By Michael Florent
Chauncy woke up early this Wednesday morning to make breakfast for his family like he always does. It was a simple breakfast: eggs, scrambled for his son and over medium for his wife, sausage, and waffles. The familiar aroma created an atmosphere he was sure would make a great start to the day for his family. His son had just started kindergarten, and it was a source of anxiety for his wife, even though she would never admit it. He knew because she would redirect her anxiety to trivial things around the house, picking at him.
“The eggs are a little overdone.”
“You put a black sock in the white laundry pile.”
“Stop smiling so much, it makes you look like an idiot.”
After fifteen years of marriage, he knew her better than she knew herself. He did not feel like she knew him as well as he knew her, he thought to himself. His wife, Belinda, is a successful pediatrician. Much of her focus was on her clients and running her practice, which she started about three years ago. An ambitious endeavor with a two-year-old at home, but Belinda was an ambitious woman. When they were much younger, their dreams of ambition tied them together.
Pouring himself a cup of coffee, Chauncy walked over to the front window and peeked out the blinds to see his neighbors, David and Delilah. As she walked him to his car, seeing him off for the day, he wrapped her in an amorous embrace, and they kissed like they were the only two in the world. David wore a well-tailored black suit, probably Armani, and drove off in his red C1 Corvette. Delilah waved him off, standing in her chiffon robe and silk night gown. Her large roller curls bounced as she walked to the mailbox. She threw a knowing glance and met Chancey’s eyes.
When he heard the rapid sound of tiny footsteps approaching behind him, Chauncy turned around to see his son blazing a trail straight at him. He turned to embrace him as he did almost every morning.
“How did you sleep, my man?”
“Good! I’m hungry!”
“It’s a good thing Daddy made breakfast, let’s eat!”
Chauncy walked with Amir to the dining room table as he fixed him a plate of the prepared food. Shortly after, he heard Belinda walking from the bedroom to the living room.
“Good morning!” Chauncy spoke.
“Morning,” Belinda grumbled, walking out the front door in her suit pants, blouse, and loafers, already mostly ready to leave for work.
Chauncy sat down at the table with his plate of food and peeked out the blinds to see Belinda briefly interacting with Delilah as she grabbed the mail.
“This is a family neighborhood. She should have more on before leaving the house, for Christ’s sake!” Belinda let out as she closed the front door behind her.
Tossing the mail on the counter, walking to the kitchen, and making a plate, she continued, “I remember when David was still married to Martha and he divorced her, and left her with nothing to be with this young tramp.”
“How is Martha? I haven’t seen her at church,” Chauncy asked with no genuine interest.
“Doing better now, but how embarrassing. Her husband left her for a woman half her age.
Of course, she doesn’t want to show her face,” Belinda said, sitting at the table with her family. She picked at her plate. Chauncy could see in her face that there were criticisms she barely contained behind her look of contempt as she glowered at her food. He was used to it at this point. Belinda drank her black coffee and then carried her son to the car with a brisk goodbye to her husband.
Delilah waited for David like she did most nights. It was 9 p.m., and he had gotten off work at 6 p.m. It only took fifteen minutes to drive from there to here. He would say he was drinking with Kevin, the only person who would tolerate him at work, but she had called Kevin’s wife, Patrice, whom she had met at a work party that he had dragged her into to be his trophy.
Under the guise of just catching up, she knew that Kevin had made it home two hours ago. Delilah didn’t have a job, so naturally, David became her job. She cleaned all day and made dinner. It was cold now, so she put it in the fridge for him later. He would drunkenly take it out and eat it without reheating. After three years, she knew David like the back of her hand. There was nothing he could do to surprise her. Her intimate knowledge of David’s habits wasn’t helped by the fact that she had no friends. None of the women at church would speak with her for much longer than a cordial greeting, out of loyalty to David’s previous wife. She was too afraid of having friends her age, because having her replacement being that close to her would be just too much pain to bear.
She sat near the window and watched as Chauncy got home from work. The lights were already on in his home, and she could make out his wife and child sitting in the living room. As he entered the house, his son ran to his father to embrace him. It was then that Belinda had the good sense to close the blinds. Delilah wanted children so badly, and David had said he wanted them too. They had been trying to conceive ever since they married without luck. It was only after some sleuthing that she learned David had a vasectomy during his marriage to his first wife.
She never confronted him with this.
Delilah didn’t have much money. When she met David, she was a cosmetologist doing nails at a salon near where she lived now. He had convinced her to quit her job, and that he would take care of her. She dreamed of the domestic bliss that awaited her, and now she realized it was a noose.
At 10 p.m., David stumbled into the house drunk out of his mind and smelling of perfume—Chanel number 5. He was with Jessica, his secretary. How unoriginal, Delilah thought.
It was a Saturday morning, but with the curtains drawn, it felt like night in the room. A night they didn’t want to end. This room was a fantasy world of their creation that shriveled and burned in the light of day.
Chauncy said he was meeting with a potential pro bono client. A standard is that every lawyer must do five pro bono cases yearly at his firm. Part of Belinda thought it was a nice thing to do, and a more significant part believed it was pointless. She never investigated any further.
Delilah told David she would see her family, who lived about an hour away. David did not like her family. They had reservations about David’s character, disapproved of her marriage, and did not attend her wedding. Any mention of her family put David in defence mode. She knew that he wouldn’t ask any questions.
As they lay entangled on the mattress in this hotel room, Delilah knew that her family would like Chauncy. He was a hard worker, humble, and valued family like her father. Her mother would admire his conventional good looks. She couldn’t help but think of what their children would look like.
Chauncy was obsessed with Delilah’s full-of-life personality. She reminded him of a time when everything was still new and fun, before he had decided to forsake the romance of life for his responsibilities. Delilah could talk on and on about her interests and never got tired of hearing about whatever he wanted to talk about. She inspired him and encouraged him to grow.
Not once did she criticize his love of pickleball.
“I wish we could run away together,” Delilah said, caressing Chauncy’s face as she stared into his eyes longingly.
“I do too. You know I’ve even planned out how I would do it a time or two,” he said with a chuckle, but he was serious.
“Really? How would it happen?”
“I would tell Belinda I’m leaving, take Amir, and we’ll meet you here. We hit the road and go wherever, maybe another country. We could learn another language, and I’d build our dream home.”
“That sounds nice,” Delilah said, closing her eyes to bask in fantasy. “If I divorced him, I could take half, this doesn’t have to be a secret.”
Chauncy’s face dropped, and he looked at Delilah with eyes filled with concern. She was young and much too idealistic, he thought.
“Belinda would destroy me, and she would make sure I never see Amir until he’s eighteen. The funny part is that she never wanted to have a child. I had to beg. She resents me for having him, and I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me.”
“I would never want you to lose your son.”
“I know, so let’s just enjoy this moment. While it’s ours and ours alone.”
It was a blazing hot day where the sun made anything metal left outside too hot to touch. Belinda rode in the car, uncomfortable from the stinging of heated leather seats. She didn’t care much for the beach. In truth, she preferred to keep her stretch marks hidden. Some women considered them a trophy of a mother’s duty, but Belinda never wanted to be a mother, as much as she loved Amir. It was another payment on the road to being the ideal woman that she had to offer up.
As she and her family set up on the beach, Belinda saw Janice and her husband set up near the water. They were distant, but Belinda could see the blue two-piece bathing suit on Janice’s voluptuous body. Like a wave, the memory of her mother catching her and Janice in their youth overtook her, the fear surging through her body as if it were happening right this moment.
“Women don’t lie with women, it’s an abomination!”
”If I tell your father, he’ll skin you!”
“Your older sister never did anything like this. You always need the most work. I swear you’ll drive me to my grave, Belinda.”
As long as she promised to stay away from Janice, her mother would never mention her “affliction,” and they would move past it. To this day, Belinda hesitated to approach Janice in public, but in a private location was another story. Janice was the love of Belinda’s life, and Belinda burned with fury and frustration seeing her with her husband because she lived in a world where she would never be truly seen. Never be allowed to be who she was. Chauncey was good enough, but she danced inside with anticipation for the times she could sneak away with Janice.
She looked over to see him tracking Delilah across the beach with his head. He wore sunglasses so she couldn’t see his eyes, but he wasn’t clever enough not to move his head. He thinks he’s so smart, Belinda thought to herself. She could admit that she understood why Delilah was seen as attractive, but she wasn’t Belinda’s type.
“Oh, baby! Please don’t forget the parasol,” Delilah had said before he even had a chance to grab sandwiches to put in the cooler. She had taken two hours to get ready, between the fifty potential swimsuits she “needed” to have available for this day. She had spent the entire week preparing, going to the salon, getting manicures, and getting waxed, and not once did she think to buy a sizable cooler.
David had to stop for one on the way to the beach, and he was sure all the best spots would be taken. When they managed to find a place, it was far from where they parked. David thought he’d pass out from the combination of the sun’s rays beating on him, all the items he had to carry, and the flush of embarrassment he felt as he watched Delilah traipse in front of him, carrying only her umbrella for her face.
”You don’t want me to break a nail, do you? You just paid for these!”
As David unpacked, he couldn’t help but notice the Jenkins family. They had been his first and most cruel family. He had been in and out of the foster care system until he stayed with the Dawkins family, until he was eighteen. He remembered the Jenkins family changed his name to “Timothy” and his birthday. They were not the first family to do that, but the physical and emotional abuse he endured from them still left scars on his mind and body. Days like these, when he was healthy and successful with his wife by his side, made everything worth it.
They repeated to him in many different ways how he would never amount to anything. David knew that their house was being foreclosed on, and so they would be homeless soon. He had a personal hand in initiating the proceedings. Once he was good and settled, he would walk over and “accidentally” spill something on them.
“Come on, baby, let’s get an ice cream!”
David walked with his wife to the ice cream stand, and right in front of him were his neighbors, Chauncey and Belinda, getting ice cream for their son Amir.
“Brother, how are you? I didn’t see you at the last chapter meeting,” David said, embracing Chauncey.
They briefly hugged cordially, but David knew Chauncey was not a fan of his. He joined their fraternity for different reasons than David had. David knew that Chauncey was more of an idealist, believed in more humanitarian pursuits, and probably looked down on David’s more hedonistic lifestyle. That and that David had stolen Chauncey’s first high school girlfriend.
While Chauncey fumbled through excuses and meandered through small talk, David couldn’t help but notice how his eyes frequently strayed toward Delilah. The idiot must have forgotten that his sunglasses were perched on his head, David thought to himself.
Michael Florent is a New Orleans native who moved to New York about two years ago. His current goal is receiving his PhD in psychology. He writes, “Growing up I would consider myself a YA junkie. It was the genre that first spoke to me and since I still have a soft spot for fiction, but I do have a wide variety of interest when it comes to literature.”
