Is there room for love in a world of business calls and missed dinners,with the expected consolation prize within the cliché trurquoise box? There were never any tears, arguments. Just that old couch we picked up off the roadside for free to remind me of your passing smile.How spontaneous we felt, seizing the unwanted, stained sofa
wreeking of long-haired cat and cigarettes.“It’s so not us,” I said, gawking at the bold pale brown and forest green stripes, yet you needed it. I wonder if you thought you had fooled me, if I was truly laughing or just trying to. Together, we squeezed that dense piece of furniture through the doorway, and arranged it into your plain living room as carefully as hideous couch would allow.

We didn’t know what to do with it.

The couch became the subject of stories we told at dinner parties, our deliberate friends posed for pictures next to the giant coffee stain, blackening one of the green stripes. It even made an appearance in one of Christmas cards. This burdensome piece of furniture somehow haunted me for all it represented. It was the only ugly thing in out polished relationship.The only living thing. There was never any room for that couch in our home, just as there was never any room for love.