Chapter 21
Danny and I have pretty much been going our separate ways.
It’s already been almost two weeks ago that we got into that big fight, and he hasn't touched me since.
When he comes home he ignores me and I ignore him.
I don't even say good evening cuz what's the point.
All we have to say is nothing, except for the “hey, did you move my shoes?” or “hey, I'm bringing your car to get serviced.”
Kara has also been here. She's here today.
It's a Wednesday, and funny enough, the last few days Danny has been home a lot sooner in the evenings.
Usually he stays away for days at a time.
I know last week Monday he had to be away for the whole day because of some pilot diagnostic thing, whatever it is, it was really important, but he's been making an effort to come home in the evenings.
I've been holed up in my little nook overlooking the window.
Kara has been keeping the place clean, so it's been a bit of a help.
When she sees that I'm in a bad mood she stays away, but she's nice enough to ask me if she can get me anything.
There's no reason for me to take out my anger on her, but when I'm feeling like this, I don't necessarily feel like putting on a smile for anyone. And honestly… least of all her.
Ghana's brown coat glistens in the lamplight near my easel. I love looking past my canvas outside, but when the lights are on, even though they're low, it's hard to see what's out there outside of the other house lights that are far away. And, of course, the lights down on our lawn.
“You can't just not talk to him forever,” Ghana says.
“Sure I can. That's what he wants anyway.”
“I'm just curious,” Germany starts. “Why don't you divorce him? It seems like the likely option. Seems like you're not happy with him, or you're not happy with each other. Let me guess, you're a gold digger, can't do without the money.”
“At the very least, maybe taking some time away from each other,” Grenada cuts in.
“A woman must never abandon her duty as a wife,” Georgia cuts in, cleaning her face with her white-tipped paws.
“I never abandoned my duty as a wife, Georgia. I've always been here. I've cooked meals for him even though we have Steve. Even for Chef Steve's birthday, he turned 51 last Tuesday.”
“Oh, really?” Greece cuts in.
“Yeah, I put that thing together for him, a nice little get-together, and I told Danny about it. He never helped. And I saved some extra for him. I actually cooked a small meal for Chef Steve. And for Danny.”
“Did he eat it? Chef Steve, what did he say?” Grenada asks.
“Bet it tasted like mouse ass,” Germany cuts in.
The other gerbils laugh. I only scoff, “hm,” because I don't have the energy to.
“He liked it. He thought it was very sweet. But Danny did not eat anything. Wasn't hungry. That was my last bit of kindness I tried to show despite everything that happened… because I was still trying to do my duty as a wife, as you say, Georgia,” I reply pointedly.
A somber atmosphere takes over the gerbils.
“You have to fight harder. You must. If you don't—”
But I cut Georgia off. “I can only fight so much if the other person isn't fighting as well. What kind of pathetic person am I for my husband to treat me like garbage and me fight for his affection?”
“Do you think that's a sort of kink?” Grenada asks.
“Excuse me?” I say to her, putting down my paintbrush to look at her pointedly.
“Well, I mean, think about it. The best sex that you guys seem to have is when you make him angry. Maybe he gets off on that. Maybe he's so bored by the monotony that he needs a little bit of spice in his life,” Grenada says.
My mind goes back to all the times we did have sex.
“I mean, that's great, but I'm not getting anything out of it.”
“You're not getting good sex? Maybe he wants to kill you. Maybe he's fattening you up,” Greece cuts in again with her paranoia.
“Would you be quiet? Are you even listening to yourself?
None of what you said makes sense or correlates with anything we've been talking about,” Germany gets angry at her, nipping at her nose, which is funny because that's exactly the right reaction based on the little back-and-forth I just made for them in my mind.
“Well, think about it. He's stuffing her.”
The other gerbils laugh at poor Greece.
“No, you imbecile. Stuffing means that he's having sex,” Germany corrects, laughing.
“No, stuffing means food. Nobody uses the word stuffing to mean sex. You stuff something and you leave it there. Right? Like when you stuff your face, or you stuff our hidey-hole with the soft cotton bedding? Duh,” my cream-colored, red-eyed gerbil spits out.
“God, you're so stupid it's actually painful,” Germany shakes her head.
“In any case, you don't want to lose all of this. But if you're really that unhappy…” Georgia starts to say before Ghana interrupts.
“She is unhappy.”
“I understand that. But if you are, do you not have a choice to leave?” Georgia asks.
Why don't I leave? I know I still love him, but honestly, why don't I?
Divorce is a big, heavy thing. And yeah, I…
guess I'm scared. What if all of this is just because he's stressed out?
But if he's sleeping with other people, which, I mean, I don't have hard proof of, but my instinct is telling me he is, that means I would have to go back out there.
“Speak, woman, what's the matter?” Germany asks.
Licking my lips, I look up at the vaulted ceiling. “He signed a prenup.”
“Wait, what? What's that?” Grenada asks, looking around confused.
Licking my lips, I explain. “A prenup is something that you sign so that the other person is assured that you're not marrying them strictly to ruin them or take their fortune.
We've only been married for five years. Well, technically four years and nine months. I could leave now, but…” Shaking my head, I release a rueful chuckle.
“I would get almost nothing. Like I said, not that I want his money, but…
my whole life has been banked on being a stay-at-home wife because I'm an idiot.”
“Clearly,” Germany whips, not even feeling one ounce of sympathy for me.
“Yeah, well. If I divorce him under ten years without any children, which we don't have, it waives my right for spousal support if we get divorced.
And… I hate to say this because it makes me feel awful, but I've gotten used to our way of life.
And I don't have… God, I feel so pathetic saying this… I…”
“You got used to being taken care of. You didn't develop your own set of skills to ensure that you know how to take care of yourself out there in life. At least… how things are now. Which I'm guessing are much more rough,” Georgia says.
“Yeah. Everyone is going through it out there. I am lucky. My little charity events and me going out there to try and help people and just giving money away isn't curing anything. There's so many people suffering.”
“Yeah, a lot of it is because of their own mismanagement.
I bet right now if you found some poor drunk to go out there and give all of your money to, he would gamble it the next day.
Humans, and gerbils, too, don't do very well with excess being given to us without earning it,” Germany laughs as she says this, as if remembering something.
“What's so funny about that?” Ghana asks.
“Remember when you loved us and you wanted to go out for a while, so you left us with a bucket full of food, and it made us sick from eating so much of it? And we got super fat because we didn't know how to stop eating?” Germany reminds me.
I feel guilty about that everyday.
“Speak for yourself. I barely got any of that food. As a matter of fact, between you and big-mouth Greece the glutton,” Georgia muses with some bitterness at the recollection, “that food was gone in almost a day. We'd be dead unless we started eating each other.”
“Hehe, ah, good times,” Germany exhales dreamily.
Shrugging, I continue. “Yeah, well. That's me.
What I should have been doing is taking a lot of that money also and saving it.
I mean, I do anyway, but it's to try those businesses that just never got off the ground.
I have my art and my little trinket stuff that I sell, but that's nothing. That's just a hobby.”
“If you told people who you were, Melody, maybe you'd get more sales,” Grenada informs me.
“You think I want people buying my stuff because I'm the wife of Daniel Akari?
That's awful. Then I would never have anything for myself.
Plus, to be honest, it never occurred to me that he and I would ever…
even be considering divorce. You don't understand, he was a completely different person.
I never imagined I'd be sitting here alone…
saying all my woes to my five gerbils. That we wouldn't have kids.”
“That's a choice you made,” Greece reminds me.
“And now I'm glad that I made it, to be honest. I can't see me dealing with all of this and then having to deal with keeping my kids happy. I don't have the bandwidth for it, to be honest.”
“So when can you get divorced? If that's what you really want?” Ghana questions.
“To ensure that I get something that I can live comfortably on until I can get on my feet or do something, I'd have to wait for ten years.
It used to be five, but now it's ten because…
well, actual gold diggers were taking advantage of the system.
Claiming their spouses abused them and all of that, but honestly, if I were rich like that too and decided to marry someone, I'd be very wary of them as well. I wanted to prove to Danny that I loved him not because of his money.”
“Even if he believed that, I guess in his mind people change. Just look at him. Can you imagine if you were the rich one?” Germany says to me.
Things seem very quiet. The house is generally quiet right now. I don't have it in me to talk about this anymore or to paint.
“I'm going to um… go downstairs and… eat some salad or something,” I exhale, feeling as though my life force has just depleted.
“All right. Get gone,” Germany chirps.
“Keep your head up,” Georgia encourages me.
I wave to them like the nerd that I am, and I just descend the stairs.