A Good Argument - Bonnie Smetts

“And now I learn that you were going up to the mountains? What in God’s name were you thinking, Marjorie. You can’t be following Renee everywhere. She is not safe.”

“We were just out for a little adventure, some sightseeing. You know there is so little here for me here. So little.”

“Oh, that argument again. I am working to provide us with a future. Once I am done with this post we will be set. You know that.”

“And when will you be done. First it was a year, then another year. We are three years into this.” Marjorie paced the living room like a caged lion, pressed on all sides by the pounding rain, while Ash sat immobile in his overstuffed chair.

“This is an old story, Marjorie. I am not going to do this. To us.”

And then Marjorie was on him, standing with her feet inches from his toes. She bent forward and in a whisper that shook her insides, she said, “To us. You have no ‘to us’ in you. Otherwise you’d understand the difficulties I am having.”

“Please, would you stand back from me? You are not yourself, get a hold of yourself. I can’t have you behaving this way.”

Anger unleashed inside Marjorie, violent anger walloping her insides, swirling from her head to her toes and back again. “You can’t have me behaving like this.” Now she stood over him an arms length away and spoke each word with determination and force that changed her. Hate, cold and bitter and nasty.

She backed up keeping her eyes on his until he looked away. She turned and left the room. She did not feel her feet taking steps or her knees bending and unfolding their way to her room. She breathed in and out like a racehorse after a race. She walked in circles, one, two, three, four, like a horse cooling down. Finally she sat on the edge of the bed. She knew she could never go back from that moment downstairs. Something was broken for good.

Terror, like snow melt running down a rock, filled her. The trap closed in on her tighter.