Happy Anniversary
I
cannot begin to describe how freeing it felt. To actually feel something real,
something that ended with the same result that it advertised, was like inhaling
fresh air deeper than I ever have before. The stress has gone, I am finally content.
.
My
name is Jared, and I am a hard-working man. I own a beautiful house that my
gorgeous wife, Colleen, helped me make into a home. We drive expensive cars,
and Colleen’s is the Mustang she had wanted since she was a child. I can afford everything my wife and I
want and need, thanks to the six figures my job as a criminal defense attorney
for Texas graciously provides. I’d like to think that I have earned, what many
may consider to be, “the perfect life.”
.
Marriage is not easy, but Colleen makes
me want to jump through hoops just to make her happy like I knew she deserves.
I wanted to give this woman the world—her
perfect world, no matter what I had to sacrifice to do it. Today is the one
year anniversary marking the day that Colleen, for reasons I could never
rationalize, promised me “I do.”
I
remember how Colleen’s beautiful eyes were fixated on this silver bracelet that
was trimmed with little heart-shaped diamonds in the centerfold of last month’s
Tiffany & Co. Magazine. I wish she looked at me the way she yearned at that
picture—that object I could give her.
.
I
decided to ditch the office early, after all it was our one year anniversary
and Colleen would not be happy if she spent the evening alone. She looks so
cute when she’s upset with me, though. I was never home before nine o’clock, so
I could hardly imagine how happy she would be to see me walking in the front
door five hours early and with a diamond
bracelet-shaped box in hand—like a little kid on Christmas morning, I’d hoped.
Something
was different. It made my heart suddenly race like it was trying to escape my
chest. My finger started to feel suffocated by the ring on my hand. I stood in
the doorway and listened as Colleen’s light voice echoed throughout our 4,500
square foot home. I felt like someone had kicked me square in the stomach,
pushing all of the air right out of my lungs and leaving me completely empty. Please,
no. The sound of my purse-lipped exhale was just loud enough to drown out
Colleen’s voice; and until I ran short on breath, the sound was all I thought
about. Pfffff.
.
“What
if she doesn’t like the bracelet and wants to return it? Oh God, I hope the
receipt is still in my middle console,” the sound of me whispering to no one
but myself and my wife’s echoing voice was pathetic. If the receipt wasn’t
there, I would just drive back to the mall and ask them if I had left it
behind. I bet that sort of thing happened to men all the time. I’m sure I
looked absolutely ridiculous standing in my own doorway talking to myself, but
I had to know if I had that damn receipt or not in case the bracelet didn’t fit
her wrists. That happened to Colleen a lot; she had to get all of her watches
and charm bracelets resized because her wrists were just naturally small.
I
didn’t go check my car, though. I had no idea where my car keys even were, and
at that moment I did not care one bit. Pfffff.
I thought maybe I should put the bracelet in the oven and let it sit there for
a few hours until Colleen notices. Her precious, stupid oven that took her three
months, that is ninety days, to pick
out. I imagined a mixed look of shock and disgust twisted on her face after she
opened the oven; but, the hurt I would make her feel, would be nowhere near
parallel to that which I was experiencing. So, the idea seemed pointless. I
remember the little squeal that Colleen made when she saw the La Cornue oven
delivery truck outside of our house. I was positive that the oven was worth
every penny I spent. For the next month, she cooked anything and everything she
knew how and I was glad that I was able to buy her something she loved so much.
.
I did what I did because I deserved
nothing better. Even a hard-working man, who earned everything he had to make
his wife happy, did not always deserve “the perfect life.” It simply just did
not fit me. “Earn” is not a synonym for “deserve” that can be swapped out for
one another in regards to life—or more specifically, my life.
As
I trudged up the twenty four stairs that lead to Colleen, my feet surprisingly
felt lighter with every passing step. I hated her for hurting me, but pitied
her because I did not make her feel full like she did me. Sixteen. The Tiffany’s bracelet covered in heart-shaped diamonds was
sandwiched between my burning palm and the Glock 19 that my home office safe
hid from Colleen. It felt nice—the hot and cold sensation in my hand. Nine. She hated guns, thought that “the
only guys who had them were those who felt the need to prove to the other ones
that they were men, too.” One. I knew
I was a man, and Colleen was the only one who did not seem to realize it.
I
felt like a stranger, standing in front of my bedroom door in the house that
belonged to me but no longer felt like home. The sound of the gun’s safety
switch turning off and the clicking of the doorknob are the last earthly sounds
I heard.
.
“Happy
anniversary, babe.” The gun’s blinding flash, the bloodstained bracelet in my
thawing hand, and slow decompression in my chest—this life, I do deserve. Today, disappointment was replaced with
contentment.
Nia! I really liked your story and the uneasy mood you created through first person narrative. The narrator, Jared, seems to be a very self-conscious man and makes the reader feel the un-predictableness of his life. Through first person narrative the reader is able to have complete insight into Jared’s mind and the constant over-analyzing and un-sureness that runs through his head. His love for Colleen is sad because he knows deep down that she will never love him like he loves her. He says “I jump through hoops just to make her happy like I know she deserves”, which shows the reader that he is willing to do just about anything for this girl, but deep down he knows that it will never be good enough. That is such a sad way to live. It makes the reader want to question Colleen, and why it is that she married Jared. We can only assume it is for the money, but she must care for him in some way. It also makes the reader wonder if she is being satisfied somewhere else, since Jared only wishes he could satisfy her and have her look at him the way she looks at other things. At the end of the story I was thinking that, since Jared was coming home so early, he was going to catch Colleen with another man. The ending was a bit confusing to me though. Was Jared shot by Colleen because she thought he was an intruder, and when the bedroom door opened she shot before seeing his face? This was a very good story, but I would change the ending and make it clearer. Maybe go into depth on what exactly happened or maybe more insight into how Colleen was feeling in general. There were also a couple grammatical errors. Such as “incase the bracelet didn’t fit her wrists” its only one bracelet so it should be fitting one “wrist”. Other than that I enjoyed your story and the depth you went into about how Jared was feeling. It really helped the reader feel for Jared and have sympathy on him. This story reminded me of “The Shooting Man” by Wilson, because Jared felt just like the narrator in that story did. They felt like they could never be good enough for their significant other, which lead them going to extremes to earn their love. The style of your story was much like “The Shoot Man” story as well. There was constant insight into both narrators’ thoughts, which showed the insecurity in the men. Overall, great job Nia!
ReplyDeleteI like how this story kind of keeps you on your toes because you never know what is going to happen. Throughout the story I was trying to figure out what and when the action was going to come into play and how much would it effect my thoughts on the story. I loved how the beginning and the end of the story matched each other. In the first paragraph it says, "[t]he stress has gone, I am finally content." While the very last sentence of the story says, "[t]oday, disappointment was replaced with contentment." It helps me as a reader understand what the story was about because it was repeated and because it was at the two most important placed in the story, beginning and end. I also really liked how the author did a great job of showing how the couple’s relationship really was because the narrator keeps repeating “[e]ven a hard-working man, who earned everything he had to make his wife happy, did not always deserve the perfect life.” Repeating this quote throughout the story helped show how they were an unhappy couple and how he was just trying to buy his wife’s happiness. My favorite part of the story was the author did a good job of using flashbacks, which really reminds of some of the stories that we read this semester. When the man went back to explain how happy his wife was about the oven that he bought her and how she was so meticulous on which one that she wanted. That flashback helped to show how the wife is about liking her expensive stuff and how much the man would do or pay anything to get her exactly what she wanted, no matter the price. I did have a few things that I did not really like about the story because for me, I felt like it was kind of hard to follow because it was like each paragraph was not did not flow very well together. Some things I would have liked to change about the story was to be a little more specific on what the point is that you are trying to get across to the reader and I was very confused on the “pffff” that kept getting repeated? I did not understand what the significance was to the story when you were using that. However I still thought this was a great story and I enjoyed reading it. This story kind of reminded me a little bit of “The Shooting Man” in Kevin Wilson’s book because the narrator felt kind of how Jared did with not really feeling good enough for the person that they loved and they both would do almost anything to make their partner happy. Both of these stories are in first person, which help the readers see their emotions and thoughts of how they want nothing but to be happy or nothing but their partner to be happy and how insecure they really are about themselves.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the story, Nia! It was great! It left me on my toes and I felt like I needed to read faster as the story went on because of how it built, suspenseful if you will. I honestly didn’t know what kind of story to expect from the beginning statement that said that he felt “free.” This means to me that he was being held captive by something. I thought that at first the freeing would be his wife saying no to all of the materialistic things he would get for her, but that would seem unrealistic I think so it kept me interested in knowing what would happen next. And I did like the ending, though morbid. I felt like it was a good choice that he didn’t shoot her, and that he shot himself. You did a great job with the building of the symbolism of the necklace. This was a great way to let her know that he felt he needed to be freed from her, though it might not be the best way to show to her his problem that he’s having by killing himself, that’s the way that he wanted. Morbid, but great usage of symbolism.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I might change in the story might be the beauty and ugliness of the wife. When I say ugliness I just mean what might have lead the narrator to the morbid ending. Although I thought you portrayed it well through the why she was happy, that being the material items that she would glorify, and has been that way all of her life. I might have had maybe a scene of dialogue to show how she was in person, and not just how the narrator depicts her. But I did enjoy the point of view it was in and the “pfff” had good effect in the character depiction of the wife as well.
I would relate this story to the “Shooting man,” deluded from and unwillingness to approach reality in a different way, he convinces himself that the only way to prove to his significant other his feeling is by killing himself.
Great story though, Nia. I enjoyed it a ton.