The Ticket Kept for Decades

For twenty-eight years, Luis kept an unused ferry ticket inside his passport. He had bought it on the morning he met the woman who later became his wife. Family legend held that he had missed the ferry because he could not bear to leave her. He repeated the story at anniversaries, usually after someone asked to see the ticket.

While renewing his passport, he noticed the departure time. The ferry had left before the afternoon party where they met. He remembered then that a delayed bus had ruined his original plan. The discovery was small but uncomfortable. Had he gradually changed the story, or had everyone else supplied a romantic explanation which he had been happy to borrow?

His wife examined the ticket and laughed. She had never entirely believed his version, since he had spent most of the party talking to her cousin. Luis felt briefly injured. He had thought the story belonged to both of them. She said the marriage did, but the missed ferry had always sounded like a rather convenient introduction to it.

At their next anniversary dinner, Luis told the revised account. Their daughter groaned at losing a favourite story, then asked what had persuaded him to call her mother afterwards. He described an argument about a film and how much he had wanted to continue it. His wife corrected the film's title. That detail, at least, they could disagree about together in the present.