Forbes and Fifth

Milk

The kitchen smells like bread and lemon disinfectant spray. Asher sits at the table reading the morning paper, the pristine porcelain China plate collecting the fallen crumbs like snow piles. His glass of milk sits lifeless, imitating the pure white of the kitchen walls that encompass him. The watch on his wrist reads 6:15. Next to him there is a calendar, today's date is circled. Four vases sit on the counter to his right—one filled with roses, another lilies, another violets and the fourth, a mix of the three. Bridal magazines litter the room like dirty dishes.

Asher takes a bite of his sandwich as the front door opens. Margaret enters the kitchen, her long white dress tangling around her ankles with each jagged move she makes. She slams a jug of milk in front of Asher. He doesn’t look up.

“I thought you said you were out of milk,” her hand waves to the glass in front of him.

“It was behind the eggs.”

He takes another bite from his sandwich and Margaret sits down beside him in the only other chair at their quiescent table. When she sits, her dress collects in rumpled piles on her lap and spills over the edges of the chair. She looks at the tangled chaos, the wrinkled satin. Tracing her fingers along the delicate pattern, the embroidered flowers so subtle that they’re almost invisible, she has a paralleled feeling of going unnoticed. Her hair is pulled back into a loose bun, unfastened strands falling onto her shoulders like delicate fingers. Tiny constellated pearls decorate her hair and her makeup, once immaculate, is slightly smeared. Despite it all, she feels beautiful. She sits in the silence like bathwater, waiting for Asher to look at her.

He doesn’t.

“How was your day?” she asks, almost jokingly, cutting at the silence like a thick steak.

“Uneventful.”

Margaret chuckles, “Oh, that’s a good one.” Asher takes a sip from his glass and drops of milk pour out from the sides of his mouth, cascading down his black tie. Margaret watches the dripping milk like raindrops against the window, her heart a ghost town.

“I like the red tie better,” it comes out in a whisper. Asher, placid, takes another bite from his sandwich. His eyes never veer from the newspaper.

“How was your day?” he asks back, a subliminal formality. She laughs, taking a sip from his cup.

“Well, I got stood up at the altar.” She waits for him to react.

He doesn’t.

“A kid fell into the coyote exhibit at the zoo,” he says moments later, reading a headline.

Margaret sighs, leans back, raises her feet onto the arm of Asher’s chair. Her ankles cross in complacent sadness. In her painted despondency, she notices how the sunlight pouring in from the window hits her glittered heels, painting the room in freckled lights. She twirls her feet and the luminescent dots dance. It reminds her of a disco ball. In her head, she pretends that it is the wedding party.

“What do you want, Asher? Anything, I’ll fucking do it.” He turns the page of his paper, letting her words bury themselves between the cracks in the tile.

“Asher, are you listening to me?” She doesn’t mean to scream at him, but frustration is a root growing deep inside of her, a root that has tucked itself in like a baby. She looks at his glass of milk, wraps her hands around the smooth exterior.

“I just don’t understand you. I love you, but I don’t fucking understand you.” She shakes the glass, watches the twisting current. She wishes it were a tornado. She wishes it would swallow them whole. Asher takes another bite from his sandwich.

“Do you love me?” She asks after a moment, her voice enveloped in fear. Again, there is only silence. Margaret hates his silence.

With no sense of acknowledgement, Asher reaches his hand towards the glass that Margaret holds so tightly and his detachment lights her. A fire starts in her lungs, she can’t contain it.

“Asher!” She screams, throwing the glass of milk against the wall. It is explosive—an in-house natural disaster that leaves the floor soaked, milk-stained, and wet. Shards of glass scatter the floor like tiny graves. Asher closes the newspaper gently, calmness his own cocoon.

And here she is, a fire deafening inside of her and the growing roots reeling around every interior organ. She can feel herself suffocating. She stands up, so abruptly it’s outside of herself. She is crying silently. Her eyes fall to her hand, to the ring hugging her finger like a fragile infant. She swallows a pit of melancholy, slips the ring off of her finger and slams it on the table in front of Asher. She waits for a moment, a tacit plead that goes unnoticed and with her body still heated she turns to leave. Her heels click against the milk veiled floor and almost instantly there is a swoosh, thud, and then silence.

His eyes fall to the ground, the white around him turning a deep red.

“I do love you,” he says, his voice as hollowed as the upstairs room.

Volume 15, Spring 2019