Soap And Despair

Theresa Wallace was the type of girl that everyone wanted to be. She was quick to break out into kind smiles, her house was that perfect mix of lived-in and pristine, and her family was gorgeous. All of her kids had her honey-blonde hair, her rosy cheeks, her emerald eyes, and her cheerful mannerisms. Mary had never seen them fight in all of the five years she had lived next door to her. Her lawn was always bright and neatly trimmed, and her garden was perfectly manicured.

Mary hated it.

Theresa had these tacky marigolds, all planted in little window boxes in messy little groupings. They stared at passersby, taunting everyone with their golden petals, as if to say, See how happy I look. You won’t ever be as bright as me. They swayed in the breeze, raining down little drops of sun, reminding all who had the misfortune of seeing them that they won’t ever measure up to the goddess, Theresa. She was pleasant enough to talk to, but her sickeningly sweet, perfect life was enough to make anyone nauseous after a while. At least that’s how Mary saw it.

Mary was a housewife. Oh, the irony! As a child she had laughed at them, pitying their busy, boring lives filled with mundane chores. But here she was, preparing dinner for her family like the perfect suburban stereotype. She was smarter than her husband Eli. She really was. If only they hadn’t been born! She could have been so much better. When she closed her eyes, she saw it, sometimes--awards heaped high on a shelf in a spacious corner office, a diploma festooned on the wall like a trophy, and a long string of titles added to her name. But she had gotten pregnant in high school, before her dreams and hard work could reap any fruit. And now she was stuck, married to someone she had to remember to love, and with kids she regarded as little curses.

Sometimes she would tell herself that it was fine, that being a doctor like she had wanted was too much work anyways. She probably felt something close to love for her family once, right? But as the years went by and she made more casseroles and drove around in a minivan to more soccer games, she could no longer kid herself like that.

She was miserable. She had been for some time.

And so little by little, like creeping ivy slowly consuming an old house, she grew greener. It started with little things; at first she envied the next-door lawn, its mocking evergreen-ness. She coveted the garden in its colorful rows, pained with heavy brushstrokes by loving hands. She just damn near abhorred the way Mr. Wallace loved Theresa so much. Deep down, worst (and strongest) of all, she was jealous of the love Theresa returned to him, and to her children. Mary wanted that with all her heart. She had tired of being a fraud, of stuffing her kid’s lunch boxes with notes about things she didn’t feel, of whispering falsities to Eli as they laid in bed with their arms entwined.

Sure, Mary’s house was okay. It was two-storied, with white siding, and the lawn was neatly manicured by a landscaping service that came once a week on Mondays. The garden was prim and proper. Her kids all went to school each day on time, with a ride in her spacious car and with crisply plastic-wrapped sandwiches in hand. The kitchen had not one dish out of place, the living room was pristine with its fluffed-up pillows and spotless rugs, and each bedroom was tidied every morning.

But it was so tiring to see.

Mary’s fridge was plastered with spelling tests and scribbled crayon drawings. Her kids did well enough in school, and her husband still took her on frequent dates and clearly loved her. But in return Mary felt, well, nothing much. There was no reason to be proud of her kids--their good grades were only a cruel reminder of missed college days. And try as she might, she couldn’t find it in herself to love her husband. She had married him out of necessity, nothing more. And she was tired, so tired of pretending. It took a lot of effort to keep up the facade, and it wasn’t something enjoyable.

It was a hot night, when it happened. A steamy, humid July night, so hot that sweat rolled off Mary's entire body in great big drops, and sleep eluded her tired eyes no matter how exhausted she was. She got up from her bed now, unsticking herself the thin cotton sheets and stretching her legs. Some nights are just not meant for sleeping, and she had decided this was one of them. Being careful not to disturb Eli, she trod across the tile floor and crept through the door.

She walked out into her living room. It was silent and still, unnaturally calm. Mary wished it was always like this, free from her screeching children and her talkative husband. Relishing the peacefulness that was unique to the hours after midnight, she escaped onto her porch. The air was so muggy and thick that it labored her breaths, and it slid across her arms in the way that the dark sky always did.

It was then, as she laid in serene silence and perfect, unoccluded darkness, that she saw it. The marigolds, illuminated by the glow of a garden light. And she couldn't take it anymore.

Before she was even aware of what she was doing, her feet moved subconsciously and she was running, sprinting, tearing across Theresa's lawn like an animal chasing prey. Coming to a stop in front of the window boxes, she stared ahead, covered in the faint light they emitted like a wolf basking on the moon. She was drunk off the quiet, the sadness and weariness that she always felt, and she flexed her hands into claws. Ripping through the marigolds, clawing streaks through the little plant. She plucked the petals from the stems, crushed them in her palm, mixed them with the dirt, until all that was left was the roots underneath and a few broken leaves. Hot tears ran out of her eyes now, mixing with her sweat and glowing like diamonds as they dripped down, because she knew that Theresa would plant more flowers come tomorrow, and Mary would still be in her perfect house, scrubbing dishes until her hands were raw and all she felt was the sting of soap on them and despair.