MARIE

I am not sure how long I have been sitting on the floor, staring at what used to be Marie's favorite vase. It stared back at me, daring me to sweep the pieces.

The gold and blue fragments lay near the half-open door, reflecting the soft golden light of the sinking sun back toward the doorway like magic.

I almost wish she could see it herself, though I doubt things like that excite her anymore.

Back when Marie still loved me, she tried to convince me that it was the most thoughtful gift anyone had ever given her. Though I did not believe her, I was grateful that she liked it.

At first, I thought it was part of her bit: appreciating the little things so I could give her even bigger things. But that theory quickly faded once we started living together.

I had managed to give her more expensive gifts by then, but somehow the clear blue vase was always the star of the show. A reminder of what I couldn't give her back when I had nothing.

On our fifth anniversary, I bought her a Baccarat, a fitting replacement. But she held that vase in front of her like I was asking her to kill a baby. "It reminds me of the depth of the ocean," she said boldly, as someone who had never so much as dipped one toe in the sea. Even when I stopped buying her flowers, the vase was never empty, and over time I could not help but grow her a flower garden.

On mornings like this, she would wake up before me, pushing her body against me like she was fighting the urge to leave the bed as much as she was excited to get out of it. I'd groan, feeling her lips on my cheek right before she rolled over and started walking toward the bathroom, her clothes falling behind her before she even made it there. Sometimes I stayed awake just long enough to hear the shower running and her humming to the song du jour.

Sometimes later, I would sit in the kitchen with my black coffee, watching her hum while she cut the flowers with chaotic precision. She would sometimes stand there and admire her work before noticing that I was in the room, and she would smile at me like she had just seen me for the first time.

I tried to shed a tear, to release the knot in my chest, but nothing but anger came.

It was not the first time the vase had fallen. Things tended to fall when Marie was around, but somehow, after almost ten years of falling, the vase had decided to fall apart along with my heart.

I would be lying if I said Marie was the first woman who had broken my heart. If I am being honest, I am not sure if I had always loved Marie or if she had simply conned me into falling for her. Yet that did not stop her from packing the so call precious gift with the rest of my shit like a return on a bad investment.

She had wrapped it in a bow and placed it on top of the suitcase full of my clothes that we had neatly folded inside. The same song she had been playing for the past week was on its fifteenth play of the day, and it was taking every ounce of my strength not to get on my knees and beg her not to divorce me.

But instead, I took the vase and tried to put it back where she usually kept it. And that was the moment I met a side of Marie that I had never seen before.

I sat back on my heels as the water from the vase crept closer, asking me to start cleaning the mess. Part of me wanted to pick up the pieces and fix it, even though it was clearly impossible. I was not ready to erase Marie's last act of love toward me.

She will be mine again.

Twenty years of sacrifice, doing everything that I could to keep Marie happy. After all these years of buying, building, growing everything she wanted, she, in fact, wasn't happy with me.

She never was.

I should have been shocked.

But I wasn't.

Marie had never lied to me.

I touched my forehead to check if it was still bleeding from the pieces that had hit me when she threw the vase. A smile crept across my face, realizing that I might end up with scars and somehow—a sign that she would never be fully gone. And no matter whose arms she found herself in this time, I will find her again.

Back when Marie loved me, I could feel it in every room she was in. She had a way of smiling that felt like it was just for me, no matter how many people were in the room, and she would look at me like I was the only person who existed on earth. When I was with Marie, I wanted to keep being with her, and when I was away from Marie, I'd do whatever it took to be with Marie.

No matter how many times I rewound my memories and played them second by second, trying to point to the exact moment when she had stopped loving me, I could not find it. One day I woke up and her warmth was gone, and every time she looked at me, I could feel her slipping through my fingers. And no amount of buying, building, or fixing was changing her mind.

For a moment, I started to wish that I could go back to the day Marie and I met. What I would have done differently.

As much as I prefer not to poke the past, I suspect that it all began that day.

July 29th, 2006