, but I won in the end. I know, I’m such a supportive wife.

Spiderman was so good! Didn’t you think so? Adam said the reviews had been less than glowing, so I was pleasantly surprised. It was full of unexpected twists (at least for me, who has never read the comic books).

Outside the theater at the dark, quiet bus stop, we heard a girl shriek. Adam and I stared in alarm. Where did it come from? She continued sporadically yelling at someone on the other end of a cell phone or someone who was speaking in a low voice. It sounded like her yelling came from the roof of the mall across from us. Was it a lovers’ spat? Maybe she was around the side of the building. I expected Adam to shoot webs from his wrists and go check out the situation. He hesitated. “What would I say? I can’t speak Korean. And I don’t know how to call the cops.” And then our bus came. We boarded.

We sat in silence staring forward for a few minutes. “I keep thinking of what we heard,” Adam muttered. Was it just an argument? Was she on the phone? Was she being raped? I thought we should have checked it out, and I said so.

Adam reminded me of one of our glowing, cinematic moments. What if some silent Korean man had come to break it up?…

Back when Adam and I were dating, we were having dinner at his parents’ house. They sent us out to pick up some sodas and sandwiches from Subway. We jumped happily into Achilles, Adam’s blue olvo station wagon (he had lost a “V” somewhere along the way). Adam pulled up to the main intersection in the left turn lane, and I reminded him that Subway was to the right. “I grew up in this neighborhood! Don’t you think I know that?” he bit back. He pulled left into Walgreens and went in for a few minutes, emerging with a grocery bag of sodas. I gave him the silent treatment as we pulled back onto the road and down a ways into the Subway. We silently picked up the sandwiches and the martyr in me erupted as we got back into the car. Somehow the three minute drive back to the house was enough to scream some really bad words, and I reached for my purse, ready to bolt.

As the olvo rolled into ‘park’, I threw open the passenger-side door and sprinted to my Ford Probe. I dove into the drivers seat and peeled out of the driveway. Stunned, Adam tore down the driveway on foot after my fleeing car. Tires squealed as I threw the car into ‘drive’. Adam continued chasing me down the block. I finally slowed down when I was out of the neighborhood. Five minutes down the road, trying to figure out where I was supposed to go, my cell phone rang. After some debate and agreement that we should talk, I turned around and went back. Adam’s parents ate Subway sandwiches inside as Adam and I sat in the park gazebo across the street for hours into the night. Apparently, we hadn’t just been arguing about directions to Subway.

Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have checked on that girl. We should have. But sometimes it’s good to argue. If you push through it and don’t give up, your relationship is that much better. Making up is good.

We have a story that is infinitely more cinematic than even that, and I’ll tell you some time. But not tonight.

Much love,

-Jessica

(Images thanks to Cinematic Orchestra and Marvel Comics.)