Flowers
Thomas is driving to visit his mistress, Theresa, for dinner. He has not kept their affair from anyone but his children, two boys who sense from their parents only wordless tension. A bouquet of daffodils sits on the seat next to him. The road from his apartment in the city to the suburb where Theresa lives leads past golden hills, and the weather is sunny and clear. She lives in Pleasant Hill or Pleasanton, he never remembers. He avoids calling it by name in conversations with her.
Thomas is hungry. He is, in fact, absolutely starving. When he is this hungry he sweats from below the ears and the back of his neck. His wife knows this but Theresa has never noticed. He feels a pang of jealousy that she hasn’t noticed, that her powers of perception, and by extension her appetites, might be attuned to something beyond him. Does she not exalt even his secretions? Death. Death is the thing. He felt it once when he patted his younger sons’ head, such softness in the skull and strands of blonde hair. A different time, early on during the affair his wife asked where he was going for dinner, and he saw it flicker in her clear eyes. But these are unpleasant thoughts. And the sweat will ruin the new shirt he is wearing. It’s Theresa’s favorite color, green, and he is wearing it for her. Then, a flurry in his mind about what she will be wearing at dinner, and the pleasure of undressing her, and the simpler pleasure of seeing her move, her knees bend, her fingers grip, her neck arch. There is such pleasure in the anticipation of these movements and his devotion to them. Might he not leave his wife and children forever? He has considered leaving before, but after all what advantage would it give anyone? Possession is a thing alien to him. He is a practical man and this honest arrangement has suited everyone.
He reaches behind him to the backseat to grab the cheese and chocolate he has brought for Theresa. She won’t mind if he eats a little; he is only a man and starving. A day not long ago Thomas had sat on her bed watching her dress after a shower. She turned her back, pulled a shirt on, and while craning her neck around to look at him said, “So intimate.” A cloud seemed to spread from her dull eyes, and an abyss opened between them. No matter. It was the heat, or the chill that comes when sweat cools off the skin.
He reaches back again to find the cheese and chocolate. There is a muffled pop from the front of the car and something white flies against the windshield, a bird or a small animal. Thomas hears a death cry at a barely audible pitch, a wheezing sound, and is certain he sees the creature’s teeth as it flies by. It rolls off the side of the car. He stops the car and reaches back for the third time and eats a piece of cheese. He chews triumphantly, wiping the grease on his shirt. Then he walks up the road behind him to see what he’s hit. It’s a snow-white rabbit. He peers into its dead eyes and picks it up, first by a thin-boned leg and then by the velvet ear. A few drops of blood fall onto his wrist. He walks back to the car, swinging the animal from the back of his shoulder, and then tosses it onto the back seat.
Driving again, he thinks about what he and Theresa will share for dinner, and if she will like the daffodils. They are her favorite flower and the sunny color suits her.
When he pulls into her driveway he sees that she has left the window curtain down. This means she is not home, so he will have to wait for her. He takes the flowers, chocolate, cheese, and rabbit into his stubby arms, exits the car, and fumbles for the spare key underneath a pot of geraniums on the porch ledge. While shifting the gifts from one arm to another, he knocks the pot over and it shatters. He finds the key, but struggles to pick it up with his greasy hands. “Fuck. Fuck!” he yells. After he finally opens the door, he places the daffodils on the kitchen table, and the cheese and chocolate on the counter. He puts water to boil and chops onions, singing an aria. Then he takes the rabbit to Theresa’s garden and skins it.
Later, while they eat, he tells her how nice the daffodils look against her green dress, and how sorry he is about the geraniums.