Stop Here by Beverly Gologorsky

coffee on the table, she eyes the muffin. Can’t eat that. God! Even her oldest, after he sees his father, asks what’s happening. She could give him an earful but all she says is, Dad’s getting on and it’s not easy in a diner kitchen. Bruce was never tidy, but now it’s impossible. Leaves things wherever, but, okay, she’s used to men doing that. She has three sons for god’s sake. But at least he used to shower every day. It’s making her crazy. They’ve shared a bed for twenty-seven years, ever since she was nineteen. She can’t do it anymore.
    Her eyes slide to the newly painted kitchen walls. Apricot. Lord, what possessed her? She hoped it would cheer her baby before he took off. He did say he’d remember the color, something bright in the desert. It’s painful to think of Michael there. She can’t watch TV, either, though since Michael left, Bruce is a news junkie. What she can’t say to her sons or to Bruce is that fear for Michael’s safety has her by the throat, though she confided as much to Ava and Mila during breakfast at the diner. Women with children, they understand the terror.
    She glances at the clock. Three times she’s told him to get up. He’ll lose the damn job. Murray isn’t the type you want to piss off too often. She strides out of the kitchen and smashes open the bedroom door. “Bruce, I swear, you don’t get out of bed now I’m leaving for good.” She hates shouting; it’s so crude. Even when the boys were little, she didn’t raise her voice. Now she’s beginning to sound like her mother who screamed everything.
    He rolls slowly toward the side. He’s gained weight. He used to have a good build, he jogged and pumped. Now he does none of it. She waits till his feet touch the floor, then walks out.
    Leaving Bruce has become a daily fantasy. Then she’d have only herself to care for. Her sons, too, of course, but with Michael away and her oldest married, already saddled with a baby, and the middle guy in Seattle doing whatever with computers, it’s just Bruce, isn’t it? What would she tell her sons? I can’t live with your father anymore. He doesn’t bathe, doesn’t talk. They’re not going to be sympathetic to that. Even if they are, they’ll want him to get help; you can’t leave a man when he’s down. It’s immoral. Well, let them come live with him.
    Bruce shuffles in, dressed in baggy jeans and a sweater.
    â€œWant breakfast?”
    He nods.
    â€œCoffee and a muffin? Because you don’t have time for a big one.”
    He nods, again.
    â€œWhy couldn’t you get up?” She cuts up the muffin the way he likes. Sweeps the crumbs off the smooth surface of the counter, which she planed and stained herself.
    â€œIt’s hard.”
    â€œTell me something I haven’t heard.”
    â€œJust is.” She pours the coffee and he gulps it down, though she’s sure it’s too hot.
    â€œBruce, be careful, you’ll burn your tongue.” Habit. She shouldn’t bother when the man asks nothing about her well-being.
    â€œJam?”
    â€œOn the table there. I was thinking before how Michael likes the color of the kitchen, I mean he said so in his last—”
    â€œHe’s a baby. He shouldn’t be fighting in this frigging war. He didn’t even sign up . . . what’s the National Guard doing there anyway,” his face reddening.
    â€œJesus, Bruce, calm down. I agree with you, but what can we do? He’s there.”
    â€œDo?” He looks at her like she’s posed the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
    â€œI know how you feel. But Bruce, there’s nothing we . . .” She stops, no point repeating herself like an idiot.
    â€œI’m too jittery to drive this morning,” he says. “You take me.”
    â€œWhy not. I have nowhere special to go.”
    â€œWhat about