Band-Aid

The ceramic lamp shattered across the wood floor. Eggshell colored fragments and dust litter the mahogany.

“No!” she screamed. “I am tired of cleaning up your fucking messes!” She positioned herself in the doorway pointing a shaking finger at him. Her small fragile skeleton barely occupied the frame.

He drunkenly lunged at her. “You can’t-“ he paused, swallowing his acrid spit. I’m your husband, you can’t fucking leave me.”

“Watch me,” venom spewed from her tired lips.

He continued to come at her. He stumbled drunk, the spell of peppermint schnapps oozed from his pores. As he walked toward her with bare feet the broken pieces of the lamp cracked further under his weight. She stuck her hand out, “stop, I’m done.” She slid the golden band from her fourth finger on her left hand and the two stood in silence as it clinked onto the floor, circling like the whirlpool in a tub drain.

“I have found my strength,” she said in a suddenly calm tone. She turned her back to him, something she was never able to do in their fourteen years of marriage, and walked past him and straight to the front door. She heard him cuss after her, but it sounded distant, she floated above him as she walked toward her escape.

As she turned the handle on the door, she looked back one more time. Soaking in every detail of the house and the man who made her so small. “Good fucking riddance,” she whispered. She spat on the floor adjacent to the door mat, which ironically read “this house is a home”, she swung the door open and placed a foot in the next stage of her life.

The door slammed behind her. No bags packed, she headed for the car, not a single regret in her head.

She discovered it ends like that.