Last night’s argument was not an argument, not formally. It was the rehearsal of silence. He came home late; he said he’d been driving. She stood in the kitchen doorway and asked where. He didn’t answer. He walked past her, smelling like night air and stress. She imagined roadside shoulders, the hum of tires on empty roads. He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. She watched him, believing that if she looked long enough, some word would rise from his chest like steam. None did. Eventually she said, “I’m going to bed,” which meant, I’m leaving you again in the safest way I know. She slept like a person who had to keep demonstrating sleep, waking every hour to prove she could.
Now the sun has cleared the neighbor’s roof and is pushing a pale square onto their wall. It stops just shy of the wedding photo, as if the light, too, is not sure where to stand. Lilian dries her hands on a dish towel and crosses to the wall. Up close, the photo’s details come forward: the thread of her veil snagged on the bouquet, an extra button undone at Ken’s wrist, a child in the background on tiptoe to see the bride, the gleam in Ken’s eyes that used to mean trouble and now means distance. She lifts the frame to straighten it. Her fingers hesitate. She feels foolish, superstitious. She thinks of every time she has tried to straighten something that refused to stay straight. She lets the frame go. It settles back into its slight error, unbothered by her restraint.
The living room clock ticks. The hour is a thin line she keeps crossing. She makes toast. She doesn’t eat it. She checks her phone. There’s a message from her mother that reads, You’re welcome to come by tonight, and another that says, Or we can come to you. Her mother has learned to offer both escape and witness. Lilian types We’ll see and deletes it. She types I’m okay and deletes that too. She sends a heart, which means nothing and everything.
When she returns to the couch, she sits where Ken usually sits and feels a small pang of trespass. She leans forward, elbows on knees, and stares at the door. If he were to walk in now, he would take in the scene quickly, the way he always does: Lilian waiting, the crooked frame, the uneaten toast, the day already loaded like a spring. He would nod at the photo, a private joke he refuses to tell. He would kiss the top of her head or he wouldn’t. Either way, the room would remain just as full and just as empty.
In the early years, Ken loved to drive at night. He’d take her on roads that seemed to slip out from the map itself, their headlights carving soundless tunnels through trees. “Don’t worry,” he’d say when she gripped the handle a little too hard on a sharp turn. “I know this road.” “I don’t,” she’d say. “That’s why I’m here.” Now she knows the road too well. The turns are all the same, and there’s no destination at the end, just a cul-de-sac with a sign that says No Outlet, and they circle it until morning.
On the bookshelf beneath the photo sits a stack of their old lives: brochures from a trip they planned but never took, a scuffed ring box, ticket stubs from a film they both hated but pretended to like to keep the evening easy. There’s a jar of matchsticks with a label Ken made on a slow Sunday: Light me for good news. The lid is dusty.
She gets up and turns off the faucet she’d left dripping. The sound of the last drops echoing down the drain seems larger than it should, a metal applause that no one asked for. She stands in the doorway again, the house arranged like a set. The couch. The mug ring. The slant of light. The crooked photo with its stubborn smile.
There is a note on the counter that she didn’t notice before. It’s not a note, really. It’s a grocery list in Ken’s quick hand: milk, bread, batteries. The batteries are for the smoke detector that chirped two nights ago and then fell silent. She circles the word batteries with her finger as if touching the ink could extract meaning. Milk, bread, batteries: the essentials to keep a house pretending.
Now the sun has cleared the neighbor’s roof and is pushing a pale square onto their wall. It stops just shy of the wedding photo, as if the light, too, is not sure where to stand. Lilian dries her hands on a dish towel and crosses to the wall. Up close, the photo’s details come forward: the thread of her veil snagged on the bouquet, an extra button undone at Ken’s wrist, a child in the background on tiptoe to see the bride, the gleam in Ken’s eyes that used to mean trouble and now means distance. She lifts the frame to straighten it. Her fingers hesitate. She feels foolish, superstitious. She thinks of every time she has tried to straighten something that refused to stay straight. She lets the frame go. It settles back into its slight error, unbothered by her restraint.
The living room clock ticks. The hour is a thin line she keeps crossing. She makes toast. She doesn’t eat it. She checks her phone. There’s a message from her mother that reads, You’re welcome to come by tonight, and another that says, Or we can come to you. Her mother has learned to offer both escape and witness. Lilian types We’ll see and deletes it. She types I’m okay and deletes that too. She sends a heart, which means nothing and everything.
When she returns to the couch, she sits where Ken usually sits and feels a small pang of trespass. She leans forward, elbows on knees, and stares at the door. If he were to walk in now, he would take in the scene quickly, the way he always does: Lilian waiting, the crooked frame, the uneaten toast, the day already loaded like a spring. He would nod at the photo, a private joke he refuses to tell. He would kiss the top of her head or he wouldn’t. Either way, the room would remain just as full and just as empty.
In the early years, Ken loved to drive at night. He’d take her on roads that seemed to slip out from the map itself, their headlights carving soundless tunnels through trees. “Don’t worry,” he’d say when she gripped the handle a little too hard on a sharp turn. “I know this road.” “I don’t,” she’d say. “That’s why I’m here.” Now she knows the road too well. The turns are all the same, and there’s no destination at the end, just a cul-de-sac with a sign that says No Outlet, and they circle it until morning.
On the bookshelf beneath the photo sits a stack of their old lives: brochures from a trip they planned but never took, a scuffed ring box, ticket stubs from a film they both hated but pretended to like to keep the evening easy. There’s a jar of matchsticks with a label Ken made on a slow Sunday: Light me for good news. The lid is dusty.
She gets up and turns off the faucet she’d left dripping. The sound of the last drops echoing down the drain seems larger than it should, a metal applause that no one asked for. She stands in the doorway again, the house arranged like a set. The couch. The mug ring. The slant of light. The crooked photo with its stubborn smile.
There is a note on the counter that she didn’t notice before. It’s not a note, really. It’s a grocery list in Ken’s quick hand: milk, bread, batteries. The batteries are for the smoke detector that chirped two nights ago and then fell silent. She circles the word batteries with her finger as if touching the ink could extract meaning. Milk, bread, batteries: the essentials to keep a house pretending.
