Wildline

featured art by Virgil Evans

Mandolin would like to believe she knew her husband, even if that meant only knowing him somewhat more than his subordinates did. She knew far less than she should, at least that’s how she felt. She didn’t know what a marriage looked like to those who were a part of what could be considered a “happy marriage”, however; she knew for certain that this was far from it. To the point where it was noticeable to those who were regulars in their lives. Their extremely separate lives, that is.

They didn’t fight, per say, not as frequently as a couple on the brink of divorce would. Still, they found themselves not speaking enough to even consider the idea of argument. The distance and resentment between them only grew, entirely unspoken, entirely hidden like a snake beneath the grass, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike one of them, whoever decided they had enough of the silence first. Mandolin knew, as far as their patience went, it would be her.

Then again, what did she know? What did she know about herself that he knew as well? What did she know about him? Tonight, she caught herself sitting up in their bed, in a daze of confusion and delirium from lack of sleep, sitting with her back in a painful slouch as she scribbled onto a pad of paper like a list would save her from overarching grief. She’d always refused to use his desk, because when he wasn’t away, he was crammed with work, at the desk she despised so vehemently. The list began with a title, a title that she no longer remembered, having scratched it out in fear it’d make her look like an idiot. The desperate idiot she was and always has been.
The next portion of the list was the contents, the bullet points scratched down like those pill bugs that appear during the summertime, odd shapes that looked more oval than circle. Mandolin paid no mind, she cared not for the structure of the list more than she cared for the words that went with it.

And so it began, it took her almost five minutes to determine the first item on the list. Which, in a sense, made her feel guilty. For one so willing to complain about how little he knew about her, she knew next to nothing in turn about him.

The first topic arrived, her usually unreadable handwriting melting into something far more delicate, something relatively coherent for once,

“His birthday is November 15th, only exactly five months before mine.”

Humiliating. Something she obviously knew, but still one step ahead of him. Her husband was not one to remember important dates such as birthdays or anniversaries. (Another topic of frustration between the two.) Fortunately, they had no children of their own, no one to complain about their father’s absence at a princess-themed birthday celebration.

Staring down at the paper with exhaustion aching through her bones, part of her wanted to give up on this miniscule passion project, the only thing keeping her ahead being the sense of pride she couldn’t shake. She desired this trifling superiority over him, one she knew she’d never bring up in conversation, something she’d keep within herself, just as she did with every other personal matter.

Another five minutes passed, and this time, she had nothing to say that wasn’t laced with negativity, nothing came to mind that wasn’t an example of his ignorance, a direct quote of something he’d said that had upset her, or a generally negative opinion she had about him.
It caused her to wonder whether or not she internally loathed the man that she’d chosen to marry. She didn’t have it in her to believe that she truly felt that way, even if that was the truth of the situation. Maybe she’d gotten sick of him overtime, or maybe she had known him long enough to confidently state his faults.

In spite of that, they’d only been married for five years. They were only thirty one years old, both of them. Even if they’ve known eachother since before they were old enough to drive, that still didn’t cancel out how it was far too short of a period for them to treat their marriage as an old couple with fifty years worth of time together. Maybe they weren’t a fitting combination.

Mandolin would not give in to the thoughts of insecurity that plagued her at such an hour, she wouldn’t check her phone to see the time, but she knew it was too late for her to be convinced by such things. Yet, she still needed to write this list, persuade herself of something positive instead.

She changed the topic, deciding it was best for her to start simple. Appearance. Did she know what her husband looked like? Even though she didn’t see him as frequently as she’d forced herself to prefer, she had photographs that included him splayed throughout their house. A particular photo from their wedding sat on the dresser across the bedroom. The same photograph that she had finally put back up this morning, as she had laid it down to be unseen the last time she’d been frustrated with him. She couldn’t fully recall how long ago that was, but she did know that it was the last time he had left for work.

Drifting away from her original idea of listing, Mandolin found it less stressful to simply jot down her thoughts, almost like she was writing out a letter to someone who had never met her husband, an attempt to paint the picture of his face. She began with discussing his height, how he was what she would call, “significantly shorter than her”, having found it wildly embarrassing to wear heels in his presence. How his eyes were a dark brown, the type of dark brown that you would be convinced is black if you weren’t close enough to see it, with bags beneath them that made him appear like a dirty raccoon that you’d find in an alleyway at some ungodly hour, one with foam spouting from it’s corroded lips.

The force at which she scribbled onto the paper returned that same sense of recklessness that she had when she normally wrote, in the handwriting that she never found herself able to read again if she tried to come back to it. But maybe, that was a positive thing, she didn’t want to wake up tomorrow and witness the shameful words of her tainted thoughts that she’d never speak aloud. No one needed to know what she thought of his frail black hair, with gray strands from the amount of stress he endured while he was gone, or his pale skin that made him look sickly and like he’d never been outside a day in his life. No one needed to know of the gauges he wore that she hated with a passion, how they looked like Christmas ornaments hanging down from his ears.

Over the course of her violent scrawls, they shifted from a written description to more of a deliberate demonstration of the hatred she held for him. How she could swear that she held all the love in her heart for her husband, regardless of all his faults, but within this book, held every portion of him that she wished would never return the next time he did.

The ignorance to any potential information about her, his inability to keep a promise or call her back, how he was so quick to leave and dump her aside to go to his work, which had always been a priority over her since before they were married, all of the things that caused her to grow bitter.

Yet, one of her least favorite factors about him, was the wedding ring that sat idly on his nightstand, as he’d told her time and time again that it was only because he was afraid to lose the precious token of their union. It haunted her, how she didn’t even know that he never wore it until she was seeking out something she’d lost one evening, finding it in the back of his nightstand drawer, hidden away like it was something to regret.

Even with all of the things that Mandolin knew she hated about her husband, she knew that most of all, she hated herself tenfold. Hated how she stuck around and allowed herself to crawl back to the same man year after year, time after time, like nothing negative had ever happened between them. Like he was the perfect man and cared about her truly and honestly, loving her enough to apologize for his faults. (Mandolin was sure that he’d never said the word “sorry” in his life.) She hated how as the phone rang beside her, with the familiar name that she knew all too well, her blue eyes bore down at the notebook in her lap, that accustomed feeling of self-reproach returning once again to pierce her like a bullet to the back of her throat.

As the hatred that she held within her fists dissipated yet again, she found herself continuing the same cycle that she always did. All that Mandolin knew was that she’d always pick up the phone.