Escape

He understood. She didn't. She never would. She didn't even try. Every time he tried to hold her hand and tell her
the truth, and nothing but the truth- she smiled and nodded.
Vacant pretense of comprehension, where there was no hope.
Just the surety of habit. That enmeshed itself in the grain of his torn button, his bed linen and bath mirror. Even the damned toothbrush told him to give up.

He had thought about it. Waited. Tried every trick in the book.
He deliberately left the little love notes in his pocket. He knew she did the laundry with gusto. Unrolled the sleeves of his lipstick stained shirt. Discarded the soiled underwear. She missed nothing.

She played on. Living in her cosy cocoon.

Willing suspension of disbelief?
She preferred to think it was merely poetic license.
Nothing to do with her carefully constructed reality.
Golf balls strayed into the rough sometimes. They always got them back though. She and he. Like the wine corks they stored when others chucked them routinely into the garbage bag.

Little tricks in the kitchen. Neighbours over for dinner. Freshly laundered handkerchiefs.Two signatures on a mortgage.
It was easy to be there. Everyday. The very same way.
Everyone knew it was the right thing to do.
Christmas dinner at the in-laws'.
Wrapping gifts for nephews. Hospital visits to mum.

He would be home soon. Roast beef dinner. His favourite dessert too- keylime pie. Sharp. Designed to obscure the bitter aftertaste of that expensive Syrah she'd been saving for months.
A few drops would do it. She had done her homework. All those crime novels he thought she never read. He'd been getting weaker for months. He thought it was stress. She just fed him like a fattening sheep for the slaughter.

They would exchange titbits across the table. Like always.

She could sleepwalk through the part and still get it right.

He liked watching the shadows on the pale cream curtain as he recounted the day's unremarkable events. Her expression wouldn't change.

The comfort of years was like a familiar crick in the neck. She handled it with care, so as never to dislodge it.

Just like he handled the dishes which would smell clean and fresh after, leaving no hint of the shortlived joy of a tasty meal not so long ago. He hated doing the dishes. Washing away a secret life more real than his own. It felt like cheating.

Coming home was too, wasn't it? And yet, it was home.

...........

He knew it was time. He couldn't take the strain anymore.

It must be today.
He had the papers... and the flowers to soften the blow.
Everything would be hers. The price of precious freedom.

He rang the doorbell.

No one answered. His brow twitched in irritation. She was always prompt. Was she ill? Or had some timely premonition penetrated that steel calm? He fished out his key, walked in and turned on the light.

He was alone.

There was a note by the bottle of wine and the green slice of pie.
He grimaced, sank down on the sofa and sighed noiselessly.
The right mood for some Chopin. The nocturnes.
He could finally drink in peace. And sleep. Long and hard.

Outside, the storm broke, in all its fiery beauty.
The shadows on the curtain faded. The wine drew its last breath.

A lone clink of crystal crashed into oblivion on the quiet floor.

He never saw her again.


And she was still smiling.