The Moon

When she notices the lights in the bedroom go off, she pries her sneakers using the heal of one foot to unhook the heal of the other foot standing at door in the hall and moves quietly through their bedroom room towards the bathroom. Grabbing the toothpaste, she notices him lying in bed through the mirror and she hastily squeezes the tube so hard a large thick gob flies out. She can hear his fake snoring noises and this makes her bang the tube down against the marble counter. She closes her eyes putting both her hands against the counter and counts colorful numbers disappearing into bubbles which float away. She then goes into her yoga pose bending over at the waist allowing her body to hang downward and practices her mantra until she notices some spots on the white tiled floor.

“How much are we paying Anita to clean” she mumbled furiously under her breath. Pulling out all the cleaning products and lining them up like an arsenal on the table but unable to locate a mop she starts rubbing the spots with a tiny face towel. Noticing more spots she moves onto them using a furious circular pattern. She breaks down and does the entire floor till it is a as spotless as the day it was placed. Ready to put the supplies away she notices her husband has stopped snoring and hears the bed creak under his weight. she suddenly pulls out another face cloth and kneeling on the counter she works on the mirror and makes an involuntary hmph sound when staring past her reflection she notices a dark lump under the covers. She cleans the mirror until it seems a window onto somebody else’s life like a good painting that says something beyond the objects represented.

Sitting on the counter she massages her knees and undresses to take a brief shower. Playing with the plug in the tub, which is wedged between her big toe and its slightly shorter neighbor she pushes it in with finality and the tub begins to fill with a soft gurgling sound of a brook cascading into deeper water. Completely submerged in the tub with the water off she can hear the incessant ticking of the clock in their room and her tub slowly becomes filled with a silver glow. She gets up and pokes her head through the small window and watches for a moment the moon who has shed her clouds triumphantly. She then gently leans over standing in the tub to grab a towel when the pile spills over to the floor. She stares at the jumble of colorful towels on the floor, ignores them, and walks out of the bathroom wrapped in her robe leaving the pale light on behind her. She dresses quietly in the dark keeping her eyes averted from his side of the bed and carefully positions herself at the very edge, which she lets her hand hang casually from to keep her self safely anchored.