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.