Virginia was in a sea of browned, patchy grass, but she was not sinking.  The buoyancy of her gauzy, ankle-length skirt, distributed in a perfect circle about her huddled form, kept her afloat.  If Virginia squinted, she could penetrate the haze of the late August heat and see the yellow house, whose color effectively camouflaged it against the pale sky.  Behind her view of the house lay a gravel path, which eventually found a monotonous blacktop road, which eventually fed the monstrous interstate, which plowed through mile after mile of cornfields.  Virginia rarely drove on the gravel road, even more rarely on the blacktop road, and even more rarely on the paved, serpentine form of the interstate.  She preferred to float in the sea, where the deadened tips of the grass and the crumbling patches of dried dirt hydrated her.  Like the earnest fisherman and the vicious pirate, Virginia thirsted for nothing while she was out at sea.

In her right hand, she held a lidless Mason jar.  Spencer often used it to hold the spiced fruits he made, to fill puff pastry shells and bake in the oven for the parties they used to have or to top his whitewheat toast in the mornings that he had with his tea.  Virginia had had to dump the spiced apples he’d made the night before into a Tupperware container, which she’d shoved in the refrigerator next to the Parmesan cheese, so that she could fill the jar with liquid dishwasher soap from the bottle on the counter.

Virginia judged from the low position of the sun in the sky that Spencer would be home soon.  It would please him if she were in the house when he arrived, but he wouldn’t demand it.  She could stay another hour before the feeling like guilt bothered her. 

She wondered what Spencer would make for dinner.  The night before, he had made a lasagna, and she’d not been ashamed to have eaten three helpings at dinner, in addition to another at midnight when she couldn’t fall asleep.  Spencer had taken the dish’s remainder for his lunch, and the dirty pan still remained, stagnant, in the sink.

Virginia studied the blurred horizon for the form of the dark blue sedan, hopeful that it would not appear.  As she searched, she pressed the flat palms of her hands together, as though in prayer, and plunged them fingertips first into the Mason jar.  She’d received comments—she wasn’t sure whether to call them compliments—all her life oh how slender and delicate her hands were.  They were smooth and softly tanned, scarless and veinless, without blemishes or spots.  She held them in the jar for a few moments before she lifted them to her face, carefully turning them back upright, her fingers now pointing toward the cloudless sky.  They were sticky and slippery at the same time, from the soap suds.  She looked again for Spencer and did not see him.

Gingerly, she drew the outside edges of her hands apart, taking care not to break the clear, swimming film that stretched between, like a piece of cloth over a jar.  She guided her nose and mouth between her parted hands, held her breath, then gently and gradually released it against the taut soap.  A sphere formed and broke free from the edges of Virginia’s fingers, taking its time but surely ascending.  Virginia locked her eyes on its perfectly curved form as it modestly soared above her head, above the roof of the house, above the sun, before ceasing to exist with a silent, but abrupt pop.  She blinked and looked away.

More out of restlessness than compassion, she decided she would make Spencer happy and go in early.  After wiping the soapy residue that remained on her hands onto the crumpled grass, she rose and began walking toward the house against the stealthy wind that had nearly managed to arrive unnoticed.  The gusts subtly gathered in strength, their force seeming to multiply with each passing miniscule unit of time, and Virginia’s stride became laborious.

When she reached the house’s back door, she fished in her skirt’s deep pocket for the key, only to find the door already unlocked.

Spencer was in the kitchen, assembling a marinade of some sort.  Virginia had missed the dark blue sedan’s turning off the gravel path and into the patch of flattened grass beside the house.

Spencer looked up with poorly concealed eagerness.  “Hey, there,” he said.  “I gather pork chops are okay for dinner?  I tried to call but you were out.”

“How long have you been home?” Virginia asked.  She seated herself at the kitchen table and watched Spencer’s hands, which were lightly whisking some ingredients whose names she did not know into a glass bowl on the counter.  His hands were coarse and boxy, with short, square fingernails and bulging knuckles.

“About two hours,” he said, and laid the whisk in the sink, finished with the marinade.  “I left early this morning so I could get home earlier.”

Virginia vaguely remembered hearing the low, rhythmic beat of Spencer’s alarm clock when it was still dark outside.  She felt a pang of the feeling like guilt for not making a similar effort to be at home, but not a strong enough one to sting.

“Sorry,” she said.  She felt as though an apology were appropriate here.

“For what?” Spencer was now pouring the marinade into a plastic bag that also contained the raw chops.

“For staying outside for so long,” Virginia said.  She felt suddenly indignant that she had succumbed to the feeling like guilt and apologized.  She was not sorry.  She had nothing to be sorry for.

“It’s a beautiful day.  You should be outside.”  Spencer used his hands to evenly distribute the marinade over the meat.

He had seemed to read her mind, and Virginia sheepishly looked down at her hands.

“So are you sure you can drive me tomorrow?” she asked.

“I told you I would.”

“But it’s on your lunch break.  I don’t want to inconvenience you.”  This statement had never failed to absolve Virginia of all blame, make her appear considerate, and simultaneously get her what she wanted.

“It’s not a big deal,” Spencer said firmly.  He put the bag with the meat in the refrigerator.  “I’ll pick up something on the way back to the office.”

Virginia nodded and studied her reflection in the glass layer covering the wooden kitchen table.  With pleasure, she noticed that her cheeks were particularly rosy from the wind outside.

“Don’t feel like you have to stay here and entertain me,” Spencer said with forced casualness.  “Why don’t you go read your book?  Or you can go back outside.  I mean, if you want.”

Virginia remembered that she had left the Mason jar full of dishwasher soap outside but did not feel inclined to retrieve it.  Spencer would disapprove of its use and of the fact that she had displaced his spiced apples.  He would not make this sentiment apparent in any way, but perhaps that was worse.

“I think I’ll go read upstairs.”  Virginia pulled herself out of the chair.

“Okay.  I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready.”

Virginia left the kitchen and climbed the stairs, the fronts of her ankles scraping each step, her feet feeling like dead weight.  When she reached the bedroom, she crawled onto the bed on top of the pale blue bedspread that Spencer had selected fourteen years ago, on the premise that the color was serene.  And it was.

When she and Spencer had gotten married, both sets of parents had bought them the house as a joint wedding gift.  It was located on a piece of newly developed land off the interstate, and its price had been a bargain.  Only three other houses were close enough to be considered “neighbors,” the closest one a quarter of a mile away.  The location provided easy access to the interstate, which would take Spencer to his job, then as a clerk in the law firm in which he was now a partner.  Both Virginia and Spencer had been thrilled by the prospect of decorating their own home and had completed the task with increasing enthusiasm.  Virginia rested her cheek against the silk pillows that she had selected, the ones Spencer had denounced as frivolous but to which he had grudgingly consented.  She’d clapped her hands in delight and leapt into his arms like a child, right in the middle of the store.

Virginia felt exhausted as she lay immobile on top of the disheveled bed, staring at the small, blank television screen.  She had not slept much the previous night, and she wanted a nap.  Spencer would wake her when it was time.  He had before.

***

Virginia dreamt of a wedding.  The ceremony was in an airy, cream-colored room with endless walls.  The bride wore an amorphous taupe dress that blended with her healthy, softly tanned skin.  The groom wore a simple but flattering gray suit, with a pale blue tie.

She opened her eyes to Spencer, who was changing his shirt.  She realized that he had cooked dinner while still wearing his pressed white shirt that he wore to the office.  He was now buttoning a plaid cotton one.  His bulky fingers fumbled with the buttons, searching for the tiny slits.

“You’re awake,” he said softly, with a matching smile.  “I wasn’t going to wake you up for another twenty.”

With some effort, Virginia sat up on the bed.  Her tangled dark hair had come loose while she had slept.  She searched among the pillows and the creases in the bedspread for the tortoiseshell clip.  She found it on the floor, just under the bed’s skirt.

Spencer was rolling up his sleeves.  “You up for a glass of wine?” he asked her.  “I picked up a bottle on the way home.  The chops have got maybe another fifteen minutes.”

Virginia did want wine.  “Red or white?” she asked.

“Red.”

Virginia had wanted red, but she knew that Spencer preferred the lighter, lemony taste of white.

“Okay,” she said and slid off the bed.  She loosely fastened her hair to the back of her head with the clip.

“Meet you downstairs,” said Spencer, who was now rummaging in a drawer for a belt.

Virginia had poured herself a glass and was staring at the door of the oven when Spencer returned.  He opened the oven door to check on the chops and then poured his own glass of wine, a smaller one than Virginia’s.  He leaned against the counter, watching her watch the oven, and took a sip.

“How was your day?” Virginia asked.  They both knew she didn’t care about the answer.

“Oh, you know,” Spencer said.  “Lawyer stuff.  Nothing special.”

Spencer’s first few years at the firm had been exciting for both of them.  Starting as a clerk, he had quickly worked his way up to become a public defender.  He’d relished defending innocence and bringing justice to the court system.  He’d enthusiastically recounted the details of his cases to Virginia when he had come home each night, and she had listened eagerly.  He’d called her during recesses when he’d had cases out of town, with an escalation in his voice that she seldom heard now.  He’d breathlessly read her his closing arguments, asking for her feedback.  A few years ago, he had traded his job as a public defender for a position as a bank lawyer and a partnership.  He made more money and his schedule was more flexible.

The wine diluted Virginia’s perception, and she soon was sitting at the table with a plate in front of her, not recalling how she had arrived there.  She and Spencer sat at perpendicular sides of the table, sharing a corner.

He had asked her how she’d spent her day.  She had told him that she had read a little and done laundry.  This was true.  She had skimmed the arts section of the paper in the morning and had washed a pair of socks in the sink, drying them by laying them on top of the air conditioning vent.  The pile in the hamper in the downstairs bathroom, however, had not diminished.

They ate in near silence.  Spencer’s few comments were reflected off Virginia’s ears, the words fragmented, scattered, and then dissolved into the empty space of the room.

The chops were delicious, as Spencer’s meals usually were.  Virginia envied his culinary skill.  He had learned to cook in college, having lost his tolerance for the food offered by any of the campus dining halls and for Ramen noodles by the end of his junior year.  He had found it not difficult to procure ingredients and found that most recipes allowed for leftovers when shared by him and his roommate.  In the long run, he had found the change to be financially beneficial.  His meals were simple, but delectably so.  Virginia could still remember the first meal he’d made her and how odd she’d thought it that he had invited her to his apartment for their first date’s meal, instead of to a restaurant.

“This is cheating,” she had joked flirtatiously.  “It’s like you’re skipping a step.”

He had laughed it off, a little nervously.  But he had ended up skipping that step that night, after both had eaten his eggplant casserole, the dish he still made for every wedding anniversary.

Spencer went to his study to work after dinner.  He told Virginia that he would take care of the dishes in a little while.  For now, they were piled in the sink.

While Spencer went to his study, Virginia poured herself another glass of wine and leaned against the counter, staring at the stack of dirty dishes in the metal sink.  It reminded her of the similar mound of dirty clothes in the downstairs bathroom, the one that Spencer would probably tackle tomorrow.

Virginia was suddenly annoyed by the putrid, filthy pile in the sink.  The pile was not really putrid, nor was it filthy, but she still wanted it to disappear.  She put down her glass and walked determinedly to the sink, picking up the plate off which Spencer had eaten.  With her free hand, she turned on the faucet, rinsing the residue of the marinade and the salad dressing.

Once the plate was rinsed, Virginia leaned over to open the dishwasher.  As she did, she felt her right hand, the one holding the plate, quiver, just barely.  Then her wrist seemed to freeze, and her fingers released the plate, which politely crashed to the floor.

She clenched her teeth and, enraged, kicked the side of the counter, then the open door of the dishwasher, then the jagged shards of the plate that lay like a mosaic on the floor.

Spencer had appeared.  “You okay?” he asked, with a barely detectable hint of apprehension.

The question infuriated Virginia.  Of course she was okay.  The plate was not.  “Yes, I’m fine,” she said.  “But the goddamn plate’s broken.  God—damn it!”  She kicked at the plate pieces again with her bare foot.

“Careful,” Spencer said quietly.  “Put on some shoes.”

“I’m not going to cut my foot, Spencer.  I’m not a child.”  She felt like an idiot, first for dropping the plate, then for the tears she felt in her eyes.

Spencer left and then reappeared with a broom and dustpan.  “I’ll clean this up,” he said gently.  “You go rest a bit.”

“But I was doing the dishes,” said Virginia, attempting to create an illusion of productivity.

“I’ll finish them.  You were almost done anyway.”

Virginia hated this lie, and she hated Spencer for having even the faintest expectation that she would believe it and that it would erase any guilt from her conscience.  She then felt defiant.  She did not feel guilty for not finishing the dishes.  They were a task she had started, and she wanted to complete it.  It was her right to complete it.

“I’m going to finish them,” she declared.

Spencer looked up from the dustpan, which now contained the broken plate.  Behind his black-rimmed glasses, his eyes glistened a little.  His jaw was clenched, as though he were bearing pain, and around the handle of the dustpan, his knuckles were white.  “No,” he said.

Virginia stared at her crouching husband.  He would not waver.  “Fine,” she said, barely audibly.  “I’ll…rest.”

Spencer did not respond.  He had dumped the big pieces into the trash can and was now searching the broom closet for the vacuum cleaner, to suck up the smaller pieces.

Virginia left the kitchen and headed toward the stairs.  Right before she reached them, she changed her mind, veered left, and entered Spencer’s study.

The room was walled with books, many of them law books, but many books of history and literature as well.  Of several titles he had multiple copies.  Virginia noticed that one of these was Thoreau’s Walden.  She remembered its numerous mentions in her high school English classes, but the work’s importance had not been reinforced during her college years.  Thoreau did not typically prove relevant to the studies of a biochemistry major.

She picked up one of the copies of Walden.  It was a hardcover, black green with dull gold lettering.  She turned the thick pages, which were tanned with age but not brittle.  She wondered how many times Spencer had read it, or whether he had read it at all.  She sat with the book in Spencer’s leather desk chair, reading the words on the pages but not registering their collective meaning.  Instead, she tried to recall what her high school teachers had said about Walden and Henry David Thoreau.  She managed to recollect that Thoreau had secluded himself in a cabin at Walden Pond, believing that the best way to discover oneself was to become immersed in nature.

She was still reading when Spencer returned to his study.  He stood in the doorway, looking at her fondly.
             
“Enjoying it?” he asked.

She nodded, waiting a few extra moments to meet his eyes.  She had always liked them.  They were dully blue, in a way that made it difficult to tell where the iris ended and the white began.  Virginia mirrored his tender smile.  When she did, she saw his eyes flicker a bit, like the last gasp of a dying campfire.

“I don’t want to kick you out,” Spencer said, seriously and playfully, “but I have to work.”

“I know.” Virginia closed the book, but did not move.

He looked at her a little longer before he strode powerfully to the desk and kissed her.  The black frames of his glasses pressed against the bridge of her nose.  She placed her hand on the back of his neck, beneath the collar of his shirt, as he continued to kiss her, motionlessly.

She withdrew her lips and looked at his eyes, trying to discern the edges of his irises.

“I’m going to go up,” she said.  She stood up, laying the book on the desk.  “Didn’t mean to bother you.”

He blinked, and nodded.

***

He did not come to bed for another three hours after she had gone up.  She had been awake the whole time.  She heard him open the door slowly and tiptoe to the dresser, the floorboards creaking beneath the quiet pound of his flat feet.  She heard his sharp intake of breath when the opening of a drawer made more noise than he’d expected.  She heard him changing.  She felt him climb into the bed beside her, painstakingly sliding himself under the covers, lying on his side so he faced her back.  She was still thinking about how she would like to live in a solitary cabin in the woods, like the one at Walden Pond.

***

Spencer awoke to find her gone, the shallow indentation where her body had lain awake an empty reminder of her absence.  He fumbled on the surface of the nightstand for his glasses and then surveyed the room.  Her shoes were gone.  She was outside.  She was always outside.

Without getting dressed, he went downstairs to the kitchen to put on a pot of water for his tea.  He detested coffee, and Virginia did, too.  She rarely drank tea in the mornings now, though, claiming to have lost her taste for the beverage.  While the water was boiling, he placed a slice of bread in the toaster and opened the pantry in search of the sliced apples he had made a couple of nights ago.  He did not see them there, not even after meticulous perusal.  The sturdy Mason jar in which he normally stored his spiced fruits, apples and peaches and pears, had been relocated.

He checked the refrigerator.  Perhaps Virginia had absentmindedly put the jar there, though she rarely ate Spencer’s spiced fruit.  The fruit was in the refrigerator.  However, the trusty, infallible Mason jar was not.  The apples were piled in a Tupperware container, next to the Parmesan cheese.  Spencer took the apples out, forked some onto a plate, and put the plate in the microwave.

***

Virginia had been outside since four in the morning.  She had not slept at all during the night, which was true of most nights lately.  When she had gone out, the Mason jar was still there, refusing to be toppled by the night’s strong winds.  She had sat beside it, as though it were a companion, and had doggedly watched the horizon until the sun had risen.  When it did, she watched its ascending path in the sky.  She watched it until the point at which Spencer would get up.  Then she watched the house.

She thought she saw his silhouette in the kitchen window.  He would be making his morning tea, the tea she had used to share with him before abruptly, suddenly, the liquid had begun to fall tasteless onto her tongue.  She wished she could still drink tea with Spencer.  Their mutual hatred of coffee had shown up on their first date.

“Would you like some coffee or something?” he had asked her, after they’d finished with the eggplant casserole.

“Sure,” she’d said.  She didn’t want to be rude.  It was only their first date.

Remembering the scene, she realized that she had perhaps seen a look of the slightest apprehension cross Spencer’s face.  But he’d put on a pot—the coffeemaker was his roommate’s.

Later, they had sat silently, both with mugs in front of them.

“So how do you take it?” he’d asked.

She’d told him with both milk and sugar, hoping heavy additions of external substances would make the vile beverage more palatable.

“Me, too,” Spencer had said.  He’d gone to get the milk and sugar, and both had praised the adorable coincidence.

Both had taken tiny sips, suppressing the convulsions that twisted their faces in response to the bitter taste that had managed to conquer the fierce onslaught of the milk and sugar.  The charade had continued for about five minutes before Virginia had finally blurted out that she hated coffee.  In relief, Spencer had roughly grasped her head in his boxy hands and had kissed her with the fervor inspired by a shared hatred.  Her fingers had become netted in his dark wiry hair, hair that was now beginning to thin, as he’d guided her to the bedroom.

With a jolt, Virginia remembered that she had moved the spiced apples to the refrigerator.  She desperately wanted to tell Spencer where they were; she didn’t want him to have to eat his toast with butter.  Then she realized that the refrigerator would probably be the second place he would look.  Immediately, she felt stupid for worrying.

The wind had ceased just as subtly as it had come, and the deadened grass was still.  All motion had stopped.  No visitors would knock on the door of the pale yellow house.  No cars would drive down the gravel road.  No planes would fly above the endless cornfields that swarmed about the monstrous interstate.

Virginia submerged her hands in the suds, which had become slightly dusty with the dehydrated dirt that had been disturbed by the night’s winds.  But the jar had not blown over.  The liquid dishwasher soap remained.

Virginia’s arms felt tingly, as though they were disconnected from her body.  The muscles itched in a way that she could not scratch.  She ran her tongue across the rough roof of her mouth and brought her soapy hands to her face.

With the utmost care, she drew the edges of her hands apart.  The film formed the way it always did, sparkling a little with the light lent by the pallid sun, turning and tangling inside of itself, forming winding shapes and destroying them within the same instant.

The tingling in Virginia’s arms amplified and began a steady, but swift flow to her jagged elbows, to her forearms, to her arched wrists.  Her right wrist jerked briefly but violently, and the soapy film between Virginia’s hands popped, squirting a bit into Virginia’s eyes and stinging them sharply.

Virginia groaned in agony.  She threw her body forward onto her feet and in rage kicked over the Mason jar, so that it lay on its side in the lifeless grass.  The soap seeped steadily out of the jar’s opening and into the parched, crusty dirt.