Work Text:
We met in my hometown, surrounded by lush green and golden plains, swaying to the heartbeat of the Earth. The sun burned the light blue sky when I found him under a stray oak tree, reading a book. Maybe it was Shakespeare. When my older sister came back from the cities out east, she told me stories about star-crossed lovers and lost souls. She had a way with words the same way Pastor Sunny did on Sundays. While the pastor would paint my imagination with shame and the guilt of sin, my older sister weaved soft pink romance and striking tragedy that left me aching for more. Because of her, I dreamt of uncloistered freedom outside our small plains town.
I stopped with my basket of canned beans and corn, staring at the tall stranger dressed in black. He was handsome in a way that most people might find out of towners to be; intriguingly different. He looked at me with dark eyes and raised a hand in greeting before settling against the trunk of the tree.
“What are you reading?” I asked in the heat of the summer.
“The Odyssey,” he said.
I drew closer to him, my skin tingling in anticipation.
“What’s it about?”
He paused and set the book down, the spine cracking and showing white pulpy strands. He looked at my messy brown hair and the sweat stains underneath the sleeves of my cotton blue dress. He must’ve seen how I stained my lips red with strawberries for the local boy at the general store. I felt hot under his gaze.
The stranger huffed. “Do you read?”
“I wish,” I said.
He gestured with a quick wave of his arm. “No better time to start.”
***
I married Marius the undertaker six months after our meeting. Family and friends filled the right side of the pews, cheering as we walked down the aisle. His side remained empty. I had asked him why, when we had started to prepare our handwritten invitations, but even then he had stayed silent, face twisting into harsh edges and darkened contempt. I had originally imagined a big wedding, a celebration of our families filled with drunken laughter and a neverending night of aching feet from dancing. But it didn't matter because he had granted me an even grander gift.
He squeezed my hand now at the altar as the pastor spoke about fidelity and God’s love. I looked up at him, his face impassive except for the corner of his eyes betraying a quiet contentment. It was the same look he gave as when he spoke about ancient myths and the wonders of the stars above. Bells rang in my ears and I smelled sweet honey carried in the wind. My skin prickled with freedom. I smiled back.
***
We moved further west, picking a clearing where East Himalayan Fir trees towering above and hawks dipped and swooped in the air. My mother and father weren’t pleased to see me go and held me tight on our front porch. When I got in the carriage to leave months ago, Marius had stayed behind with my parents and I watched in silence as they spoke with furrowed brows and deep seeded frowns. It ended with Marius walking away, his shoulders hunched as my father stalked back into the house and slammed the door. We had pulled away from my childhood home and I watched my mother become a smaller pinprick of disappointment on the horizon. We never did speak about the day.
I looked over at Marius now with his sleeves rolled up and the cloth catching onto his corded muscles. “Are you sure you don’t need help?” I asked. He concentrated on piecing the cottage together, stone by stone, plank by plank as I worked on the garden. I didn’t comment on the crooked foundation.
“I’m fine,” he replied.
Huffing, I turned back to burying potatoes in the ground, gently covering them with a mound of soil. I moved my hair to the side and glanced at him. Marius was already looking at me with his dark eyes and I felt my cheeks flush, a pleasant smile painting my lips. The stones toppled and Marius cursed.
***
The night yawned and the house shuddered. I stretched my legs out in the rocking chair Marius made. When I asked him why, he shrugged and said, because you wanted a place to read.
It had been three months since we had first moved in and Marius’ undertaker business started to get busier. The garden was flourishing as we entered the end of the summer and our love seemed to know no bounds. The book in my lap was forgotten as I thought about our time together last Friday evening with the fireflies glowing in the window. My skin flushed in a rush of red and I couldn’t fight a smile. I put my hands on my swollen stomach. The fireplace crackled as sparks flickered up the chimney. Marius was three days late, the house empty of his quiet, steady presence.
The door opened and he walked in, his clothes slashed and shoes dirtied. “You’re home,” I said. He grunted, toeing off his shoes and hanging his soaking coat. “I was worried when you didn’t arrive Thursday,” I continued with a soft laugh. He said nothing. I frowned and stood up with aching knees.
“You could’ve told me you would be gone longer. Why didn’t you?” He stayed silent and like the dead marched towards the room, questions unanswered.
***
He would come and go on schedules of his own as I stayed home with little Esther and Cyrus. After tucking them to sleep, I would wash the dishes, clean the tabletops, and wait in the rocking chair, only to wake up the next morning in the same position, Cyrus shaking me awake for oatmeal. One time, Marius came to me, rocking me awake as night turned into day. I pulled him close and buried my nose in his neck, smelling the familiar formaldehyde and the unfamiliar hints of lavender perfume. He gently pushed me away, his face unreadable in the guilty lines around his eyes and the bobbing of his Adam’s apple.
He smelled different each time he came back. Jasmine. Roses. Honeysuckle. He guided me to our room and laid on top of me, my head trapped in a floral cloud of locked ugly truths. And when he was done, he rolled to the side and held me close, his steady breaths rustling the strands of my hair. I could hear the owls, the crickets, and the shaky beating of my own heart in the silence of our room.
The next morning when I looked at Cyrus, Esther, and Marius eating breakfast at the table he sanded and made himself, my soul rested easy knowing that our children looked nothing like him.
***
“Marius, where have you been?”
“You know how the roads are.”
“Cyrus and Esther have been waiting for you. I have been waiting for you.”
“Being an undertaker is hard work.”
“I’m sure it is with all the poor widows you help.” He stopped in his flurry of movements. He looked at me. He saw me. “What.”
I turned and left.
***
I laid in bed staring at the ceiling. I learned to read because of him, but I couldn’t read the signs. Dreams of loving freedom laid dead in the heavy weight of my wedding ring. And then I thought of my sister, my sweet, ambitious sister out east and her tragic loves from Shakespeare.
The mattress dipped next to me. I stiffened.
“I’m sorry.” It was a whisper in the suffocating darkness. I could feel him grasping for my hand, tentative shuffling, before I moved away. I had created my own Shakespearean tragedy.
“Don’t lie.”