She’d found a text message on his mobile phone, that was how she knew. It seemed that every Wednesday he’d come home late. He usually brought something along. One day it was an apple pie. She had cut herself a generous slice since she’d skipped dinner. She had no appetite lately. It must have been the ennui. Each day seemed so much like the last. What was the use of eating another meal, when it was always followed by a hollow silence?

The pie would have been better warmed up. The crust was cold and had a few edges where sugar had burned, leaving a brown bitter creosote-like tack on the crust. The filling, once runny with juice, had congealed after cooling. There was a pasty aspect to the bottom crust. She hadn’t had the heart to finish.

One Wednesday, he’d brought her a ring. It was the wrong size, and not her style. She’d been amused by his choice, a garnet, deep red and garish. She wore no rings now, not even the Claddagh that she’d inverted on her finger when they’d agreed to love one another for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Their promise had been turned on its head, as well, without even any drama on which to blame the failure.

It had started as carelessness. He worked late, and she’d been bored and lonely. She’d taken it out on him in bitterness, and then, one night, he hadn’t come home at all. They’d had quite a row that night. Now they’d settled in to acceptance.

What he didn’t know was that this night she would tell him that she knew, and that she was leaving. She’d heard his whistling. It seemed nervous to her. He would have no way of knowing that now her own heart was whistling. For the first time, she felt that something good was on the way.

He walked in the doorway, carrying shamrocks in bloom. To her, they smelled like freshly mown grass, like spring, like freedom.

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Amy Dematt