She Sits

Cheri plopped into the comfy arm chair with a hearty exhale, and sat staring through the arched opening at the wall clock in the bright green painted kitchen. She picked at the loose fabric on her beat up garage sale chair revealing clean spots beneath the years of use. As she picked up the peanut butter jar and unscrewed the lid, she glanced down at Groucho, her middle-aged Terrier mix, who sat staring back as if in disgust for her sad excuse for a dinner. She nodded at the dog as if she knew he was judging her but her last give-a-damn was already used up. Plunging an oversized spoonful of peanut butter into her mouth, she closed her eyes and remembered the beach from her honeymoon. Lost and drunk somewhere in Mexico with the man she knew she’d spend forever with, their peals of laughter making it hard to keep their balance and they fell to the wet sand. Unable to escape the waves in their drunkenness , they became drenched, clothes clinging to their bodies, and they made love on the beach. Cheri remembered feeling euphoric after, suddenly sober and aware; the stars above were so magnificent. She finally felt alive!

When she finished her first bite, Cheri opened her eyes, snapping back to reality and delving into the jar for another scoop of extra crunchy. She thought back to the past year, his pulling away from her after 18 years of marriage, how she’d wondered if he was cheating on her and how she just didn’t have the energy to fight for something he seemed to give up on while she was busy working on a promotion. She supposed if there was another woman it would be easier to get closure on the end of a marriage she was sure was iron clad, but there was no one else, there was only Bill and his passions that always ended before he completed anything. First he was going to be a professional wrestler, and the poured money into lessons and costumes until someone said something he didn’t like and Bill decided wrestling was “dumb”. Then he tried being a private chef with no experience, just a certificate from the local technical college for completing a year of basic cooking courses. When the only job he could get in the industry was a dishwasher, he gave that up too. Cheri was always supporting his whims, knowing each would eventually pass. But this one didn’t pass after 5 years. Bill had an alcohol problem and Cheri threatened to leave him if he didn’t get help so he joined a church. Bill did quit drinking, and he found the support of other members fulfilled something he had always felt was missing in his life. As his connection with the church grew stronger, his addiction to alcohol faded away and he was sober and happy for the first time in years. Cheri recalled how she felt her heart drop out of her body when he told her that he had never truly been happy until he found the church. He loved her but was leaving her to devote himself to the church, to travel and help others abroad. She was shocked and tried to argue with him that he would change his mind a few years and it would be too late because she wouldn’t take him back. He looked at her, hurt, but said nothing. He turned and left, leaving all his possessions for her to deal with, all business and personal dealings to clean up. Two months later she got a manilla envelope from Malaysia, in it were the divorce papers.

Cheri looked at Groucho staring at her with his big, wise eyes and she offered him the spoon to lick off, which he nonchalantly did before plopping on the couch for a nap. As she scanned the room of her cozy one bedroom apartment, all her things were there, in the place she wanted. All his things were gone. She had her Van Gogh above the couch just where she likes it, the afghan her mother made her slung over the couch, the coffee table her grandfather made holding a framed picture of her and her bestie from college, laughing and being goofy; her clock, her dish towels, her funky garage sale chair. Her life surrounded her, enveloped her like a warm embrace, and for the first time in years, she felt the wholeness of being unapologetically herself.