Jack Birthrider is Trapped in a Loveless Marriage

Jack Birthrider parked his truck in the driveway of his modest but mortgaged to the hilt home. She was home. She was often home before him, so this wasn't particularly notable, but he had hoped. Hoped she would be...elsewhere. Who's to say where. Maybe she had to run out for groceries. Maybe someone was running late to their hair appointment and she offered to wait for them, at the salon. Something.

But she was home. He walked in, kicked his boots off by the door, placed his lunchbox on the dining room table - a table that was only ever used to place stuff on, like mail, his lunchbox, his keys, the nice tablecloth if her mother was coming over - but a table in the dining room. The dining room table. She was in the back and called to him, making sure it was him and not some faceless assailant. What would be the odds? She was doing laundry. Well, she was sorting laundry. Everything always seemed so stop at the sorting process. "I need to do laundry tonight. I'm out of underwear," she would say. But some of the sorted piles would sit next to the washer for days, weeks. he could bring these piles up, but that would be him acknowledging that there was something that needed to be done.

Jack Birthrider needed a walk. Fresh air. Jack Birthrider needed more than that, but that was all that he could have at that moment, so that was all he would take. One block over he saw scrawled into the sidewalk pavement "Juan y Ruby". Juan and Ruby. Juan and Ruby. It felt stupid to pine for lost young love, but Juan and Ruby went and messed up his walk. Probably just a couple of teenagers. Or a couple of misled adults. Juan was probably scrawny, weak mustache, short close hair, aloof. Ruby short, curvy, full features...with big eyes, soft lips...like her. Just like her. How long had it been? How long had it been since they even spoke. Really spoke. All of their last conversations had gone so badly. Even the ones that started off well, ended poorly. Some just started out poorly. Juan y Ruby.

Jack Birthrider thought back to a time when their conversations came easy, when neither had to think before speaking because neither had to worry about saying the wrong thing, bringing up the wrong memories, having their words misinterpreted, having 100% confidence that what the other said was never said to hurt, always said in good faith. He thought back to those times, but those times keep seeming fuzzier with every step he took.

His truck needed an oil change three weeks ago.