He told her after they married, no matter what happened, even if they were starving, he would never get a job.
‘Don’t worry Sweetie, I’ll take care of everything,’ she said. Who knows why she wasn’t shocked. She found ways to hustle and he kept busy with the capturing of butterflies and pined for offspring. The husband pinned his colorful captures behind vitrines and whinnied about wanting children.
She became suspicious that he considered himself one of these ‘children’ he campaigned for. She’d be running a hotel and she didn’t have it in her. His only hold was her love for him. But she was not an impaled insect and they tinkered with the unspoken option one day she’d wriggle free.
He craved worship. She craved freedom. He loved her even if he was inept. She loved him too, but she could not rely on him. They both knew this and they cringed because they could never discuss anything. Not directly, or clearly. They didn’t know how. Not without causing damage. They were barely thirty, they’d clung on, but they were spent.
It was getting uncomfortable, they no longer spoke at all except in public.
To distract her he entered her for a play and for no clear reason she was offered the lead. She hated acting but she wanted to please hubby, despite the futility she felt she still had to try, so she took the role and attended rehearsals. The script required her to kiss Neil, her co-star. This was Neil of Gold’s Sauerkraut empire. She claimed she didn’t need the practice and refused.
She kissed her co-star on the night of the performance, in front of her husband. They never said a word about it.
She should have left with the pickle man.
image: www.leighvogel.com