Joe worked on New York City’s Wall Street, the pressure cooker in New York’s financial affairs. His days were filled with stress, frustration, and anxiety, each magnified by his long workdays and the constant tiredness they brought. He was anxious for the end of the day. It was Friday, his savored day of the week, which led to the weekend when he could unwind from the taut springs of his work week.
Driving home, he smiled at the thought of a quiet dinner, and then being alone in a calm environment. Maybe he had read more of his Lee Child’s book about Jack Reacher. Of course, TV was also a possibility, accompanied by a couple of beers. His mood was dark after having lost most of a client’s investment. The verbal tongue-lashing he received over the phone was humiliating. He hoped his ulcer would not put him in the hospital, again. The client had verbally dragged him down a well-traveled dirt road. His only comfort on the way home was the car’s AC. It was on full blast and was blowing his hair back away from his face, then rippling with the air currents.
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Anna, Joe’s wife of five years, was eight months pregnant and she, as well as Joe, knew they were having a son. They had exploded with joy when the test showed she was pregnant, and they were both looking forward to a healthy son.
Anna was not cheerful now. She was uncomfortable, couldn’t find a good position for sleeping, her urine was slow and frequent and now the air-conditioner wasn’t working. She had told Joe that there was an unusual noise coming out of the vents. He ignored her, then later said he’d have it fixed. What was what she wanted to know? But she was busy, so she’d make an effort to be patient, though the kitchen grew unbearable when the stove was on before dinnertime.
She could feel the baby kicking and used to think it was cute and wonderful, however, now that she was in the late stage of pregnancy, the kicks were not cute and wonderful. The strong kicks felt like she was being bruised from the inside and, sometimes, made her bend over in pain. That’s when she usually became incontinent. She hated that wet feeling between her legs because it was awkward to change her underwear with a plump stomach. Another kick came, making her situation worse with her anger growing. She thought the kicks felt like the baby had long toenails and those toenails, like knife points, were poking at her insides. Her heart was racing as she felt hot and sweaty, so she breathed deeply and forced her heart rate to slow, then splashed cool water on her face from the bathroom sink.
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She and Joe had taken their doctor’s advice and delayed the pregnancy until Anna was healthier. She had had some trouble with asthma and pollen allergies. When the doctor said it was an ideal time for Anna to get pregnant, and that she was as healthy as a maternal cow, she shook her head negatively and sneered at him for comparing her to a cow. She thought that men often said such stupid, unthinking things about women. It was worse when they thought it was a compliment. But she accepted it as long as it was not an intentional insult.
Joe was especially happy with the doctor’s advice. Anna was happy, too, but she knew that the frequency of sex that Joe would want would be demanding and probably be overdoing it for her own needs.
Anna wiped the sweat off her brow and waited for Joe to get home with the pizza that she had ordered, and that Joe was to pick up at Antonio’s Pizzeria on his way home from work. She let out an exaggerated sigh of relief knowing she wouldn’t have to cook. They both liked pizza and with the AC suddenly not working, the kitchen would have been unbearably hot once the oven heated up to cook dinner. She smiled with relief and, again, she took a deep, relaxing breath, letting it out slowly.
Anna heard Joe’s car enter the driveway, then she heard the garage door opening and closing. He opened the garage door leading to their kitchen and walked slowly on his sore, tired feet as they slapped the floors as he would like to do with a couple of people he worked with. Hearing his heavy steps, Anna knew that he was tired and had a bad day thus making him moody.
Joe turned the corner and entered the living room. He mumbled ‘hello’ without looking at Anna, as he set his briefcase down, took off his suitcoat, and threw it on the back of a chair. He loosened his tie, then fell into his soft, reclining chair and closed his eyes. He moaned with an elongated sigh. He opened his eyes, looking at Anna whose face seemed to have caved in itself. He could see her tear-filled eyes and was confused.
“Where is the pizza?” Anna asked with disappointment. She knew the answer and became overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness, and hopelessness, then sudden anger. However, she was silent as she stared at Joe.
Joe looked at his feet, placed his elbows on his knees, and covered the crown of his head with both hands. He was angry with himself. Regretfully blurted out, “Shit! I forgot. What else is there to eat?”
“There’s canned soup and cereal. You choose and serve yourself. I haven’t the energy, nor the will to fix a dinner for you. Dinner was your responsibility.” Anna sat in her chair, a dejected look spreading across her face while expelling a forlorn and heavy sigh. Her stomach felt as if the acid in it was boiling from the hotness of her anger and disappointment.
They both walked into the kitchen, prepared their cereal, and then sat at opposite ends of the table. Anna looked at Joe, thinking, ‘Useless men’. Joe turned on the kitchen’s mini-tv to the evening news. To make both their moods worse, Donald Trump was bullshitting the voters. The trouble with Trump for both Anna and Joe was that they knew that millions of people liked eating Trump’s bullshit. It is their major meal of the day.
Joe, trying to smooth things over with a distraction, brought up the subject of Trump’s multi-millionaire status. He stated, “Trump is the perfect example of a dull-minded, entitled person who inherits millions from his father. He inherits the money, and, for some reason, he thinks he has also inherited success. You know about Trump’s father leaving him four hundred million dollars, right?” Anna was disinterested, but not wanting to make the evening worse, she gave a brief answer, “Kind of hard to be unsuccessful with a four-hundred-million-dollar head start over the average person.
The guilt was sinking into Joe’s thoughts as he tried to hide it. What a blunder, he thought. Antonio’s was on the way home. He must have passed it but still didn’t remember to get the pizza. He said, “Yeah. Not only that but Trump has filed for bankruptcy more than once while being treated tenderly by the press, or should I say “buy” the press. His dozen lawyers always get him out of it. He uses tax shelters, so he doesn’t have to pay taxes. The prick.”
Anna remained silent. She knew Joe was in a bad mood already and he would get angrier. She already knew what he would be thinking. He’d think that I could have left him a phone reminder or placed a reminder note in the car, and that I could have avoided this bad feeling if I had helped remind him. At work, he could get away with such nonsense. Anna wasn’t listening to Joe anymore. Her thoughts had drifted to her favorite cravings: pizza, chocolate bars, and chocolate ice cream. Suddenly the sound of Joe’s chewing aggravated her as if it were being magnified into a milky-wet, sloshy chomping sound.
Joe saw Anna involuntarily cover her ears and immediately thought that it was her way of showing her increased aggravation with him. This increased his own aggravation toward her. But he hid it, thinking he would add a sense of humor into the situation to calm things down. He looked up from his bowl and stated, “You know … if a woman ends up running against Trump, even though I don’t like Trump, I’ll have to vote for Trump.” He smiled at Anna, hoping she would smile at the humor.
“You asshole,” is all she said to herself.
They both knew that it was still early in the presidential election stage, but the Republicans had chosen Trump already. They had concluded, early, that Trump was their man. However, the Democrats were still attempting to select who they wanted to run against Trump. Currently, debates were ongoing between the three outstanding Democratic candidates: a former male Secretary of State for a past president, an outspoken, but popular woman senator, and a male governor with enough money to carry on a flood of advertising, but he had once had an affair.
Anna looked up at Joe’s smiling face and she sent him a negative shake of her head with her eyes closed as if she had lost patience with him. She was in no mood for humor. It was if Joe was laughing at his mistake. She interpreted it as truthful sarcasm while making his mistake less important.
“You can be such an unthinking bastard when you are irritated and feel guilty about your mistake. I know it wasn’t intentional so why make matters worse by dodging the issue?” She rose from the table without having touched her cereal. As she rose, her foot accidentally kicked a table leg. When standing, she slammed her palms on the table out of bottled-up frustration and walked toward the living room.
Having kicked and pounded the table at one end made the other end jump, causing Joe’s half-filled bowl of milk and cereal to splash over the sides and spray onto his good clothes. Then the bowl slid off the table and into his lap, making him so furious it turned his face red as his hands balled into fists. “You bitch,” he screamed. “You got milk all over my good suit.”
Anna’s headache grew as she walked away toward the quiet living room without looking back at Joe. She heard him shout but had no interest in what he was saying. She walked to her reclining chair and turned it toward the artificial fireplace which she turned on. She exhaled with a loud, stressful sigh. As she sat, she cradled the baby with both hands, lifting the bulge somewhat to make her more comfortable in that bent position. She stared at the flickering, yellow, orange, and red flames which brought her temporary peace. She relaxed a little, glad she had turned her chair away from Joe’s chair. Not looking at him for a while would be a joy. After staring into the flames for a minute, she picked up her New Yorker magazine. She tried to read but couldn’t, so she looked at the pictures. She could hear Joe cleaning the spilled milk.
In her peripheral vision, she could still see the flames reflected off the glass, fire-safety accordion doors. She wanted to be seen reading her magazine so that Joe would not call for her attention. This way would make it easier to ignore him. Tears appeared in her eyes while she thought, He’s never been this bad, this mean and arrogant before. He must have had one fuckin' bad day to turn him into this unknown person. Eventually, we’ll talk about this, and both of us will recover our sanity and be happy again.” When Joe finished cleaning, Anna heard his footsteps walking to the Master bedroom.
In the bedroom, Joe glanced at his watch which told him that it was only seven o’clock. But, as long as he was undressing, he may as well get into his bedtime clothes early and not stand there in his underwear. He reached into a drawer and yanked out his pajamas. That task completed, he entered the living room and saw Anna facing away from him, toward the active fireplace while reading a magazine. That meant she didn’t want to be bothered which, in itself, was an added irritation. Joe’s negative thought was, If it’s good for the goose, then it’s good for the gander. He sat, grabbed the New York Times newspaper, and perused its contents, but every now and then he’d peek over the top of it to look at the back of her head. After the second peek, five minutes later, he noticed that Anna had laid the magazine on her lap. She must be unfocused, also, Joe thought. He hadn’t even finished one short article due to his anger, though he felt it dwindling. He was overwhelmed by constant thoughts of their argument and, in some cases, word-for-word memories. He peeked over the top of the newspaper, which he was hiding behind, and saw the magazine on her lap. Now, he supposed, would be the silent treatment. He could take the silent treatment for a while. I liked silence, but suddenly he felt as if he was hit by an electrical shock that made him feel more rational as the anger was dissolving. Joe asked himself, “Why the fuck didn’t I simply get into the car and drive to Antonio’s to get the pizza. That was a dumb shit move. None of this would have happened if I’d simply thought of that. Stupid, stupid, damn stupid of me. “I am a major league asshole. She was right about me acting like an asshole. I was. It all went wrong in my head, and I couldn’t stop the horrible thoughts that blurted out as angry words”. He never remembered being like that in all their years together. It only happened once at work and that was a couple of years ago. What’s happening to me?” He felt as if he were suddenly blinking, but it was a muscle spasm under his left eye. It pulsated every few seconds. “Where did that come from,” he asked himself. Then, “I never regretted being married before. I’m happy we are having a son. I have a good, well-paying job. Too much stress, but it pays the bills and leaves room for extras. I haven’t thought of wanting independence or being single again. Sure, we have disagreements, but none have gone off track this far and ended up in such a devastatingly tragic wreck. He looked at his watch and didn’t realize how much time had gone by, but he knew Anna deserved a sincere apology. He owed that to her for being an unthinking, unfair asshole. He loved Anna and now wanted to do the right thing for her. He rose from his chair and saw the top of her head. As he approached her chair, he could see her arm as he said. “Anna, I messed up royally. I was unnecessarily mean to you, so I want to apologize for my wrong and out-of-character, insane behavior.” He turned to face her, got down on one knee, and begged forgiveness.
Anna stared toward the flames but could not answer Joe. She was dead.
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