Mom's Spaghetti

“You know what? I quit!” she screeched, tossing the fork of spaghetti across the room.

She left her dignity at the dining table where everybody could see it.

As she marched across the kitchen, she felt the cold marble floor below her feet. With each step, she inched closer to the bathroom, as her legs tried not to buckle beneath her.

Like a house of playing cards full of kings and tired queens.

She threw a splash of tea tree oil on her face and pulled her cheeks down with her fingers. Who was that woman in the mirror? Were those laugh lines there before?

A speck of her chipped red nail polish sat in the sink. She would’ve never left the house with unmanicured hands before.

Perched over, she felt a bead of sweat trickle down her leg and a spaghetti noodle stuck to her big toe.

She pressed her ear against the bathroom door listening for his footsteps trailing after. Instead, his voice trailed faintly after two sets of muffled giggles.

She crept towards the back door and looked behind with each step. Toppling over the giant Ficus she tripped and bit her lip.

I thought I told him to get rid of that thing.

She grabbed the car keys from the hook and slipped into her house slippers, silently closing the door behind her.

The house alarm chimed but he didn’t disarm it. She’d usually hear him ask “where are you going” on the outdoor security camera by now.

As she got into the car and backed out slowly, she kept pinching the skin under her chin. She read somewhere that doing so stopped you from crying. There was only a bag of quarters in the glove compartment and a half eaten fruit bar in the center console.

As she drove away, her house looked smaller and smaller. She turned on the radio, wiped the fingerprints with the bottom of her shirt, and put on her favorite track, skipping to the chorus she knew by heart. No requests. No objections.

Rolling down the window, the wind slapped the back of her neck. Her hair tie dangled on a knotted strand of damp hair that smelled of unrinsed shampoo and parmesan cheese. Her hands clutched the wheel as she turned into an empty shopping center. Parking in the middle of two spots, she turned off the ignition. Rubbing her tired eyes she caught a waft of garlic that lingered on her fingertips. As she squeezed drops of lavender into her hands, she heard a knock on the window.

An older woman, with auburn hair and one long braid tucked behind her ear, knocked again. Pointing to the window, the older woman twisted the turquoise ring on her index finger.

“It’s okay, sweetie, I won’t bite,” she said.

The woman cracked open her window and they locked eyes. She’d never seen hazel eyes with specks of blue before.

“You do realize you’re taking two spots, don’t you Darlin’” said the lady, still twiddling her turquoise egg-shaped ring.

The women tried to speak but nothing came out. She cleared her throat.

“Cat caught your tongue, Sugar?” the woman teased.

Closing her window, she turned the music on full blast and took a bite of the fruit bar.

She watched as the older lady walked into the grocery store with one of the crew members who escorted her inside.

With the song “Ophelia” still coming out of the speakers, the woman closed her eyes and reclined back into her chair.

“Excuse me, ma’am” said a deep voice.

She rubbed her eyes and saw a younger gentleman holding a bouquet of roses looking into her car. She honked her horn incessantly at him.

“Wow, it’s not that serious,” the young man shouted. He threw one of the roses onto her windshield.

The woman let out a giant sigh and noticed a crumpled piece of paper wedged under a watermelon lollipop.

Go to the farm. Write a children’s book. Do something new.

Her bucket list for 2025 only had three items. The fourth item with a capital B.

B? B what?

She tucked the paper into her slippers. Driving out of the parking lot, the one street light with a broken bulb flickered.

When she heard herself exhale she realized the music stopped. There were no other cars. No people crossing the streets. She always joked that her favorite sleepy town was the best place to get lost, but this time the joke didn’t feel so funny.

With only 4 dollars worth of quarters to her name, an empty fruit bar wrapper, and a crumpled bucket list, she drove back home.

Walking into the back door, the Ficus was no longer there. The smell of sandalwood permeated the halls, and she heard nothing but the rise and fall of her chest.

As she tiptoed into her bedroom “oh, good your back” her husband said in between brushing his teeth.

She looked at him, puzzled.

“I put dinner away and the kids are washed up in bed” he said, as he spat the residual toothpaste in the sink.

“But I, I” she mustered, her voice cracking.

He pulled her in and she fell into his arms.

“I love you, but you smell” he said matter-of-factly.

“Why don’t you go take a shower?”

“I, I” she began once more.

He turned on the water for her, grabbed her favorite pajamas, the button up ones with the cherries, got her bathrobe, her face mask, and set it up for her.

“Take a shower, you’ll feel better.”

There was a brief pause.

“Trust me,” he said.

He grabbed his phone and closed the sliding door behind him. The woman stared at herself once more. Another new laugh line. How did she not notice the dried spaghetti sauce on her chin? In the shower, with her dirty pajamas still on, she let the water fall on her. She slid down the wall, and let out a deep breath, “yeahhhh, this does feel nice.”