Lucinda Justin Leuba
For the first time in a while Charles Hatfield wakes with an uneasy feeling, a sort of churning and clenching in his mind and in his stomach, but he quickly shakes it away. It’s a beautiful morning. Almost all of Charles’ mornings are beautiful now. His alarm clock buzzes, set for 5:30 so he can hit the snooze button twice before leaving his bed and wife, whose back is turned to him so that he can see her shoulder blades sinking into each other as collateral for the combination of gravity and the position that she is lying in; her bone structure has recently been made visible, Miranda Hatfield has been dieting, with every third vertebrae or so creating a little lump on her back. Charles traces her spine with his eyes, ending the trail on the mound of a bull’s knot underneath his spouse’s skull. Charles doesn’t like that Miranda is dieting. Miranda was dieting when she’d slept with Ludo at the company Halloween party. Ludo, beautiful, undeserving, sickening Ludo; Charles would like to cut off all of Ludo’s toes if he has the chance. It is now April. Charles gently pulls the floral comforter off him, snagging a corner in his left hand and tugging as if attempting a caress, careful not to wake his wife. He remembers the first time, four years ago, that he’d made a snide comment about her hair being frizzy, and then three months later about the gradually increasing mass of her love handles even though he thought she had still been beautiful, or
when he’d pinched her behind and said jovially “there’s a lot more there than there used to be” as if the night before she hadn’t had to hold his hand and tell him that she still thought he was handsome. He liked seeing her eyebrows furrow and her lips pout, revered in the slump of her shoulders whenever he jabbed and picked away at her security, only to tell her she was beautiful the next day. His feet are freezing, the hair on his chest stiff with the early morning coolness of an April with the windows open. Charles has only recently started sleeping with the windows open; Miranda doesn’t know what to think of it. After sweetly curling his legs and then uncurling them onto the floor, toes balled up with chilliness, he straightens his knees and walks to the bathroom across the hall from the master bedroom. Charles’ house has two more designated bedrooms, both of which he uses as his “studies.” He analyzes his torso in the bathroom mirror, turning to the side to examine the beer belly that began its development at twenty-four; ten years later and it is still getting bigger; three years mostly sober, so beer can’t even be the scapegoat anymore. Charles, Chuck to his friends, smiles at his beer gut and thinks about the bacon and cheese omelet that he plans to make for breakfast. He will leave some coffee on for Miranda; she won’t wake until nine and will suck down her caffeine with the grapefruit half and antacid that she eats every morning.
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