back.
“I doubt the homeowners association cares anymore,” I added.
“Fuck the homeowner’s association,” she said. “This is for me.”
There was sweat across her brow, long tendrils of dark brown hair pressed damp against her temples, and a streak of dirt across the curve of her cheek. I’d fallen in love with Karen for her looks, first and foremost. Everything else-- her passion, her drive, her liberal usage of the f-word-- all of that had been sort of an afterthought.
But then her hair had started coming in silver here and there, and I hadn’t fallen in love with her laugh lines in the same way I’d loved the brown eyes and pink lips they surrounded. The stomach that had curved so beautifully when it carried our children never returned to the smooth, flat plain of abs that she’d had when I married her. The fact of the matter was, I didn’t feel the same way about her age spots as I had about her freckles.
And that was the difference between Karen and Tammy. Karen had always been so resigned to getting older, but Tammy would never grow old without a fight. She was youthful Tammy, who went tanning on Saturday mornings and dyed her hair blonde, golden in the summer and ashen in the winter; botox-junkie Tammy, whose face was smooth and flawless, even if she did constantly look surprised; Tammy with the big fake tits her surgeon husband had created to his liking and then ignored as he lost himself in the bottle and his work; Tammy dancing in a tight red dress, when Karen showed up to parties in an oversized cardigan and a bad mood.
I meant to do it then, break it to Karen that I was leaving. I’d already told Tammy that I would-- soon, as soon as it felt right. She’d wanted to leave right away, as fast as we could pack our suitcases, but I’d made her understand. I had to. I might not have loved Karen anymore, but I didn’t hate her like Tammy hated Dave.
We weren’t bitter toward each other. We had just grown apart.
I hadn’t been the best husband to Karen, but I could be a good enough friend to let her down gently. I wasn’t just going to walk out without another word-- she deserved an explanation. I owed her that much.
“Why does it matter, though?” I asked her, watching the ferocious way she attacked the crabgrass growing next to the azaleas. “It’s all going to be gone before long, anyway.”
And then she stopped, looked up at me with those big brown eyes that seemed so plain compared to Tammy’s blues, the uprooted undesirables still clutched in her clenched fists.
“Everything still matters, Bobby. We’re here. We’re alive. Everybody has to go someday-- you don’t just get to write off the universe because you know when that someday is.”
That wasn’t true, though. The Baldwins from down the street had shot themselves as soon as they’d heard the news. We’d heard their guns go off in quick unison as we did the dishes that night.
But in that moment, it wasn’t the Baldwins I was focused on-- it was Karen. She looked so goddamn impassioned, with this womanly fierceness about her that called to mind Boudica, Joan of Arc, a hundred thousand Valkyries descending upon a battlefield when in reality, she was just sweaty and covered in dirt and pulling weeds.
And I couldn’t do it. Not then. You can’t just leave someone who has that kind of intense determination toward life when you have so little hope left in living. If I was a stronger man, maybe-- but in that moment, I was drowning, and Karen was a life jacket to cling to while I tried to find my way to shore.
“You’ve got dirt on your face,” I pointed out, but my voice came softly when I’d meant to be condescending.
“I know,” Karen grinned.
When Tammy smiled, she did it tentatively, like she was listening to a joke that she quite wasn’t sure was funny. But when Karen smiled, her whole face lit up, like a lighter put to a warehouse full of
“I doubt the homeowners association cares anymore,” I added.
“Fuck the homeowner’s association,” she said. “This is for me.”
There was sweat across her brow, long tendrils of dark brown hair pressed damp against her temples, and a streak of dirt across the curve of her cheek. I’d fallen in love with Karen for her looks, first and foremost. Everything else-- her passion, her drive, her liberal usage of the f-word-- all of that had been sort of an afterthought.
But then her hair had started coming in silver here and there, and I hadn’t fallen in love with her laugh lines in the same way I’d loved the brown eyes and pink lips they surrounded. The stomach that had curved so beautifully when it carried our children never returned to the smooth, flat plain of abs that she’d had when I married her. The fact of the matter was, I didn’t feel the same way about her age spots as I had about her freckles.
And that was the difference between Karen and Tammy. Karen had always been so resigned to getting older, but Tammy would never grow old without a fight. She was youthful Tammy, who went tanning on Saturday mornings and dyed her hair blonde, golden in the summer and ashen in the winter; botox-junkie Tammy, whose face was smooth and flawless, even if she did constantly look surprised; Tammy with the big fake tits her surgeon husband had created to his liking and then ignored as he lost himself in the bottle and his work; Tammy dancing in a tight red dress, when Karen showed up to parties in an oversized cardigan and a bad mood.
I meant to do it then, break it to Karen that I was leaving. I’d already told Tammy that I would-- soon, as soon as it felt right. She’d wanted to leave right away, as fast as we could pack our suitcases, but I’d made her understand. I had to. I might not have loved Karen anymore, but I didn’t hate her like Tammy hated Dave.
We weren’t bitter toward each other. We had just grown apart.
I hadn’t been the best husband to Karen, but I could be a good enough friend to let her down gently. I wasn’t just going to walk out without another word-- she deserved an explanation. I owed her that much.
“Why does it matter, though?” I asked her, watching the ferocious way she attacked the crabgrass growing next to the azaleas. “It’s all going to be gone before long, anyway.”
And then she stopped, looked up at me with those big brown eyes that seemed so plain compared to Tammy’s blues, the uprooted undesirables still clutched in her clenched fists.
“Everything still matters, Bobby. We’re here. We’re alive. Everybody has to go someday-- you don’t just get to write off the universe because you know when that someday is.”
That wasn’t true, though. The Baldwins from down the street had shot themselves as soon as they’d heard the news. We’d heard their guns go off in quick unison as we did the dishes that night.
But in that moment, it wasn’t the Baldwins I was focused on-- it was Karen. She looked so goddamn impassioned, with this womanly fierceness about her that called to mind Boudica, Joan of Arc, a hundred thousand Valkyries descending upon a battlefield when in reality, she was just sweaty and covered in dirt and pulling weeds.
And I couldn’t do it. Not then. You can’t just leave someone who has that kind of intense determination toward life when you have so little hope left in living. If I was a stronger man, maybe-- but in that moment, I was drowning, and Karen was a life jacket to cling to while I tried to find my way to shore.
“You’ve got dirt on your face,” I pointed out, but my voice came softly when I’d meant to be condescending.
“I know,” Karen grinned.
When Tammy smiled, she did it tentatively, like she was listening to a joke that she quite wasn’t sure was funny. But when Karen smiled, her whole face lit up, like a lighter put to a warehouse full of
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