Fiction
Tell Me We’re Safe in the House
I mourned the loss of a dog I’d abandoned for a man who’d never love me
Take me back to a time when I ate oatmeal for breakfast and I was saying yes to things. Though I tend to forget that this was also a time when I took a lover who stared at my body, a thing that had withered down to bone, and said, you could stand to lose a couple. Josh was the kind of man who slept above sheets, not between them. During sex, he’d reach for his phone and scroll through pictures. We’d been talking about marriage, but weren’t serious about it. I was 40 and couldn’t imagine wearing white and he was 44 and couldn’t imagine. Look at her, and her, and her, he’d say. You could look like any one of them if you wanted to. Are these yours? I’d say. The girls. Josh shook his head and said no, they’re encouragement. Then he’d edge away my knee with his hand because I was hurting him. I was always hurting him. In six month’s time he would leave me for a woman half my age and size, and while I was busy lamenting all the divisions, he talked about his new love — a woman who could sit comfortably in her own skin.
You fucking animal. You unrepentant piece of shit. You might think this was directed at Josh, but no, it was one of many insults hurled at me by Rhonda, a volunteer at the animal shelter in which I’d…
