A breeze stirred, but only slightly, the early-morning fog situated on 14th street. It ushered in the sense that little, if anything, occurred there, even on the brightest of days when sun peeled back the shadow, asphalt shivering in the sultriness. The headlamps of the tightly packed cars that lined either side of the street looked in a singular direction, expecting. With a narrow patch of concrete reserved for the sidewalk crammed in-between, the rows of housing rose up to enclose the man who looked out his kitchen window.
– Don’t tell me you got nothing to say Charlie.
His silence and placidity of expression gave no indication as to what he was pondering; he just kept fiddling with the gold band about his finger, occasionally stopping to examine it’s pitted surface. His coffee was quite cool. He shifted in his chair, coaxing his leather jacket to settle in round his shoulders. He didn’t even bother trying to flatten the shocks of inky hair that jutted protruded outwards, as he could never get them just right. The figure rested in the chair was lean with youth, but the frames upon his nose, a faint sliver dividing their lenses, belied something else. The flat verdancy of the eyes they screened spoke of someone who had seen much, but now felt little.
His co-workers, when asked, said they knew little of him other that he spoke infrequently, was honest in his opinion, and dependable as any, but commented they thought him odd for his absence afterhours at the bar. Although none voiced this aloud, they privately believed him pretentious, but this was a gross error in judgment.
– You know I don’t Shailene.
He knew she wanted more. Their eldest, Cammy, was out again. He hadn’t even come home to stay the night. Their girl Lizzy would be awake within the hour. The little one they all had on their minds. He remembered when she’d been born, quiet and still. He’d known all the right things to say and do on those days when Shailene would not speak to him, just stand over the rosewood crib he’d made at the shop when everyone had checked out for the day. Its sweetened, cloying scent intermingled with that of the sherry on her lips, a combination at once overpowering and irreproachable. At this moment he merely pursed his lips as words escaped him. Knowing not what else to do, he slowly stood and surveyed the small nook in which they took meals before his gaze settled on his wife.
For 14 years he’d walked the nine blocks from the shop, layered in sawdust, to come home to, by all accounts, a great beauty. He did not see that now. Her locks, which she had at one point spent hours arranging in meticulous disarray, had fell into aggregate neglect. Fire rimmed her eyes from sleepless nights, consumed by the possibility of what might have been. He often had to take Lizzy on extended walks through the park while her mother drank. More often than not he’d come home to find her form collapsed in bed, a bottle’s last drops seeping into the sheets. Lizzy would then shyly ask if Mummy could make supper when she woke up. He could smell it on her, even now.
He couldn’t look, couldn’t stand it any longer in this too tiny kitchen, the bare uncolored linoleum, the fridge cluttered with food that was neither touched nor savored, the sordid collection of rooms in which he merely walked and breathed. It compressed, bore down on him, and he could not look at her.
-Where you think you’re goin?
He kept walking towards the door. He’d almost grasped the handle when his coffee mug shattered on the wall near his shoulder, the tinkling of the shards unceasing in his ear. Without flinching he opened the doorway and stepped through. Her fury played out, she began to wail, pleading for him to come back. It was a desolate keening even the most uncharitable and heard-hearted of men would struggle to weather. He was not one of those men. He could not turn and look at her.
He stepped out onto the pavement and turned right, approaching a small red sedan. It was still running, its exhaust pipe steaming. As he got in through the passenger door, the worn gold band came off to be slipped into his pocket. The slight blonde opposite greeted him with a kiss, insinuating that, for today, she had something special in mind. As she drove he found himself rather detached from it all.