Xavier George
Renuptial
I
Don't be mad. It was a thought. An idea. For your sake. We're not too old for a new idea, are we?
Look at me, would you?
Those dishes you're doing, that should be me washing them. Already this Parkinson's has made you my nurse. So it's an idea. So we talk about it. For fifty years that's what we've done. Why start today with the silent treatment?
Sweetheart.
You and me, we've re-upped a time or two already. When Jason went off to college, don't tell me you didn't think, am I gonna stay with this geezer or what? I know you did because you went off with your girlfriends and I had to think, I wonder if she's coming back. I wonder if I want her to. Turns out I did. Then thank god you came home and we were like newlyweds all winter.
Mabel and her fiancé, somehow these kids are smart enough to see it coming. Why not put a renewal clause in your marriage contract? Every five years, every ten, you talk about it. Better than biting your fingernails off waiting to see if your wife's coming back from the beach.
Five times ten years it's been. We gotta be up for a renewal. It's no picnic, running me to the doctor all the time. So maybe we let this one expire. You try something new with your life, so do I.
Can't we at least talk about it?
Fine, I'll start. For me, I'd renew. Because my heart races when I see you walk into a room. What a thing that is, after all these years.
Now it's your turn.
So you're still here, and that's a blessing. But there's gotta be a better reason than 50 years ago you said some vow. Is there? Anything?
Maybe it's a stupid idea. So look at me and tell me, Sam, stop your nonsense. You and me, we're still us. Otherwise, I gotta think I'm dead weight you're better off without.
Am I? Or maybe I'm just a foolish old man. You can be honest. It wouldn't be the first time you've said it, Sam, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Please. Sweetheart. Tell me it's stupid.
II
Silent treatment, he calls it. In 50 years a person learns to keep her mouth shut is all. He didn't call it the silent treatment when he ordered the soup we both knew he couldn't eat without spilling. Now, though. He needs me to say out loud, there's no place I'd rather be than wiping up after you, or else it's the silent treatment.
I'm not telling him something that's not the truth. So I keep my mouth shut.
All his talk, you think he could tell me what's the point of a marriage that you have to go on asking yourself if you want to stay in. Better you decide once. Then it's settled. Anything else that comes unstuck, that much you don't have to figure out. Your last kid finally gets launched in the world, you don't ask, is this who I grow old with? Already you're old. You ask, am I too old to get my J.D.? It's the beach he remembers but I went to visit Brown on that trip, and U Mass. Saw what it would take to hold my own with those kids. Young adults, okay, but too young to know how life disappoints you, no matter how much you apply yourself. So I came home to grow even older with him, like we promised.
And now he wants I should what? Go get that law degree that he promised to pay for as soon as he finished his residency? Be more fun than listening to him beg me to say I want to spend the rest of our days playing nursemaid. I open my mouth now, and that's what comes out: I'd rather not. I'd rather do something for me, before I am used up entirely.
But I say that, and the rest doesn't count. Raising our children instead of taking the bar. Organizing charity balls instead of suing employers who discriminate. Now I say "you're on your own,” and I'm a fair-weather friend. Or fifty years a dupe.
So I keep my mouth shut.
III
Mom wants help applying to law school
WTF? Are you going to?
What?
Help her
Uh, yeah
Dad?
What?
She leaving him?
idk
you didn't ask?
not my business
still you ask
she'd say if she was
would she?
dad would
can he still text?
could he ever?
dial, then. Can he?
Guess so. brb
…
So?
says she hasn't spoken since Tues
like 48 hrs?
pretty much
did you say about law school?
not my business
then what?
asked if he stopped talking long enough
hahaha. He hang up on you?
pretty much
should I call?
Daddy's little girl, yeah
K
lmk
K
…
says he asked if she wanted to renegotiate
What?
marriage, I guess
ffs
since the Parkinson's
so he shoots himself in the foot
just wants reassurance
yeah, but
I know. what would he even do?
go live with you
yeah, NO
so Mom
got her back up
thinks he doesn't appreciate
yep
I'll call
…
so she talked
or yelled?
def yelled
and?
Dad heard
He's deaf
when it's convenient
true
she was loud enough anyway
tell me he's not headed over
he's helping with her application
law school?
yeah
lucky her
hahaha
so they're good?
hiring a nurse
about time
renewing their vows
cheesy
you know Dad
but Mom
said ok if she can wear a pantsuit and flats
that tracks
see you there?
vows thing?
law school graduation
that, too
:)
love ya
Xavier George (they/them) is the story-telling alter-ego of academic political theorist Dr. Gwen Ottinger. Curious about things most people take for granted, their fiction imagines how social and political change can happen through the actions of individuals who are neither paragons nor monsters. George is inspired by the peculiar challenges of being an autistic, female-bodied GenXer. Their fiction has appeared in Crow and Cross Keys, Feels Blind Literary, and Luna Station Quarterly.
