Sukhvir Kaur's "The End of Their Party"

On the day of the halloween party, an annual extravaganza that Khushi zealously engineered, with themed snacks and decorations, ranging from a 1920s backdrop of a car, to feathers drenched in spider webs, gold and black balloons, and pearls bursting out of every drawer—the same party which would be remembered as the coveted Great Gatsby themed murder mystery and Khushi had taken extra care to splash “blood” all over the decor to give an air of reality, even though the house itself exuded an odd deathly desperation that required no blood, but it hadn’t always been a gloomy space, other than that loose floor board, rather, the misery followed Khushi and Akash to every house they tried to make their home and 1350 Joy Dr. was no different, and Khushi’s husband was no different, and her marriage was no different, so to assume that growth would come from a change in address, as her mother and her grandmother and his mother advised was obtuse, but Khushi went along as a good, docile, Desi girl ought to, despite his hard hand cutting her lip only two months prior when he landed a smack across her face because she had dared to stay out with a girlfriend too late and dinner wasn’t made and she knew it was her fault because why wasn’t dinner made and it actually was her fault since dinner should have been made and he worked so hard and it weighed on him and he was being too nice, toying with her, dangling a trinket just above her nose hoping she would go for it and she had reached for it, so of course he had to teach her how to behave like a proper housewife, who must be home when her fatigued husband walks through the door, feet dragging along with his briefcase, and it was while preparing for this themed halloween party that Khushi recalled their first anniversary, October 30, 2014, when he came home early all dimpled smiles with a bouquet in hand as an apology for yelling a bit too loud when she ironed his pants with the crease in the wrong place, and they had raced upstairs to their sunlit bedroom, undressing as they ran and his pants fell all wrinkled to the floor but no shouts ensued, so she held him close to her, let him fill her and shrieked with a false euphoria, which only amplified his right to his manly fury and afterwards she lay there thinking if she had made a mistake—and this same anxiety danced in her thoughts the day of the party as she sat there at the kitchen table sipping her coffee and rubbing the back of her purpled neck with lists upon lists set before her and her anxious thoughts caressed that small belief she kept in a yet smaller box hidden at the back of her mind’s closet of how it all ends, but the culmination of the reflective moment came to a premature end as she heard him bustling down the stairs, making her turn abruptly in the chair, which is when she noticed that on this grand morning of the halloween party he chose to wear a large, toothy grin to match the kiss he gave her on the forehead, allowing her to finally breathe a sigh of relief (something she didn’t realize she was holding in), during which time he grabbed a light jacket and began to cram his wide feet into running shoes, and against her better judgment she reminded him of the party and all of the preparations and cleaning and cooking, and she knew she should let him go, she knew it would be for the best, and she saw the small smirk twitch at his lips as he told her to cancel the party, so she sat quietly, obediently as her mother directed her, when her husband began to show his manly “whims,” (her mother’s words) and she heard him run down the hall towards the door, and she heard his foot hit that angry floor board, she heard him guffaw as he tripped and cracked his head on the small, rented, marble pillar, and she heard his last breath give way when the crystal chandelier they had so carefully installed came tumbling down on him, but Khushi did not cry or scream, instead she walked outside to the porch, coffee mug in hand, to take in the cool, crisp autumn air because her party would go on and her party would be spectacular.