Eva had been married twenty two years and had lost all her adolescent illusions about marital life. The moment she decided to leave Frank, she recalled very clearly. He’d come home drunk, that was not unusual, pushing and kicking his way through the living-room furniture—nothing fancy, just plain and practical pieces bought and collected over the years—and had directly headed to the couch, an old maroon convertible with colorful cushions she’d chosen to hide the beer stains and cigarette holes.
The TV was on, but he grabbed the remote and switched to a sports channel.
She knew exactly what would happen next. He would sprawl and start grunting until he eventually started dozing off. He may even end up snoring. What could she do, but let him be? He was much too heavy for her to lift and carry to the bed. Besides, she had stopped touching him for a while.
Then as she looked at the man she’d fallen in love with ages ago at a party, she realized she could not carry on with this life. She had to do something for herself. She felt she still had a few good years ahead, and maybe she could find a better man, or at least a quieter lifestyle. She was not the dreaming kind, like her sister Darlene who’d spent her whole life waiting for Mr Right that would sweep her off her feet to some magic manor in California. This was Arizona, and a small town with nothing to it. Everything was falling apart, even the church building was badly in need of repair. There were no jobs, the young people left one by one for larger cities, some to get away from all this, others with bags of certainties. Illusions rather.
Why couln’t she go to California, a big city where to mix? At least she was not a spinster!
The two sisters had been raised in this place and had not seen much of the world outside. They had had to fend for themselves after their parents had died in a car accident when the girls were still in their teens. Both had graduated, but pretty soon their aunt, who had taken care of them after the tragedy, made it clear that they would have to find jobs. Darlene had found a desk job at a small plant that manufactured household appliances, while Eva had started waitressing hoping to find something more gratifying quick. She’d found Frank.
He had been a regular at the diner, choosing not to sit in a booth, but at the counter, where he could get a better view of the waitresses going back and forth. He was a tall handsome man, with a grin that attracted attention. His dark eyes followed Eva in all her quick movements from the dishes to the tables, or from one end of the counter to the other. Sometimes she turned to the cook for an order, and she sensed his glance on the nape of her neck. He was always trying to make her laugh when she served his coffee, or offered a refill. He seemed friendly enough, not the rough silent type that so often sat at the counter sipping and brooding over empty thoughts. After a few weeks of coffee and jokes, he had asked her out and to his surprise, she had accepted.
She didn’t remember any form of courtship. They had gone from a drink to dinner, and from dinner to a dinner party with some of his friends from work, without her knowing it as it were. Every time he’d asked her out, she had been happy to go, as she had been thrilled to dance with him at the party. He was an outstanding dancer, quite a looker. She felt a little pride to be with such a man. She’d never thought of herself as a pretty woman. In fact she’d never thought much about those things, and when he drove her back home, and drew her close to him, she’d let herself go as if all that was happening was the best thing in her life.
He took her to Nevada, her first trip out of state. They got married in Reno, and spent much of their savings on food and games. That was fun.
Going back to work after those few days was much less fun. He stepped less and less into the diner, and she started missing him, at the counter first, then at home. He had worries at work. He did not share them.
She wished he would open to her and she could do something to change the hardened look on his face. She waited.
She waited long. When she thought about her early years of marriage, she wondered why she had been so patient with him. She’d heard about the three years of love, and then the habits and compromises to make it work, and all that sort of things. But it seemed to her that she’d barely had three months, and she had sincerely believed he would change, their life would change.
Changes had been rough, from bad to worse. After he’d lost his job—she’d never really understood what sort of counseling he was into—she heard the word embezzlement for the first time in her life. Those were only rumors, and she knew he was doing the best he could to find work and do his bit.
Although times were difficult for them, they tried hard to have a baby. At least she did. It might have brought some life into the house, she thought. Eva imagined being a mother, and the idea made her proud with a sense of accomplishment. But she was to realize that no child would fill the house with cries and laughter. The doctor had been straightforward, it was her fault.
She had spent some time at the local church, addressing the Lord, “Why me?”. Then she stopped. She went home after work, watched some television, cooked simple dishes he would barely touch. Why bother?
Days passed, months, years. The same kind of dull life. No expectations, no visits, no friends, even her sister Darlene hardly ever visited.
She woke up one morning and she was forty. She had a husband, a shadow of a man. Where had she been all those years? Something had to be done.
The night she decided to pack a few things into an old cardboard suitcase, it seemed to her she had waited too long. Why hadn’t she left him long ago? She felt nothing for him. Not anymore. She called her sister, and asked her if she could put her up for the night, maybe a few days before heading to California. A new life was waiting for her, she knew. And maybe someone kind.
She drove the car out of the driveway carefully, she was not used to driving it. Only for the week-end trip to the mall or the short drive to the diner. She would sort things out later. Get someone to help her. Maybe a lawyer. Things were a bit confused in her mind. As she pulled into the street and off to the highway, she did not see the huge Mack coming fast, nor did she hear the honking. There was a flash of glistening metal, and screeching silence.
