She sits down across from me at the dinner table and talks about work; salad fork dangling from one hand as she uses it to act out the scene where Brenda From Work said that thing she shouldn’t have about Casey Who is Also From Work.
I’m watching her mouth move; watching it form the words “can you believe?” I’m thinking about how the B-theory of time must be right as our past, present, and future mingle together in one sunlit haze; no true beginning, middle, or end.
“Are you listening to me, baby?”
“Yes. Brenda is tiny Satan, your manager is big Satan, and you need a new job before you murder them. Please, continue.”
She snorts into her wine glass, a coral lipstick print bright against the rim like blood on fresh snow; like the first stroke of a pen on a blank piece of paper.
She’s already jumping back into her story. Brenda From Work and Casey Who is Also From Work dated the same man once.
Plot twist.
Her wrists are bird bones, thistle branches, the sharp edge of freshly cut slate; connected to the long expanse of her delicate forearms that are grass blades blowing in the breeze.
I paint a picture of her in my mind, all sky blue and lagoon green, and the shape her silhouette forms on the canvas makes and unmakes me in an instant.
She’s laughing at her own joke now, head thrown back, neck arched like a marble sculpture, and I’m thinking about the tiny ring in the back of the sock drawer and how now might be that perfect moment I was waiting for.
“What’s that look for?”
Right now is perfect, and next year would be, too. Time stretches out before me as one great expanse of perfect as her laughter strikes through me like a heated blade; no pain, just a burning, cleansing warmth.
“Nothing, I’m just going to grab something from the bedroom. Stay here. Stay just like that. I’ll be right back.”
She cries before my knees ever hit the tile, tears glistening on the stretched skin of her cheeks as she smiles so wide I know it must hurt.
“What took you so long?”
[Prompt: time and marriage]
