The Good Silver

A marriage story told across time.

He’s under the tavern lights, standing there looking smugly gorgeous. I can already feel the erection in his pants in the palm of my hand, smell the desire from across the bar. My heart drops to the floor, squelch, wiggles towards him on the filthy floor and I am dragged behind it. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know him. My brain realizes what’s happening and throws a lasso of logic around my crawling heart as I stop right in front of him. My heart has already made itself comfortable in his pocket and the lasso can’t free it now. My brain wills my dead stomach to birth butterflies and my feet to fill with blood to crush the cement in my veins so I can go back to my friends. Something is off about this man. My body doesn’t listen, instead it moves with his as he takes my hand and we dance. This handsome man.

“Fancy a dance, butterfly?”

I’ve made this breakfast so many times I don’t even have to look at my hands while I’m doing it anymore! Sausages in their own little pan first, they take the longest. Eggs, fried, toast buttered, and bacon fried in a thin layer of grease. I’ve been trying to get Marty to cut down of fatty foods for the longest time, he’ll never agree with me, so I must do it for him in my own sneaky and private ways. Frying the eggs was harder than usual this morning, what with the swollen eye and the fractured wrist. Normally when my wrist gets fractured, I’m able to use the pan to help me get enough air under the egg to flip it all the way. That requires two hands though, and to be honest, I really can’t be bothered this morning. Breakfast is done.

“Coming up with breakfast dear!”

. I think the butterflies my brain ordered three months ago have hatched and had their own babies. I can’t breathe and I think I might faint. Am I ready? Am I ready to give myself wholly to handsome man forever? I can just imagine it, me and him out on the patio with cold lemonade under an old oak tree in the back yard. I’ll wear a big white hat and my future husband will be rolling in the grass with my children, our wonderfully fluffy dog yapping at them. I’ll finally be happy because I’ve found someone to love me. And I love him. I hope he likes my wedding dress; I’ve kept it a secret from him. You know, a groom should never see the dress before the wedding day. There it is, the piano! This is it.

“Sweetheart, you look wonderful.”

. I can’t for the life of me find the good silver. I’ve put everything on the tray and I just need to find the good silver, then I can bring Marty his Sunday breakfast special. I left the food in the kitchen. I know he keeps it in the garage. I remember because the last time I took it out, I found it after peeking through the kitchen door into the garage, watching Marty put it under the soggy rags. In fact, I think I- here! The pistol is a lot lighter than I remember, which means there’s no good silver in it. Marty only buys the finest silver bullets. Perhaps he’s worried about vampires. Now that I’ve got it, I can head upstairs and bring him his breakfast. I’ll put the gun in the front pocket of my nice apron. It’s a shame to get it all mussed up, but it’s my favorite apron. Marty got it for me on our anniversary. It seems fitting to kill us both wearing the apron. I’m sure there’s a word for that, Marty would know. I’ll ask him.

This is it. I’ve failed the test, Marty.

“What the fuck is taking so long?”

. Who wants to be a millionaire? I wouldn’t want to be a millionaire; I don’t think I’d know what to do with all that money. I just wanted a nice middle-class home, and a nice middle-class family in my middle-class neighborhood with middle class school systems and a husband who loves me and cheats only once or twice a year. Marty has the T.V so loud, I can barely hear myself think. I need to be careful stitching up my eyebrow and having only one not-so-swollen eye makes it all the harder. Why does Marty like making things so hard for me? Why is he always testing me? Marty tests so many things about me, so many terrible things. He tests my makeup skills by seeing how much of his anger I can cover up with foundation and concealer, he tests my fibbing skills by the lies I tell mother and father, brother and sister. He tests my patience. Who wants to be a millionaire? Who does? I don’t know. Do I want to be a millionaire? Could I have been a millionaire if I hadn’t met Marty?

Why do you test me like this Marty? Didn’t I pass? You said I passed all the tests. Why are you still testing me Marty?

“I’ll start dinner soon.”