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Herbert slept still when I finally emerged from the shower and quickly dressed in a cotton blouse and matching skirt. My eyes were red and my breathing ragged, but I went downstairs, turned on the percolator for Herbert’s coffee, cracked eggs into a bowl and beat them, and removed a half pound of bacon from the refrigerator. The routine calmed me, so that by the time Herbert came down the stairs, showered and dressed for work, I had his coffee and his breakfast on the table, and he did not notice that I had been crying.
Yet when he left, I sat on the porch and stared out at the street for most of the day, my mind very far away. I do not know whether it was Mother Yewande’s magic which kept Doctor Buzzard’s pills from working, or some terrible fault of my own, or that Doctor Buzzard had simply sold me poison. But I did not catch pregnant that month, or the next, and soon I ran out of pills.
One afternoon, I broke myself out of my reverie on the porch enough to work up a solution. I took a taxi down to Waters Avenue only to find that Jimbo’s was permanently closed to business and abandoned, the windows broken and the door painted with hate words.
I returned home and went to bed. Herbert found me that night, trapped in a world between sleeping and waking, tossing in the sheets and sweating fiercely. He called our doctor, but the man found nothing wrong with me, and no explanation for my symptoms.
A deep depression fell over my life, so dark and cold that there were days I could hardly move. I became a barely-breathing lump of flesh. The house was overcome with mess and filth from my neglecting to clean it; Herbert had to make his own dinners and eventually his own breakfasts, too. I believe he understood, and I believe he might have forgiven me — if it weren’t for the coffee.
I stopped making Herbert’s coffee. He didn’t seem to mind, at first, and made it himself. But that night, he didn’t come home until late, and when he did, he was drunk. He fell into our bed next to me, and when I turned my head to greet him, he breathed into my face the scent of whiskey and cigarettes. I waited for him to get handsy with me, as he usually did when he was drunk, but he refused to touch me.
He was gone the next morning before I woke up — to work, I assumed, though my heart was full of fear.
He came home late again. That night I was waiting for him in the armchair in our parlor. “Are you home, Herbert?” I called.
He grunted from the door, kicking his boots off to the corner.
“I missed you, dear.”
He grunted again. My chest tightened, and I felt my throat seize on itself.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
He didn’t answer, but strode past me and up to our room. Frozen in my seat, I looked around at the home we’d built together: the grandfather clock above the mantel I’d inherited from my grandmother; the coat rack Herbert had made in his wood shop class many years previous; the needlepoint I’d done with our wedding date on it to remind me what I’d gained. All those things to me seemed remnants of another life, another person I had somehow failed to hold on to. I slept in that chair, fitfully, and woke to the sound of the percolator. Herbert still drank his coffee, but no longer asked me to make it for him. He no longer asked me for anything, or spoke to me except in grunts.
I smelled the coffee, and I finally understood: I had forgotten. I sat in that chair silently as he moved about the kitchen making his own breakfast and sipping loudly at his coffee. He gathered his briefcase and his coat and left without so much as a nod in my direction.
I knew the damage was already done. He was lost to me. Yet I held onto the idea that I might keep him if I tried, and so I cleaned the house, showered and brushed the enormous knots out of the hair I had left, and cooked a roast in onions, carrots, and potatoes for dinner. When it got to be the time Herbert normally came home, I made a fresh pot of coffee just for him.
He was hours late, and the roast was cold. But I’d kept the coffee hot, and I offered him a cup as he came in the door.
He looked at me with such disdain, such irritation, that I felt my heart crack. “Get out of my way,” he said, brushing past me, causing me to spill a bit of coffee on the hardwood floor. He went upstairs and I could hear him up there, thumping around, changing into his pajamas.
I took the coffee mug back into the kitchen, where the percolator still dripped noisily. I hated the thing. It had ruined my marriage as surely as the pills had ruined my body. Suddenly, I smashed the mug into the glass percolator, sending boiling-hot water all over the counter. I screamed, and threw the roast, fat congealed around it in its pan, against the refrigerator, scattering the mushy potatoes and carrots. With another shout I turned the table over, throwing the place settings I’d laid out that evening onto the floor, breaking one of the plates and both glasses. I slumped against the counter, sobbing, moaning to myself with my tears making my makeup run down my face, and still Herbert did not come down the stairs.
~ ~ ~
That next morning, I woke before him and went down to the kitchen, which was a terrible mess. I bent down and began to collect pieces of broken glass in my palm, carefully avoiding the sharp edges.
Herbert’s footsteps echoed on the stair. He was already dressed for work and did not so much as glance at me. When he reached the bottom of the stair, he said, “Carolyn, I want you out of this house by tonight, and I don’t want to ever see you again.”
About Katherine L.P. King
