The Laws of Water

5. The Lumpy Blue Sweater of Doom

Denver drove back home and got there at 5:27AM.

It was a cold night. Freezing.

The kind of night you shower even though you're squeaky clean, only to feel the boiling water run down your spine and defrost your feet.

The kind of night you use your wife's hairdryer to warm up before you exit the homemade steam sauna you've created in your bathroom.

The kind of night you sleep with your socks on, even though your mom always told you it isn't healthy and that your little piggies need to breathe.

The kind of night Denver's wife might have sex with him just because she's really that cold.

But the chances were slim. Mila looked sound asleep. She wasn't, but she didn't want Denver getting any ideas.

Denver slipped under the covers and put his arm around his wife's petite waist. He ran his fingers under her lumpy blue sweater and over her stomach.

She had a scar on her hip from a tattoo she got removed a while back. Denver tried to avoid that patch of skin whenever they were intimate. She never told him what it used to be, but he guessed it must have been something she really doesn't want to be reminded of.

Mila blew her cover of being "asleep" and pushed his hand away. She placed it back on top of the knitted catastrophe she used as a pajama.

"Mila" Denver whispered in her ear "I love you"

She didn't answer.

She looked sound asleep, again.

And again, she wasn't.

Before they got married Mila used to wear a black satin babydoll to bed. In summer, in winter, it didn't matter. It was trimmed with pink lace around the edges and always wound up somewhere on the floor before the sun would rise.

But that was a while ago.

Now, she wears a blue lumpy sweater that never comes off and a pair of tights so snug, taking them off is its own type of workout. Anything to keep her husband away.

Mila turned her back to his.

This time, she really did fall asleep.

...

Denver's alarm went off at 8:15AM.

He stayed in bed and watched Mila straightening her hair in the mirror.

"Good morning, beautiful."

She didn't answer. He wanted to believe that she couldn't hear him over the blowdryer.

She did hear him.

He brushed his teeth and made two cups of coffee. Mila was now doing her makeup.

There comes a point where trying to regain someone's love makes you feel a bit pathetic.

Last night she was probably asleep, this morning she was most likely deafened by the sound of the hairdryer.

She didn't hear him, he told himself, but he couldn't bear the thought that she might have.

They haven't fought in a while, but what's there to fight about when you don't talk? How do you even begin an argument?

Denver left her the coffee on the counter and left to work without saying goodbye.

If he didn't speak, she wouldn't have to answer and he'd feel less ignored by the one person he counted on to love him forever.