By Attila Zønn

 

 

 

“I was married once.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Hey, don’t look at me now. I was a respectable husband once. I went to work in the morning, every other Thursday I brought home my paycheck and handed it to her to do as she saw fit—for us. I was happy. She was happy. Happy wife, happy life. I took my vows seriously. Through sickness, health, for better or worse, till death do us part.  All that stuff. I thought that’s what you did. That’s what my ma and old man did, for fifty-two years. Sure, they argued, but they stayed together.

“When I first got a cell phone there wasn’t less than three or four times a day that I didn’t get a call from my wife, telling me she loved me. What guy wouldn’t want that?—the woman you love, loving you back. Then, it changed overnight. Literally. The day before, she called me five times to tell me she loved me, then the next morning she wanted me out of her life.”

“Strange.”

“Not really. The signs were there. I just ignored them.”

“But you say she called you all the time to tell you she loved you.”

“Yeah.”

“How does that make any sense?”

“In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. I liked it when she called me to tell me she loved me. It made my day. My day wouldn’t run right without her calls of love, but after awhile I got sensible. I thought it was weird. All that love? It’s too much love, but I shrugged the weirdness off because it made me feel good and gave me confidence. Now? I think all those times she called and told me she loved me, was her trying to convince herself she did love me. The more you say it, the more you believe it. Right?”

“That’s fucked up.”

“No. It was fucked up, but it’s all good now. I’m happy it turned out this way.”

 

Copyright©Attila Zønn 2018