The Table

She kept coming back to that table.

It was really the cleanest thing in the room, but that didn’t stop her from wiping and dusting, inspecting and scrubbing.

She found nothing and turned to her dishes. She washed three plates and two forks, and by then she’d almost managed to forget. Her eyes caught a reflection through the window, her husband’s blue Gold Wing, shining in the sun.

Then she was looking at the table again, and then she was scrubbing at it again, polishing again.

He’d commissioned the table when they’d gotten married. "Mari," Steve had told her, his shortened version of her "Marissa" grinding on her ears uncomfortably even then. "I’m gonna get ‘cha everything you wanted, and I’m gonna start with that dining room set."

That had been twenty-three years ago.

Marissa rubbed on a stain in the clawed foot of the table and stood, biting her knuckle while looking for more imperfections. Unable to find any, she turned towards the counters and started sorting through bills again, bills she wouldn’t be able to cover because of him.

She’d sold most of what he’d left her with already. They hadn’t had any kids— thank God, she thought, though she’d wanted them once upon a time— but he had never spoiled her with the extra cash. His position at the firm would have allowed for it, of course, but Marissa had always been laid back, easy going. She didn’t ask for much. The table and its two chairs had been exactly what she’d wanted, minus the other two chairs. But that had been okay, she supposed, because there were only two people to fill them, and it had never been about the chairs, anyway; it was about the table. She’d already pawned the chairs.

He was miserly towards her, but as she flipped through piles of water and gas bills, she recalled his secretary’s new Jimmy Choo stilettos, her expensive smelling perfume, her razor-sharp red smirk, and Marissa was at the table again, carefully wiping dust out of the intricate carvings in the apron. She tried not to remember the secretary’s bare ass on its surface, her purple stockings rested against Steve’s shoulders, his cheap brown suit covered in sweat, but Marissa started dusting faster.

The phone rang. She stood and sighed, expecting it would be him. It was, of course, and all she heard was, "Mari, baby, talk to me—" before she slammed the phone down. She turned and there it was again, sitting spotless in a sea of debris, almost sparkling. She drummed her fingers against the tile of the counter, first debating, then deciding.

Dragging the table out was not an easy task, but Marissa managed to do it. She had, then, another decision to make, and she wandered through the garage to think. She found half a package of the cigarettes he liked but never shared (ladies don’t smoke, he’d told her), some tools, a chainsaw, cans of gas, old Playboy magazines stuffed under a toolbox.

She came out with an axe. It had felt good in her hands, felt right, and it still felt good and right when she bit the axe into the meaty flesh of the table’s surface. She hacked and tore at the table until there were no more clawed feet; no more intricate carvings; no more shining surface, only splinters and dust.

Marissa poured gas over the remains, set the vapors on fire, and let a faint smile creep across her lips as she lit her first cigarette.