A Marriage, Neatly Folded

The bundle of clothes is warm, dry. After gently putting the pile onto their – her – bed, Sharon bends over it and picked out a T-shirt. She always liked to start with the T-shirts – the repetitive and rhythmic motion felt so calming. Tuck the sleeves in. Fold the shirt in the middle. Rinse and repeat until all of them were in a neat stack.  

Here was a shirt that she’d had since college. Funny, that. It had been five years since Sharon had last been to an alumni event, but she was still was wearing her old soccer shirts every other week to the gym. She would have to make time to go this year. It had been so long since she had seen her old classmates. But she never really felt like she had the energy to socialize, especially after what had happened this past summer…

Here was a pair of jeans that were too short at the ankles. They had been too short for the last few years, shrinking in the wash every cycle, but she had never cared enough to buy a new pair. She loved these jeans, and she would wear them to the bitter end, fashion police be damned. 

Her closet is much smaller now. She and Andrew had done a spring-cleaning last year. They had bundled up the blouse that didn’t fit quite right, the tights that looked amazing on the mannikin but bulged in all the wrong places on her, the itchy Christmas-gift sweater from Aunt Nancy, thrown them in a garbage bag, and dropped them off at the nearest charity. Some of them had been unworn for years; there was a button-down that still had a tag on it. It hadn’t been cheap, but somehow, it had ended up squirreled away in the back of her closet. Was it better to be forgotten and neglected; or to be tossed aside without a second thought, an unwanted hand-me-down? She scarcely even remembered the clothes that had been relegated to the donation pile – well, except for maybe that one dress which she could probably fit into now – she had lost so much weight since June…

She thumbs a sweatshirt emblazoned with Bruiser the Bulldog, her old high school’s mascot. Old Bruiser looks rather worse for the wear, most of the cheap decal having peeled off from many washes over many years. In some ways, she reflects, her failed marriage is in the same state; fraying at the edges, dull and faded, but too comfortable for her to let go of. Even now, she cannot bring herself to sign the papers.

They had arrived one humid summer evening. At that point Andrew had been gone for months; it shouldn’t have been a surprise. She had sliced open the sealed envelope, barely missing her own trembling fingers. Scanning the contents, she had set them aside to deal with on another night. It had been a long day at work, and she didn’t want to deal with chaotic mess of her personal life right now. Maybe, over the weekend, she would have a stiff drink, and maybe, she would take a look through the papers and decide what to do with them. 

One weekend passed, then two. Before she knew it, half a year had gone by, and still she had read no more than she had that first night. Sharon feels a tear trickling down her face and brushes it away. She hadn’t realized that she was crying. She couldn’t quite put words to why she hadn’t read over the papers, yet. At this point, their marriage was a farce. 

Next was the underwear. She had suspected something was wrong when he had started doing his laundry separately from hers. Still, she found a way to justify his behavior – sometimes she did forget to separate the reds from the whites, and perhaps he didn’t want to run the risk of having his fancy golf polos dyed a pale pink. At the end, he hadn’t even bothered to hide it; the lacy thongs and the racy lingerie – things she would never dream of wearing – showing up in the hamper. At first, she had thrown them away, incensed at how he didn’t even care about keeping pretenses up anymore. After a few months, when she could stomach the fiery anger no longer, she had confronted him. If I hadn’t done that, Sharon thought, would I still be lying to myself, living together but feeling so alone? Or would these papers still be sitting here? She is not sure which of the two is worse.

Finally, all that is left are the socks. She riffles through the pile, searching for matching pairs. She has considered buying identical socks so that she doesn’t have to go to the trouble of finding matches, but she cannot give up the varied bright colors that she is so fond of. Inevitably, there are a few that are missing matching pairs. With a sigh, she goes to the dryer and swishes a hand about, checking the nooks and the crannies for an errant sock that may have gotten stuck in the back. Her search unearths nothing, however, and she’s left with two singletons – a neon pink and a robin’s egg blue. She bundles the two together and makes a mental note to wear boots on the day that she wears them. Though, nobody at the office could possibly fault her for being a fashion disaster – anybody would be a mess after what had happened to her.

And then, all too suddenly, she is done. There is nothing left to fold. Sharon sits beside her clothes, set side by side in small, orderly, stacks. She is completely alone in the large house, which echoes with empty promises – the promise of the lives that they could have led together, the promise of entwined futures, the promise of forever.

She has been alone for a long time, she realizes. Whether or not she signs the papers would not change that fact. Sharon’s mouth tightens into a thin line as she resolves to read them – and deal with them – today. It was time to move on. Leaving the tidy stack of laundry on the bed, Sharon grabs a pen and heads towards the next room where the papers sit, waiting for her. Tonight, she is ready. Tonight, she will neatly fold away the remnants of her neglected marriage.