Selected Short Works

(originally published in Boston Literary)

I had a professor who used to talk to us about dread.  He said it was the fear of nothing, and we believed it.  

But the same professor used to hand back my papers with “not groundbreaking” printed in tiny letters at the bottom of the last page, and he once published a story about being thirteen and having an erection in the outfield.  So maybe he’s not coming from exactly where I’m coming from.

(originally published in New South)

1.

Sam and Emma Watkins woke up early on a cloudy Saturday morning, dressed, poured the coffee, and without a word, she picked up the coffee table, and he picked up the ottoman, and they began the day’s work.  

While Emma carried the dishes from the kitchen, Sam picked up the spray paint his wife had never gotten around to using on the patio furniture and painted a line down the middle of the yard—right where he’d always meant to lay a path.

They had decided ahead of time to make this easy. And that it would be fair. People made it ugly, but it didn’t have to be that way. They were adults, more than they had ever wanted to be, and they would act like it. No conflicts. No arguments. No lawyers.

By noon the sun had burned away the clouds, and the two of them sat on the front steps, facing for the first time the ruins of their singular life.

Alright, Sam said. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid.

2. 

Some things were easy. There were two season tickets to the theater—a Christmas present to the both of them from his mother. They took one each. They’d never used them anyway. And they each took one bedside table and one lamp. Emma wondered for a moment if it made more sense for one of them to have matching tables and the other matching lamps, but she reminded herself not to make things difficult. It didn’t matter. One person only needed one table and one lamp.

There was one loveseat. They moved it into the alley to go out with the trash.

All the books went into a pile, and they took turns claiming them. Like picking teams for dodgeball. He’d play with Tolkien, she with Dostoevsky. And so on.

Two bookshelves each, one desk a person. No second guessing. No hard feelings.

3.  

Marianne and George Kingston ate their lunch in the living room so they could keep an eye on their neighbors.

Should we do something?, she asked.

It’s not our business, George said, and Marianne didn’t hide her relief. But do they need to do that on the lawn? It makes the street look tacky.

You do have to admire their honesty, though, George, she said.

Hm, he said.

4.

The day was getting hotter, and Sam watched the sweat drip from Emma’s face. She was always so composed. So matter of fact. It was a trait he alternately admired and despised. Sometimes it seemed like strength, and in those moments he was proud of her; other times he wondered if she could feel anything at all. That wasn’t fair though. She just handled things differently. Handled everything differently. Maybe that was the problem.  

It was the usual story. They had grown apart. Woken up one morning and wondered where the time had gone. Wondered how the rooms had gotten so large, and how there was now so much space between them in the bed. Looking at her now, struggling to lift a dresser she wanted to carry without his help, there were things he started to feel. Feelings that he started to remember. But he had to keep things going. Get it over with.

5.

Emma was hungry and thirsty, and she was tired. Her head throbbed. The sun was getting lower in the sky, and there was still so much to do. They were getting to the difficult things. Like the dining room table. It was antique they’d picked up on a road trip up the east coast. They’d driven home 600 miles with the damn thing tied on top of the car. It was a miracle they’d made it.  

They stood looking at it, looking at each other across the purple line. They couldn’t afford to lose momentum now.

Sam picked up the circular saw they’d decided he’d keep (she kept the sander), ran an extension cord from the house and cut the table clean in half.  

6.

George and Marianne were long finished with their lunch, and she had cleared the dishes away. She tried to read, and he pretended to watch TV. How nice, she thought, that they had built this life together. Where they could be together in the same room without forcing themselves to enjoy the same activity or to have some contrived interaction. Not everyone had that kind of strength.  

She had planned to run some errands in the afternoon, but the neighbors had her trapped in the house. How could she walk past that? What would she do? What would she say? That generation could be so inconsiderate. Best to stay inside, she decided.

George looked away from the game, out the window at Sam and Emma sorting through DVDs and Christmas decorations. They’re out of their minds, he said.

Completely crazy, Marianne agreed.

7.

Emma and Sam were working quickly now. They broke vases, sawed the sofa in half, separated their best sheet set into a top sheet and a fitted sheet. One pillowcase each.  

They had an umbrella in the yard. Back when things were different, they used to sit under it together. There wasn’t a good way to cut it, so he kept the metal structure and gave her the fabric. He kept the greens and blues from her paint set. She kept the reds and oranges.

They cut the golf bag in half—I’ll cut, you choose, she said. She took the irons and the tees. He kept the woods, the hybrid and the putter.

He had suggested that she just keep her paints and he his golf clubs, but wasn’t it all both of theirs? Wasn’t that how marriage worked?

Neither of them had any idea how marriage worked. That was the whole point.

But it’s all trash when we break it in half, he said. Like our life together, she said. And they continued.

8.

Jeremy Evans and his girlfriend, Ashley, were walking his bulldog on the opposite sidewalk. That’s why I’m never getting married, he told her. We would never end up like that, Ashley said.

Velma Simmons, cutting back her roses, said to them as they passed, they always seemed like such a nice couple. It’s a darn shame, that’s what it is. My husband and I were married 37 years. But then people today aren’t brought up the same as we were. It’s a different world. We were taught to fix things that were broken. Maybe it’s for the best my Henry isn’t around to see what’s become of it all.

Ashley said how nice her roses were looking, and then she, Jeremy Evans, and Eddie the bulldog hurried off down the road.

9.

George, they haven’t eaten all day, Marianne said.

Then they must not be hungry.

We should take them something.

It’s not our business, he insisted. Don’t get involved.

They’re our neighbors. We can’t do nothing. Do you think they go to church? Maybe we could call their preacher.

Do they look like they go to church? he said. We ought to call the police.

They aren’t hurting anyone.

Well somebody needs to talk sense to them, and it damn sure won’t be me.

10.  

As the sun set, Emma and Sam pulled scraps of paper from a shoebox. It made as much sense as any other way to divide up the people in their lives.

They had mutual friends, sort of. Not people they hung out in a group with. Not anymore anyway. But there were people they both saw independently. And they didn’t want things to get ugly. They didn’t want to put anyone in the middle.

So she got Chuck and he got Jessie. That was fair. So when Chuck called, Sam didn’t answer. When Jessie called, Emma handed Sam her phone. He didn’t answer that call either. For a lot of reasons.

Maybe we should have picked couples as a unit, she said.

But it was already done. All decisions final. Nothing to do except move forward.

11.

The temperature was dropping rapidly, and Emma was thinking that there was no plan for after. After the physicality of their life together was divided. What then? Where would any of it go? Where would the two of them go? Would they draw a line down the middle of the house? Each take one floor? But no. The time for questions was over. This was time for decisions. Difficult decisions had to be made.  

Sam looked awful. Exhausted, drained, and sweaty. He must be getting cold. She was.  

Chuck and Jessie showed up around 10, right as Emma and Sam were smashing the champagne glasses they’d used for their wedding toast. It would be weird to keep them. Can we do anything?, Jessie asked, and Sam responded in the negative. Come over if either of you needs a place to stay tonight, Chuck said, and Emma said, Thank you. Chuck and Jessie left a pizza, two bottles of water, and a thermos of hot chocolate.

12.

Emma and Sam Thomas sat right on the line painted down the middle of their lives, eating slices of pizza and wiping their hands on the grass. There was only one thing left. She slumped against her end table. If she lay down, she wouldn’t get up. Sam opened the box. There weren’t many--everything was digital now. But there were wedding photos. Sam cut them in half. Emma made two piles. She didn’t know if it made more sense for him to keep the picture-halves with her in them, or the ones with him in them. 

None of this made any sense. 

She assigned them to piles randomly, trying not to even look. They were reminders that would only make this more difficult.  

She’d always thought there would be a moment. One moment where everything would change. But it hadn’t happened like that. She wondered if it ever happened like that in real life.  

They did the same thing with honeymoon pictures, and vacation pictures, and the pictures they’d taken in the mall photo booth back when things were different. That was almost the end of it.  

It hadn’t been as many years as it felt like.

13.

The last picture was in an envelope. A picture that neither of them had looked at in a long, long time. As soon as Sam picked the envelope up he wanted to put it down. To hide it somewhere. He didn’t want her to see. Which made no sense. Like she’d forgotten. Like a mother could ever forget. But it was too late. Like everything.

They sat, slumped against each other, silent for a long time, both of them realizing that some things aren’t like photos or tables or golf clubs. Some things cannot be divided. Like pain. Pain is indivisible.  

Without a word, Sam and Emma Thomas scooped up the broken pieces of their champagne glasses, and they went inside, fingers bleeding, to put back together the shattered pieces of their hopelessly entangled lives.  

14.

Look, George, Marianne said.

I don’t want to look, he said.

George, she said.

He groaned.  Look what they’ve done to our neighborhood.  Look what they’ve done to that furniture.  It’s a damned waste.  

But look, George, she insisted.

He looked.  

They’ve gone inside, George.

They probably want to get some sleep. Something I’d like to do. He rolled over.

Marianne was lucky. She knew that. A man like George was hard to come by, and a marriage like theirs. She was relieved that she and George would never come to airing their problems on the front lawn. Pain is private. Supposed to be private. Not for the whole neighborhood to see. She fell asleep thinking how lucky she was to have George, to have such a blessed marriage, and she pitied her next door neighbors everything that they were missing.