She has an ant bite on her ankle that hasn’t yet healed.
She stood at the edge of her driveway, arms crossed very tightly. The blue and red plaid of her shirt twisted around her torso like her body might torque into a tornado at any minute. Her limbs and shoulders contorted into a posture of protection, her heels locked into the starting blocks.
That evening it was too dark to see the potential of a naked ankle and an angry ant. She was distracted. She searched frantically for the few things that compose her spine–her daughter, her age, the life no one else built but her. She pierced fortitude through it like a needle gathering a hem and staked it into the ground between him and her.
His eyes shifted from rage to misery, back and forth, a flashlight getting dimmer and suddenly finding life again.
Not you, he said, you don’t do this to me.
The words were not from his ego, they were from a place were good things nest inside him; a very small piece of real estate. Some narrow condo of what he must cherish, full of things she only sees when he is upset. In there, on the fifth floor, is a vision of this woman with her heart in her hands, forever stretched outward pleading for him to take, take, take. Like an icon of St. Mary, eyes dewy and inappropriately-colored blue, crying adoration on his sleeve.
I never thought you could do this, he said.
She chewed on that line for a long while, wondering how he could think such a thing when it was that behavior that enabled them to be together in the first, second, third and fourth place. He assumed her mental infidelity was reserved for all but him. It was privilege only he could abuse. But on this evening two things became quite clear. One, that that luxury had been revoked and two, she had abandoned her dream of him. These pair of facts were codependent and she was using all her strength not to sink into the self-loathing of it all.
I’m a coward, she said.
That made him feel better.
I’m a coward, that’s the reason for everything.
She didn’t have the courage to forgive him, the courage to leave him, she didn’t have the courage to demand one thing for another, she didn’t have the courage to tell him she need something more, and she certainly didn’t have the courage to tell him how she thought of someone else.
You left a hole in me, she said
He agreed, but he reminded her that he could fix it. No, she thought, you couldn’t fix what you did when you were 27 and indecisive, you can’t fix me being 27 and decisive.
She shook her head, honestly baffled by his nakedness. She had never seen this.
You have to give me a chance to fix it, I can make you forget who ever it is.
She doesn’t want to forget who it is. She shifted to her left leg and purposefully relaxed her forehead. He had never heard no from her. Not ever. Everything had been on his terms up to this point. All hours, even when she was with other people, he had his influence. But now, in this dark evening, where is it?
Why?
He would ask her this a million times, and the answer always occurred to her but she could never say it; that the worst of him is not worth the best of him. Because he cherishes her like poker chip. He mindlessly fondles her in his possession, just to make sure she’s still there, but she is only really valuable in someone else’s pocket or at least on the table. She didn’t say any of this as the ant narrowed in.
After he left and she retreated from the edge of the driveway, she could see, with flood light clarity, the whelp on the inside of her ankle. It instantly reminded her of when he used to cut down trees early in the morning and then sneak into her bed late at night. He’d make her pop all the septic bites gathering around his arms and legs. Both of them took a perverted pleasure from doing this. Two monkeys grooming each other, seeing how intimate they could get before grossing each other out. How much pain could she inflict and how much could he take before he slapped her off of him?
At the thought of this she reached down and pinched the knotted infection herself and that made the woman very happy. The scab is there “twenty days later” (as he says with complete disbelief). And every time she looks at it she feels more certain of what she’s done.