I watched the bubbles in the kitchen sink. I wanted to look away. Move. Grab the blue stemmed wine glass lazily drifting beneath those bubbles and scrub it out furiously. Smash it on the floor. The wall. A face. I watched. I only watched.
The sound of something heavy on the bed shoved its way down the hall and into my ears. The bubbles made a dancing pattern as the water drifted. They looked like a map of Africa. The hot sun and the elephant ride. All those wooden masks bought on the side of the road. They hung on the wall in the hallway, but I never saw them. Cape Town popped and the Sahara collapsed and Africa was gone. Footsteps. The tap tap of hard soles trying to sound considerate. A voice behind me. “You don’t know where my …” I didn’t hear the rest. It was drowned out by the fizz and pop of the bubbles.
I commanded my hand to move and take up the glass, but it disobeyed my orders and stayed perched on the edge of the dark sink. Apron front. Ferguson Homes. The bubbles popped white against the black background that had once seemed like such a modern purchase. An investment. The bubbles were rounder now. A face I knew in my heart but wouldn’t recognize on the subway. Almost I could make my hand reach out to disrupt that face. Scatter the bubbles. Almost. The face in the sink had perfect wide eyes that always paid attention and made contact during even the most boring bits of the conversation. Those lips would open wide for him and the button nose would never drip at the wrong time or stuff up. The cheeks liked the slaps more than mine ever had.
The toilet flushed from down the hall. I could imagine the dribble of piss I’d have to wipe from the floor later. On my knees for him one last time. A small prayer made to Hestia. The bubbles in the sink were tapering down, taking on the shape of flowers in a pot. White on black, but in my mind they were soft pink peonies, almost lavender. The smell of it almost shook me, but my eyes never moved at all. I’d never been called statuesque, but I was marble now. A mind of molten lava cake trapped in a cold shell of cubic zirconia. I could see it resting on the ledge of the sink just at the edge of my vision, but my eyes refused to focus on it. They were caught in the bubbles. In the gravity of them. The soft popping like thunder over the sound of the roller wheels on the travel bag. No dopp kit. The toiletries had already been replaced elsewhere one by one like the looks and the touches and the conversations and the respect.
The last gasp of bubbles did not in any way resemble the Uber. They bore no resemblance to the accidental swipe that pulled two bodies into one back seat that was meant to be two. I used to think that swipe was fate. God talking to me through my thumb. Now my thumbs just felt fat and useless as they clutched the sink. As he said his sorries and his laters and his text yous but didn’t bother to leave the key behind because that might inconvenience him.
The final bubble popped as the door shut. The sink and the apartment falling into the same silence that I’d been screaming for hours. Now that I could, I found I didn’t want to. I left the dishes for tomorrow.
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