Fingerprints in the Meringue
Title: Fingerprints in the Meringue
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: G
Characters: Abby
Author's Notes: This was written before Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce began airing. Since I don’t own the show, there are some details that won’t be correct inevitably.
Summary: Abby realizes her marriage is failing.
He leaves her by degrees. For someone usually so intent, he gradually shifts towards the door, as though a soft breeze has blown him in that direction. He talks to her less, wants sex from her less, and in an act of brazen carelessness, Abby gives it barely a passing thought. He’s had a fight with the studio. He’s tired. He’ll get over it; they’ll get over it. They always do. She doesn’t even have to work to convince herself of it.
The inches between their bodies in bed expand, the mattress untouched, except for the few nights Charlie manages to talk his way out of sleeping in his own bed like a big boy. It doesn’t bother her. But sometimes then, and at other intervals, she’ll hear Jake sigh - a judgmental catch of air that makes her feel like a silly little housewife.
He smiles tensely and makes a joke followed up by a gesture of appreciation when she mentions it to him months later. He tells her she’s insecure; it’s because of that time she read the Amazon reviews for her first book (they were not entirely kind). She blisters at memories of the one and two stars (she has never been anything less than a three, thank you). She’s distracted, agrees with him, for how could he ever think something so dismissive about the woman he married, the mother of his children? The lie perpetuates itself. The erosion goes unnoticed, unchecked.
Realization happens eventually, quietly. She doesn’t catch him cheating, though she’ll inevitably look back at this time and wonder if maybe he was. There’s no awful fight, no intense disagreement to force her to accept that her marriage is dying, that the family they created is being cleaved in half whether she permits it or not. There’s no forgotten anniversary or birthday.
It’s an ordinary day, the kind filled with carpools and grocery shopping. Her book is done, in the hands of her editor, no doubt being ravaged alive (it’s worth it though; those fucking stars). This one didn’t come as easily as the others, and her mind still turns over sentences she wrote months ago, as though the English language will submit to her continual abuse. She’s sick of it. She wants the distraction. She is in need of it on this completely average Tuesday.
Wanting nothing more than domesticity-induced peace, Abby decides to make a cake. There’s no particular reason she should succeed in this. It takes her five minutes to find the mixer, much, much, much longer to separate egg whites from the yolks. She’s talented enough to avoid outright failure though. Well… she hopes, pressing onward.
It happens when she’s folding the egg whites into the rest of the batter. She’s thinking the eggs didn’t get as airy as they probably should, and then she’s not thinking that at all. A sudden understanding hits her: her marriage is failing. She’s spent the last several months writing about marriage, and now every idea committed to paper seems like a lie.
How had she not realized he was trying to leave her before?
He never asked her how the book was going. He patronizingly listened to her complain about it, but he didn’t ask about it. He didn’t care. She can’t remember telling him she’d finished the rough draft - her kids, yes, her brother, of course.
Not her husband.
She doesn’t even think he knows. Then she realizes that he must; their son can’t keep anything a secret. Jake has heard. He has chosen not to say anything.
She bows her head and sighs loudly, hears it once more - silly little housewife. She looks down at what she’s doing, imagines it from his perspective, sees then what he clearly sees when he looks at her, and throws the batter into the trash.
The End
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: G
Characters: Abby
Author's Notes: This was written before Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce began airing. Since I don’t own the show, there are some details that won’t be correct inevitably.
Summary: Abby realizes her marriage is failing.
He leaves her by degrees. For someone usually so intent, he gradually shifts towards the door, as though a soft breeze has blown him in that direction. He talks to her less, wants sex from her less, and in an act of brazen carelessness, Abby gives it barely a passing thought. He’s had a fight with the studio. He’s tired. He’ll get over it; they’ll get over it. They always do. She doesn’t even have to work to convince herself of it.
The inches between their bodies in bed expand, the mattress untouched, except for the few nights Charlie manages to talk his way out of sleeping in his own bed like a big boy. It doesn’t bother her. But sometimes then, and at other intervals, she’ll hear Jake sigh - a judgmental catch of air that makes her feel like a silly little housewife.
He smiles tensely and makes a joke followed up by a gesture of appreciation when she mentions it to him months later. He tells her she’s insecure; it’s because of that time she read the Amazon reviews for her first book (they were not entirely kind). She blisters at memories of the one and two stars (she has never been anything less than a three, thank you). She’s distracted, agrees with him, for how could he ever think something so dismissive about the woman he married, the mother of his children? The lie perpetuates itself. The erosion goes unnoticed, unchecked.
Realization happens eventually, quietly. She doesn’t catch him cheating, though she’ll inevitably look back at this time and wonder if maybe he was. There’s no awful fight, no intense disagreement to force her to accept that her marriage is dying, that the family they created is being cleaved in half whether she permits it or not. There’s no forgotten anniversary or birthday.
It’s an ordinary day, the kind filled with carpools and grocery shopping. Her book is done, in the hands of her editor, no doubt being ravaged alive (it’s worth it though; those fucking stars). This one didn’t come as easily as the others, and her mind still turns over sentences she wrote months ago, as though the English language will submit to her continual abuse. She’s sick of it. She wants the distraction. She is in need of it on this completely average Tuesday.
Wanting nothing more than domesticity-induced peace, Abby decides to make a cake. There’s no particular reason she should succeed in this. It takes her five minutes to find the mixer, much, much, much longer to separate egg whites from the yolks. She’s talented enough to avoid outright failure though. Well… she hopes, pressing onward.
It happens when she’s folding the egg whites into the rest of the batter. She’s thinking the eggs didn’t get as airy as they probably should, and then she’s not thinking that at all. A sudden understanding hits her: her marriage is failing. She’s spent the last several months writing about marriage, and now every idea committed to paper seems like a lie.
How had she not realized he was trying to leave her before?
He never asked her how the book was going. He patronizingly listened to her complain about it, but he didn’t ask about it. He didn’t care. She can’t remember telling him she’d finished the rough draft - her kids, yes, her brother, of course.
Not her husband.
She doesn’t even think he knows. Then she realizes that he must; their son can’t keep anything a secret. Jake has heard. He has chosen not to say anything.
She bows her head and sighs loudly, hears it once more - silly little housewife. She looks down at what she’s doing, imagines it from his perspective, sees then what he clearly sees when he looks at her, and throws the batter into the trash.
The End