16

 For the first fifteen years of a marriage there are clearly marked anniversaries. The first is your "paper anniversary", the second "cotton", the third "leather", because the marriage needs a bit of spicing up by the third year. These named anniversaries continue until the fifteenth, which is "crystal". After that there's nothing until your "porcelain" twentieth, at which point tradition dictates you fit a new bathroom suite. Hallmark have a list of extra named anniversaries - the sixteenth is, according to them, "wax" - but whether that's because they have a job-lot of Yankee Candles they can't shift or they're concerned about my bikini line, I'm not sure. It seems unofficial anyway. Officially, there's nothing. It all falls away after crystal. 

 

 

16. 

16 years. 

That is a very long time. 

My marriage could join the army. It's legally allowed to have sex. It can buy cigarettes or, possibly, vapes. I don't know the law on vaping. It's waded through the tar pits of puberty and is probably shaving parts of its anatomy regularly. It might have a job. It probably has a mullet and lifts. Or it could be an incel fulminating and furious on the internet, with a neckbeard and mouthful of Cheetos. 

16 years. 

The wedding was a very long time ago, Kelly. 

My first novel is out next month. I'm old and it took a long time but I finally got there. My first novel. 

It's dedicated to you. 

I think you would have liked it. I think you would have laughed - it's meant to be funny. You are my ideal reader.