Truth in Advertising by John Kenney

his bad clothes, which I’ve tried hard to fix. Except I was the one who judged. Because here was this remarkable person, this loving, funny, amazingly kind person.”
    He talked for a few more minutes. I stopped listening, though, merely took in the tone, the reaction on the faces, laughing in the right places, moved at the right times. I thought of my family—Eddie, Kevin, Maura—whom I’d invited. Granted, it was a half-assed invitation, giving them an out if they wanted, saying I understood that it was a long way to come—especially for Kevin—for just a few hours on a Sunday night in Brooklyn. I said there was always the wedding. As it turned out, they all had plans that would have been tough to break. And I really didn’t expect them to come.
    Much later, after we canceled the wedding, we had to return the gifts. It took an entire day, Amy’s mother coming with us. We spoke almost not at all. The clerks would inevitably ask if there was any reason for the return. “We’ve canceled our wedding,” Amy would say simply.
    Late in the day, with one gift to return, Amy reached her limit. I told her I’d do it. I would have walked to Tierra del Fuego on my hands if it would have changed the expression on her face, lifted the gloom. All day I’d opened doors and gotten water and coffee, carried boxes and tried to smile, waited on them both like a beaten servant. And I was happy to play the role. I kept saying sorry.
    We were standing on Fifty-seventh and Lex and it was getting dark. I wanted a movie moment, a smile, a hug. I wanted forgiveness. Her mother stood a few feet away, examining her hands.
    I said, “I’ll call you, okay?”
    Amy stared. “No, Fin. You won’t.”
    I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
    Amy, with too much edge, her patience spent: “Stop saying you’re sorry , Fin.”
    It was loud on the street. Cabs honking their horns, a car alarm not far away. City noise wears on you sometimes. It had been a long day. Not enough food, too much coffee. I hadn’t been sleeping well. The thing is, I’m not someone who raises their voice. It came on fast, out of control.
    I said, “I didn’t plan this! Okay?! The idea wasn’t to hurt you! You think I like this? Hurting you? I don’t! I’m just so fucking sorry, okay?”
    My throat closed up and my eyes welled and my hands were shaking and I was pretty sure I was going to vomit. I bent forward, hands on my knees, like I was in a huddle, and a strange sound emanated from me, a kind of primal moan.
    And just that fast whatever anger was there was gone, and in its place an overwhelming regret that I had created all of this. I stood up and put my hands on my hips, trying to catch my breath, my heart beating like I just ran the hundred-yard dash. I think in that moment, for the first time in weeks, Amy saw me differently. If the look on her face was any indication—though how can one ever know these things for sure?—I think she saw that she wasn’t the only one in pain. Which is why she then sobbed harder than she had the night I said I couldn’t do it, wailing away a block from Bloomingdale’s.
    The point is that I never made it to Simon Pearce that day to return our last engagement party gift. Nor any day after that. I kept it. I do not know why, exactly, but I needed to hold on to it, even if only for the imaginary dinner party I would have with my imaginary wife, where one needs an obscenely expensive gravy boat.
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    The phone startles me. I see the display, the area code before the number. 617. Boston. It’s Eddie. It has to be. I watch myself watch the phone ring, like someone in a movie, and think, as I do when I’m watching a movie like that, Answer the phone! A tingling in my stomach, in my palms. Answer the phone, it’s your brother, for