The Pink Letter

he sits at her kitchen table, her back hunched as she stares over the space where the newspaper should have been, a bowl of soggy Fruit Loops beside her. The ungentle light of early morning slashes across the room, cutting across the back of her old bathrobe, making the roses embroidered there seem withered. It reflects off the tiled floor, the coffee cup in her left hand, the beige G.E. refrigerator. It has a built in water and ice dispenser, despite her pleas to get the cheaper version. The sink was right next to the fridge after all.

The sunlight wraps itself around her bare feet, painted toenails, lashing them to the chair. It lights her honeyed hair on fire. It slaps across her eyelids, causing her to squint against its harsh ashen glow. As the sun continues to rise, it winks occasionally in her right eye, a casual thing, but cruel just the same. Like it knows. It is good at keeping secrets.

The light tears across the tabletop, splashing into her cereal bowl, pushing its way across the fresh daisies in the vase, landing roughly upon the letter occupying the newspaper's space. The letter, unopened, lays smooth, delicate, and untouched upon the glass tabletop. The script reads neatly, in a lilting, feminine writing. Where she wrote his name, it loops about in an almost-cursive. There is a little heart drawn in the lower left-hand corner. It's drawn in blue, a very un-heart-like color. The stamp, ribboned by the postman's mark, depicts a bunch of daisies tied together by a blue ribbon.

It stood out this morning when the mailman dropped the sheaf of letters through their mail slot in the front door. The pink of the envelope, the cloying crimson color, directed her hand as she gathered the papers. As she gently guided it on top of the pile, the faint smell of sweetness swept past her nose. It smelled of some subtle fruity perfume. Almost familiar, in fact. She was quite sure she'd smelled it on one or two of his shirts when she put them in the wash, but then again, maybe it was just her own overactive imagination. Probably not.

He'd seemed distant these past few months. He'd leave in the morning without waking her to give her the used-to-be-usual good morning kiss. They'd eat in silence, the hum of that G.E. refrigerator the only noise in the kitchen. He'd often fall asleep watching TV while she waited in bed for him for hours; sometimes until 3 or 4 am, still hopeful he was coming after all.

Now she sits here, the morning light burning into her back while her eyes burn into the pink paper. Her eyes follow those beautiful letters, noting how they connect so gracefully, how they rise in artful peaks and sag gently into wells for her tears. She never had written his name so magnificently before. Surely that was something wives should have mastered long before marriage. Her eyes trail down to that little blue heart in the corner. It's cute, bubble-y; it conveys what dozens of letters don't have to.

That smell, that delicate perfume, it stands under her nose, not moving despite the slight spring breeze from the open window. Every time she inhales, the taste, the smell, the texture of it on her tongue, she envies that pink girl. The girl who can wear such perfume and use pink envelopes and draw such perfect little blue hearts in the corner.

She has the letter opener next to her on the table. Right there, within easy reach, also blinding in the sun's rays. So white that it is almost like it isn't there at all. Just a streak on the glass surface of the table. She wants to open it. To simply slide the metal blade of the opener beneath the lip of that pink envelope and pull effortlessly upward till it tore free. She can feel the metal in the palm of her hand, cold still despite the fiery sunlight cooking it on the table.

She wants to tear it open every time she thinks about him coming home late, smiling broadly, so happy but not because of anything she'd done, because of something this pink envelope had done. She wants to when she remembers how icy and vast that distance between them became when he did sleep in the bedroom with her every once in a while. How much further it seemed than an arm length. She wants to when she thinks of last weekend.

Last weekend was their anniversary. She woke up alone and remained alone for most of the day while he was at work. She waited for hours for him to come back, to step through the front door with a bouquet full of daisies and one of those cheesy heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, and a devious smile to show that he really didn't forget, not really. He was just playing her for a fool.

But she really was a fool. He showed up, but he carried a case of beer in one hand and a frozen steak in the other with orders for her to cook it medium rare stored in his mouth. They ate in silence again, that refrigerator hum screaming in her ears as she bit back the urge to cry into her meal. He ate happily enough, shoving each morsel of meat into his mouth, gobbling up the mashed potatoes she'd prepared so lovingly that afternoon for their 'special dinner,' wiping his plate with a slice of Wonderbread he'd rummaged for in the bread drawer.

He kissed her goodnight on the mouth for the first time in weeks. But his lips felt cold and his eyes glanced over her head as he did it. When he withdrew his lifeless lips to pull most of the blankets over to his side of the bed, such emptiness swept across her, almost knocking her down. Her heart was hollow, imploring, she wanted to touch him, to curl up behind him and wrap her arms around him. To feel his comfort again as she slept, but she was too afraid to try. She wasn't afraid of him, or anything he might do or say. She'd even gotten used to that heartbreaking look of reproach in his eyes whenever she tried to touch him, but she had such a terrible fear that he would ever so gently push her arm away and roll further across the bed.

Sometimes when he slept late on weekends, she'd lean over as quietly as she could and breathe in deep the smell of him. She loved the smell of his Old Spice deodorant, the aftershave he used each morning, the cologne he occasionally put on when he went out nights. He used to wear that cologne just for nights at home because he knew how much she loved the smell of it on his old t-shirts. If she got close enough she could smell his dandruff shampoo, the moisturizer he had to use on his hands because they cracked in winter, she could smell him. She especially loved the way he smelled; so darkly manly, so rustic and healthy, so handsome.

When he'd leave for work, every so often she'd take his cologne from the cabinet in the blue-tiled bathroom and spray it