Things We Didn't Say Yesterday: #3

I am not the Post Office

Cindy lay in bed and watched the blades of the ceiling fan wobble. She remembered when Chris had tried to install the fan, how he had mis-wired something and sparked himself off the ladder. Afterward, he hadn't been shy about saying he needed an electrician, though he did admit the failure made him feel a bit dainty. "This is dangerous stuff," he'd said. "A man has to know his limitations."

She wanted to sleep, but the roating bit of film noir above her head was also noisy. Most days so far had been good or at least okay, but this Saturday had been long and exhausting, first from cleaning each room of the house, second from finding a batch of invoices Chris had left behind--invoices from the marriage counselor they had seen for awhile. Against her better judgement she had picked up one of the invoices--one from a time shortly after they had begun seeing a marriage counselor together, something that Cindy had also thought was against her better judgement. In a marriage that had degenerated into habitual appeasements and accommodations, agreeing to see whatever-that-counselor's-name-was had been both an appeasement and an accommodation.

"It won't do any good," Cindy had argued when Chris first broached the idea.

"It might do some good," Chris had argued back.

The invoice was now with the others stuffed into a desk drawer, but Cindy felt that the jumble of numbers and dollar signs were living their own quantified version of "The Telltale Heart."

"He says we should try to talk things out," Chris had said after what might have been his second solo visit. "He says even if things are bad, we have to talk."

"I beg to differ," Cindy had replied.

"Why not just talk?"

"We have talked, Chris."

He ignored her. "And he gave me a list of exercises we could try."

"Exercises--you mean like Kegels?"

"Like what?"

"Forget it. I don't want to do any exercises."

"He says they're designed to help restore a connection between us."

"I think that connection is shorted out."

"That's not funny." He had remained somewhat sensitive about the ceiling fan.

"It's not supposed to be. It's a metaphor."

He'd turned away in frustration then and left her alone for a couple of weeks, though he asked each Tuesday night if she'd go with him to see this counselor. Now, on the bed, Cindy wanted to sleep. Instead, she retrieved the stack of invoices, stuffed them into a large envelope that she addressed to Chris at his new apartment. She put all the stamps she could find on the envelope's corner, and before she sealed the contents, she wrote this: "Take your garbage. I am not the Post Office."

She knew he would read the note and wonder just what it was supposed to mean, and Cindy also knew that she wasn't sure she could explain it. She just wanted them gone--the flimsy sheets of paper, the quantification. Everything.

Things We Didn't Say Yesterday: #2

I never liked them.

The second time they exchanged rings, there were no witnesses. They sat at a picnic table in the small park where Chris had taught her how to play tennis. She had gotten quite good about the time he had lost interest.

Cindy ran the index finger of her right hand over the small diamond. "How much did we pay for these?"

"Not much."

"Well, it doesn't seem like much now, but it was a lot then."

Chris spun his gold band on the top of the table. "But doesn't this seem awkward? I mean, why don't we just keep our own rings and do what we want with them."

Cindy shook her head. "This seems better. More equal. I bought yours and you bought mine. Now we can sell them for what we can get."

"It doesn't seem equal to me. That's not the word I would use."

"You already used 'awkward', so I get your point." She looked down at the diamond again. "Would you be hurt if I told you something?"

Chris laughed. "That's one of those stupid things people say, isn't it? You put it in those terms, then I know I'll be hurt."

"You think I'm that bad of a person?"

"Say what you want to say. I'm probably beyond being hurt at this point."

"Okay. These rings? I never liked them."

"You helped pick them out!"

"Yes. I know. You liked them, you liked the traditional of gold. I wanted something silver."

"You never said anything. Why didn't you say something?"

"I don't know. I wasn't brave enough before, I guess. Or strong enough. You just seemed so happy when you saw them lying in the case like they were, the way the light hit them."

He took her ring from her, and he gave her his. She looked at his face, at how he reacted. She couldn't tell if he was hurt. When they were first married she could have seen how he felt, but he had either learned to mask his feelings, or she had stopped being interested enough to notice.

He stood up and started walking to his car, his hand in his pocket with the ring.

"I'm sorry," she called after him, but he didn't seem to hear. She slid his ring onto her thumb and watched Chris leave, and she wondered just what it was she had apologized for.

Things We Didn't Say Yesterday: #1

They all thought it would be me

He tried come up with a word to describe a place that wasn't even spartan. The two-bedroom apartment seemed large: nothing more than a sofa in the living room, a bed and a dresser in the larger bedroom. Nothing in the second, smaller bedroom. Not even boxes. He looked around and thought, This is just like the office: some cubicles decorated, others bare. His cubicle was bare not because he had nothing to share or show, but because he thought adding photos and knick-knacks meant he'd have to stay there awhile. When it was time to leave he didn't want to worry about packing.

Being by himself after 10 years of marriage hadn't been bad so far, but he knew that being alone for a few days was the easy part. He wondered if Cindy was lonely, though that she had the house probably made things easier on her. "You keep your retirement money, Chris, and I keep the house," Cindy had said early on, when they'd first started negotiating who got what. "It's a fair deal."

The cellphone's ring was loud in the apartment. "Hello." It was Philip.

"Chris--you moved in?"

Chris looked around. "Looks like it. I need a TV, though."

Phil coughed. "Maybe you don't."

"No, I do."

"You angry today?"

"About what."

"Really? There's nothing you think you should be angry about?"

Chris thought about it, about how not getting angry about much had caused his ex-wife no small amount of frustration. "I'd feel a lot better if I only knew when you were mad," Cindy had said. He shifted the cellphone to the other ear and sat on the sofa, across from where he envisioned a TV. "No, Phil, I'm not angry."

"Bullshit."

"I'm really not. Not yet. In fact, I kind of feel vindicated."

"About what?"

"About how things turned out, that she was the one who started the divorce-ball rolling."

"How is that vindication?"

"Her family," Chris said. "They always thought that if things got bad between Cindy and me, that I'd be the one to blame. They all thought it would be me."

"You showed them," Phil said, laughing.

"I showed them something, I guess," Chris said.