Standard
by Greg Gerke
I work first shift in the sorting department at the post office and every time I come home my wife says she must leave and takes the car we share, not to return for some eight hours.
I believe she works at the post office as well but since I'm not ever there during her shift I can't be sure. I don't notice any extra cash around the house and I still pay the majority of the bills. At night I quietly take a flashlight from under my pillow and search her hands for paper cuts and every so often I find one. I've brought a photo of her to the second shift supervisor but he has denied everything. I can't stay past four and be late because she needs the car, but even if I stayed she couldn't get to work and I wouldn't know. Futile.The weekend is our quiet time and because the car is only available then we catch up on errands like shopping, the library and visiting friends. Sometimes on Sundays, when everything is done, when our clothes are washed and my lunch is packed for the next morning, we make love. Her face sparkles momentarily and I think how radiant and giving this person in my life is and how lucky I am. We finish in our own spectacular but hushed way and I hold her and ask, "What do you do when I'm at work?"
She stares at the ceiling dumbfounded. "I wait."
"For me or the car?"
It seems she holds her breath. Though everything is steady, I see her ghost paste its hands together and push at my stomach like a squirming child. Again and again we come to the moment of it all toppling over-what once we called love ending in gasps and sputters.
But she loosens, her eyes click open and I know we have survived my need to know. "I'll love you till the end of time," she says. "What more do you want?"
There are no crumbs or dust anywhere in the house. Books are in order and the mail is properly stowed. On the far side off the living room, below the window, is a tan sofa. Two depressions have been formed by our slight, slightly broken bodies.
Greg Gerke lives in Buffalo. His work has appeared in Rosebud, Fourteen Hills, Pedestal Magazine, Pindeldyboz, Flash Forward Press 2009 Anthology and others. There's Something Wrong With Sven, a book of short fiction, has been published by Blaze Vox Books. His website is www.greggerke.com.