Sensitive Content Warning: This story contains a reference to a transphobic slur, a reference to a mental health condition, a mention of alcohol use, and mature themes.
The funeral is crowded. Charlie was an extrovert, the life of the party, friendly and generous, a beloved member of the community. His sisters give tearful speeches. Their baby brother is gone, just like that. His kind face smiles out at the mourners in the pews. It smells like dead roses in here. I am suffocating. People nod sorrowfully in my direction. The pity in their eyes screams harshly like discordant notes on a piano. “Poor Jenna,” they are thinking. “A young widow, left alone with a toddler...I’m glad it’s not me.”
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I had never imagined myself as a housewife. I graduated from a prestigious university with a master’s degree at age twenty-one, having skipped two grades in elementary school and one in high school. I was a triple-major in my undergrad: social sciences, journalism, and public relations. I then completed social work school and got my LMSW, entering the field shortly after as a care manager in a local non-for-profit. I was ready to save the world.
It was nothing like I expected. My days were mostly spent negotiating with petty coworkers over the limited refrigerator space, deleting blast emails, and arguing with insurance companies over why they needed to cover essential services such as dentures, homecare, and transportation. I believe that a person’s career magnifies certain aspects of the world, and mine brought to focus how selfish and stupid humans can be.
Then I met Charlie. Or rather, I was re-introduced to him. Charlie and I had gone to the same high school but had never crossed paths. He was in the grade below mine and mostly hung out with the stoner kids in the parking lot, while I maintained a 4.0 GPA and a slew of extracurriculars such as writing for the school journal and volunteering to organize coat drives. But when I saw Charlie in the restaurant that night, five years into my nightmare social work job, I barely recognized him. He was wearing a midnight-blue blazer imprinted with a gold floral design. He had shoulder-length hair tied into a ponytail and a charming, crooked smile. He was my blind date that night, a college friend of my bestie, Alana. My stomach did flip-flops. I was excited and intrigued.
We dated for three months before we got married at what I joked was a “McChapel” in Vegas. Charlie made me belly-laugh like I hadn’t done since I was a little girl. He would regularly surprise me in bed in the morning with weird homemade donuts and bad iced coffee that I assured him was good. He enjoyed and understood feminist movies like Thelma and Louise and 20th Century Women. He had been raised in a family of women: a single mom and three older sisters. And he was an investment banker who earned enough to buy us a sprawling house in the suburbs and cover all our bills. When I emailed in my resignation at my job, I had never felt so free.
So that was how I ended up a stay-at-home mom. I watched daytime TV while perfecting the art of homemade toddler food. I swept the floors and started reading dozens of classic novels without ever finishing them. I loved my son Gabey, who was a brilliant showman in a child’s body. He liked to stand on the table and perform little concerts of nursery rhymes while wiggling his tiny shoulders and nodding his head.
“Aw, how adorable!” said everyone who saw him on the street.
But there was no denying that I hated my life. I was depressed. How banal.
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On August 2, 2024, Aphrodite Diaz moved into the cute little farmhouse next door with her two-year-old daughter, Mimi. I observed her from the window and she unpacked the U-Haul. She seemed shy. She had short black hair, nerdy black glasses, and a sleeveless black turtleneck tucked into belted black pants. For the first time since meeting Charlie, I felt a tug in my chest that I couldn’t explain. I felt like I had just drunk three Red Bulls.
Aphrodite put a trans flag up on the porch. The next day, it had been torn down and was covered in excrement. Over dinner that night, I spoke to Charlie about it.
“I can’t believe this happened here,” said Charlie. Oh, Charlie. So naive.
I picked up a spoonful of mashed potatoes and handed it to Gabey. It was on the floor a moment later. “This is what people are like,” I said. “It doesn’t matter where you live. People are ugly.”
“You should go over there,” Charlie said. “Welcome her to the neighborhood. God knows she needs a friend right now.”
I didn’t appreciate Charlie’s patronizing attitude, and moreover I didn’t believe in God, but the next day I walked up to Aphrodite’s door with a plate of frosted sugar cookies in all different kinds of fun shapes. I had so many different cookie cutters, or as Gabey called them, “Koo Key Ka-Kas.” I took several deep breaths and rang the bell. No answer. Gabey pounded his little fist on the door.
“KNOCK KNOCK,” he bellowed.
“Gabey, stop that!” I swatted his hand away from the door. “They’re probably not home.”
“HEWO?” Gabey shouted. He addressed this salutation to the window at the far left. I could see a button nose and pigtails; large brown eyes staring at us under the curtain.
“MOMMY, SOMEONE BY THE DAW!” The little girl’s voice was shrill and excited. A little extrovert, like my son.
The front door creaked open a minute later. Aphrodite peeked out, her brow furrowed. My pulse quickened. Her hair was wet, and she was wearing an oversized anime T-Shirt.
She cleared her throat. “Would you like to come inside?”
I held out the plate of cookies. My hand was shaking. The little girl was peeking out from behind her mother’s legs, smiling shyly at Gabey. Gabey held out his hand. We were twins now, my son and I, reaching out to the new neighbors.
Aphrodite accepting the cookies. The little girl grabbed Gabey’s hand. We all went inside. The door swung shut.
“My name is Aphrodite,” she said. She offered me a seat on the huge faux-leather couch. The little girl and Gabey were now jumping on the kid-size trampoline, the best of friends. “I’m sorry it’s such a mess in here,” said Aphrodite. “We’re still settling in, and I’m trying to figure out how best to decorate the space.”
“Oh, please.” I waved my hand. “Have a cookie. I promise, they aren’t poisoned or anything.” I quickly looked down, my face getting warm. That joke was in poor taste. There was a beat of silence. Okay, you blew it, I thought. Idiot. Then Aphrodite gave me a cautious smile. She ran a hand through her hair.
“Okay, I’ll try a cookie. This was very considerate of you. Thank you.” She removed the saran wrap from the plate and picked up a heart-shaped cookie with white frosting and bubblegum-colored sugar. It felt like it was my heart in her hand and she took a tiny bite.
“That’s one of the best non-poisonous cookies I’ve ever tasted.” She handed the green Christmas-tree to her daughter, who had appeared at her side, fingers wiggling in anticipation. The little girl broke the cookie in half and handed one part to Gabey. They grinned at each other, holding hands.
Aphrodite turned to me. “I can’t really offer much in the way of entertainment,” she said. “The TV still needs to be assembled. Do you enjoy Bananagrams?” She pulled the game out from a nearby box, which was marked “Living Room” in large, loopy writing.
“Sure,” I said. “Though you’ll definitely beat me. The most intellectual book I’ve read in the past two years is All the Places You’ll Go.”
“That’s not that bad, as far as children’s literature goes.” Aphrodite shook out the Bananagrams tiles onto the coffee table. “You could be reading really bottom-tier stuff, like The Rainbow Fish.”
I laughed. “What’s your beef with Rainbow Fish?” I nudged her arm with my elbow. I was aware that I was using my flirty voice, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“It basically teaches kids to conform to other people’s unfair expectations,” said Aphrodite. “That’s not a message I want to impart to my child. I want her to be proud of the things that make her different.”
“I guess I never thought about it that way. How many tiles do we each get for Bananagrams?” I was hurriedly mixing up the tiles, giving myself a fake task to focus on. My brain was running like a hamster on a wheel.
“I’m actually not sure. Let’s start with twenty-one.” Aphrodite doled out the tiles, and we began to play. The kids interrupted every few minutes with new updates:
“Look mommy, I jump off twapoleen!”
“Uh oh! Mess on the flaw!”
“MOMMY, I GOT BOO-BOOOOOO!”
Aphrodite and I nodded, smiled, soothed, kissed boo-boos. We assembled our mazes of words in between mommying tasks.
“Is boi a word?” I asked. “B-O-I.”
“There are two theories of language,” said Aphrodite. “Descriptivism and prescriptivism. So if we follow the descriptive school of thought, which says that the use of language shapes its rules, I would accept B-O-I as a word. But that means I can put down the word ‘humblebrag.’”
“Deal,” I said. “Peel.”
“Oh no, I shouldn’t have let you get away with that.” Aphrodite reached for a tile at the same time as I did.
Our fingers brushed together. I felt a tickle in my spine. An uncomfortable chuckle escaped my throat.
“Sorry,” she said. She rubbed the back of her neck.
“For what?” I looked down at the table, busily moving tiles again for no apparent reason. “Gabey, come here. Mommy needs to wipe your nose.” I pulled a crumpled tissue of uncertain cleanliness out of my sweater pocket and went to dab at my son’s nose as he squirmed away.
“Are you a single mom as well?” asked Aphrodite. I could feel her gaze on my forehead, but I couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Um... No. Speaking of which, my husband should be home any minute.” I lied. Charlie wouldn’t be home until at least midnight tonight. I grabbed Gabey’s sticky hand. “I don’t want to impose on you any longer. You’re probably so busy. Let’s go, Gabey,”
“AWWWWW,” Gabey whined.
I glanced at Aphrodite. She was clearing up the game, frowning. My stomach sank. I couldn’t leave things like this. I walked closer to Aphrodite and sat down next to her. Gabey rushed back to play with his new friend.
“If I’m being completely honest, my marriage is over.” I didn’t understand why I had said those words, but suddenly they seemed true. I lowered my voice. “My husband and I have decided to co-parent in the same house because we want to make things easier for Gabey, but we both agreed that we could date other people. He actually has a serious girlfriend.” I was amazed at how easy it was to pretend. For the first time since moving here, I was grateful I didn’t have friends in the neighborhood. There would be no one around to contradict my lies. No one except Charlie.
“My partner and I had a similar arrangement,” said Aphrodite. “After a while, it just became too complicated.”
Before I could give myself away, I reiterated my excuse about Charlie coming home and hurried out with a protesting Gabey.
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I avoided mentioning anything about my visit for as long as possible. But the following Saturday, as our little family lounged on the couch eating pop tarts and fruit on one of Charlie’s rare days off, Charlie brought it up.
“So did you end up visiting our new neighbor?” he said. “You know, the one who’s… LGBT?” God, why was he being so weird about this?
A piece of pop tart got caught in my throat, and Charlie clapped my back until I coughed it out.
“Um, yeah. I did.” I tried to sound casual. “Do you want to go to the beach today?”
“Nah, I think I’d rather just stay inside, if that’s okay. I’m wiped out. So, how did it go?” He was looking at me expectantly, leaning forward. I wiped Gabey’s mouth with a tissue.
“It was okay. We didn’t really have that much in common.” My voice was slightly shrill.
“I think you should give her another chance,” said Charlie. “You can’t hate everybody. You need some friends.”
“I’ve got plenty of friends,” I snapped. “I can’t help it if the the people in this neighborhood are close-minded and stupid.”
“Which is exactly why the woman next door could use a friend like you. Take her out tonight. You can go see that new movie in the theater that you were so excited about. I’ll watch Gabey.”
“Fine. She probably won’t want to go anyway.” I was aware that I sounded like a sulky teenager. But the prospect of seeing Aphrodite again gave me butterflies.
That night, I chose my outfit carefully. I wanted to look good without seeming like I was trying too hard. I tied my hair up in a high ponytail and put on some light makeup. I wore a navy-blue boho dress with floral print and laced-up combat boots.
“You look pwitty, Mommy,” said Gabey as I headed out.
“Thank you, my honey.” I kissed him in the forehead. “Bye, Charlie.” I gave him a quick kiss on the lips and darted out. Aphrodite had already texted me earlier, letting me know that Mimi was at her dad’s for the weekend.
I’d love to see a movie with you! she had written. I smiled in the sultry summer air, remembering it.
Aphrodite opened the door before I could ring the bell. “I saw you coming up the stairs.
She looked good. My heart thudded in my chest. Again, I felt my connection to her, like an invisible spider-web that stuck us together.
The movie was embarrassingly terrible, from the overdone acting to the amateurish cinematography.
Aphrodite turned her head closer to me, her face colored blue in the screen’s reflection.
“Hey,” she murmured.
“Hey.” My voice cracked as I said it.
And then we were kissing in the dark. She smelled so good. I felt intoxicated. Nothing else mattered. I wasn’t a mother or a wife, just a person in a reclined armchair who was kissing Aphrodite.
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Once you do something wrong, it is easy to do it again and again. Whether it’s stealing foot cream from CVS or cheating on your spouse. So I became that person I never thought I would be: an unfaithful wife.
Charlie was thrilled that I had a friend in the neighborhood. He encouraged my visits to Aphrodite. “Go, go!” He would say. “Don’t worry about Gabey. I’m just so happy to see you like this.” Oh, he had no idea.
Aphrodite and I carried on like that for three months before he found out. It was the cliche story: He came home early from work one day and saw us kissing on the couch as Gabie and Mimi napped upstairs.
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Charlie didn’t speak to me for a week after that, except regarding matters directly concerning Gabey.
I confronted him one night as he came up the stone staircase to our bedroom, smelling of booze.
“We will have to address this at some point,” I said. “I know what I did was unforgivable, but we need to figure something out.”
Charlie stared blankly at me. “Just lemme go to sleep,” he said.
“No.” I planted myself in front of him. “No. This has been going on for long enough.” I knew that he was too drunk for this to be a productive conversation, but I couldn’t let it go. Hot tears spilled down my face.
“Fine, you want to know the truth?” he said. His speech was slurred. “I will never, ever, forgive you for doing this to me, especially not with that T*****!”
I froze. I couldn’t believe that my husband, my Charlie, had said that word. It hung in the air like tear gas.
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It all happened so fast. One light little push to his shoulders. The look of surprise on Charlie’s face, as if I had just told him an off-color joke that he found amusing. He was too inebriated to recover his balance. And then he was sprawled at the bottom of the stairs at an unnatural angle, an unmoving heap like yesterday’s old potatoes.
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I don’t give a speech at the funeral. The other ladies there give me nods of understanding. Poor thing, at a loss for words. Her one and only, dead. We are so happy it’s not us. Thank God.
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This was a well written story that had a good balance of sorrow and humor. I agree with the other commenter that the cadence was steady. The themes of grief and gender roles were addressed well, and the ending was unexpected. Thank you for sharing this story.
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Thank you so much!
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I wasn't expecting that ending! I enjoyed your story, Wendy. It's very well-written. The cadence is as smooth as soft jazz.
Great response to the prompt!
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Thank you!
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I enjoyed reading this story. My heart hurt for Charlie and at the same time, I wanted the narrator to be happy. And then I was angry at Charlie for being so transphobic. And then I was sad he died at the same time. What a rollercoaster of emotions! The ending took me by surprise for sure!
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Thank you! I’m so happy that you enjoyed it! The ending surprised me too :) It wasn’t what I had in mind when I started working on the story.
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