She Should

The light is changing now. It’s waning. It’s felt in the early evening, when twilight arrives before dinner. She sits, unwilling to move, in the setting sunlight, which creeps in the through the blinds like zebra stripes.

She should turn on the lights now, but there’s something so sovereign about initial darkness. It’s calm. It’s reflective. There’s a clarity of thought that arrives in these moments that is almost holy. She should walk across the room, over to his La-Z-Boy chair, from where sighs are heard. She should kiss his scruffy cheek, and ask if he’s still upset. Yet she doesn’t, simply because she’s too tired from all the times she’s done it before.

She’s felt darkness in The Mojave Dessert, darkness on The Ligurian Sea, darkness in a New York penthouse, darkness on an L.A. highway, and now darkness, in a suburban home, in the middle of October. This darkness, which arrived after a screaming argument is different than all the other darknesses she's felt. It’s like the whole house is hesitant to make a noise, for fear of reinitiating the fight. She can't even remember now why the argument began, but she can't forget now that he never tried to end it.

She should ask if he’ll forgive her, even though he’d never return that question. She should coddle his poor emotions. She should puff up his pride, which was recently wounded from being laid off. But, his wounds have hurt her too, and she prefers the silence. Her body enjoys this space, where she doesn’t run to him right away. She realizes, as the final daylight disappears, that this lack of motion communicates everything she’s ever wanted to say.

His breath crescendo as her motives become clearer. Panic is now heard in his toddler-like sighs as he realizes she’s not coming over to comfort him like she usually does. Her silence is too loud for him. It is unnerving, so he continues to rock in his chair, allowing the creaking noise to fill the space.

He should walk over to her and apologize for his behavior, but he doesn’t know how. Years of self-pity have left him paralyzed. The creaking of the rocking chair continues as the silence from her chair remains. He should go out and find another job, but he feels like a failure and believes her lack of attention confirms that. He sighs, again, as he remembers all his failings. He should think about her, and her many sacrifices. But he can’t, his mind is too filled up with his insecurities.

When the darkness can’t get any darker, she stands up and crosses the room to a vintage 1930s lamp given to her by her grandmother. This lamp used to represent long evenings with family and laughter, now it only sheds light on pain. She turns it on and suddenly the moment is broken. The darkness is no longer a space for reflection and the self-pitying seems silly.

He breathes in, willing the nerve to say something. She freezes by the lamp, hoping he’ll say anything resembling an apology. The moment feels like an eternity as she hopes and he scrambles together his words. Suddenly, like a balloon deflating, he breathes out a mixture of a sigh and a cough, too afraid to say what he knows he should say.

She doesn’t turn around to look at him. He didn't speak up, which was exactly what she had expected. She takes another step out of the room.

He watches her leave the room, leaving him alone, rocking in his La-Z-Boy chair, confirming his deepest fear.