Fiction by Brian Daldorph
“The only thing that changes,” Sheila says, “is that nothing changes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say.
Sheila’s been taking night classes at Juco, and she reads books of poetry in the kitchen while I’m watching TV. We used to sit together on the couch, our thighs pressed together, our arms around each other, and I’d tell her things about the nature shows I watch all the time.
Do you know how much a grizzly bear eats in a day?
Do you know how fast a tiger shark swims?
Which is bigger, the Taj Mahal or a humpbacked whale?
Sheila would ask me how I knew these cool things and I’d say, “I’m just a smart guy, that’s why you married me.”
But now she’s the one telling me things about Buddhism and poetry and this Russian story about a rich man falling off a chair, hitting his side and then he’s dying and his family and colleagues gather like vultures waiting to feast.
“What’s the big deal about that?” I say. “That’s what happened when my Uncle Alex got sick.” (We all thought he had money, but we were wrong).
Sheila asks me if she can read me one of her poems, so I say, “OK, just wait until after my show, please, because this is really interesting. It’s about tarantulas down in New Mexico and the border states.”
The show ends and slides into another about hyenas, and I keep watching though I know Sheila’s hovering, poem in hand. She’s in bed after the hyena show, turned away from me.
I don’t mind her doing some of what she’s doing but not all of it because we had things really nice just the way they were so why make changes?
I’ll tell her in the morning that I’d like to hear her poem, please, and tell her too that I bought chocolates for her. I put them in back of the refrigerator and forgot to tell her about them. She can write a poem about them, about how just like love they’re dark and sweet but sometimes difficult to find.
Brian Daldorph teaches at the University of Kansas and Douglas County Jail.
