Tightening the Knot

Tightening the Knot

Amanda Hamm

╣ Chapter 1 ╠

           
Meredith hated the man sitting across from her.
 
She hated the shiny scalp visible under his ridiculous comb-over and the third and fourth chins created by his too-tight collar.
 
She hated the way he licked his finger before he turned each page of his desk calendar.
 
But mostly she hated him because of his job.

           
“Have you told your husband yet?”

           
“My husband?” she whispered.

           
“Because I’ll need to know who will be representing him.”

           
Meredith bit her lip and shook her head slightly.
 
The man went back to shuffling the papers on his desk and occasionally licking one of those disgusting fingers.
 
She felt sick to her stomach.
 
A minute later, he pushed some of those papers to her side of the desk.
 
“You can start by filling these out,” he said.

           
She took the pen he handed to her and thought it felt oddly heavy.
 
It got heavier and pressed her hand against the desk until she was forced to drop it.
 
But then it rolled lightly across the desk and bounced off the strange giant-headed turtle paperweight.
 
Meredith had longed for a sign to give her some direction in this decision.
 
This was a little late, but as far as signs go it couldn’t be much clearer.
 
She stood up abruptly, knocking that pen all the way to the ugly brown carpet; the kind used in so many offices and designed not to show stains.

           
The man looked startled.

           
“I’m sorry,” she said.
 
“I’m afraid I’m wasting your time.”

           
“Is something wrong?”

           
“Yes.
 
Or maybe it isn’t really wrong after all.
 
I guess I just, what I mean is… it’s not you, it’s me.”
 
She smiled in spite of herself and let out a nervous laugh.
 
Did she just break up with a divorce attorney?
 
“I think I’ve changed my mind about this whole… thing.”

           
“Okay.
 
In my line of work, it can actually be a good thing to lose a client.”
 
It was the right thing to say, but his forced smile gave away his disappointment.

           
She left the office quickly, guilt about all the wrong things swirling in her head, and walked into the quiet, sterile hallway.
 
This felt better.
 
She twirled her ring around her finger, glad it wasn’t going anywhere.
 
There was a little too much zeal in the spin and it flipped right off and out of her hands.
 
She tried to catch it, but felt it slip past and saw it bounce and heard it rattle on the hard floor.
 
She stomped down, trying to stop it with her shoe and somehow caught it on its side, hard.
 
Back on her finger, it fit differently.
 
She took it off, very carefully this time, for inspection.
 
It was no longer a perfect circle.
 
Meredith probably wouldn’t have cared at all about the tiny dent if the circumstances had been different.
 
If the ring had been bruised anywhere but the office of a divorce attorney, if it hadn’t seemed so fitting, she likely wouldn’t have thought about it again.

           
She sighed heavily and paused for a moment to wallow in the certainty that she would always feel that dent and remember how it got there.
 
Then she tried to shake it off as simply the defining moment in this new resolve, the one she was still forming.
 
All she felt right then was that if her marriage was going down the drain, she was not going to be the one to pull the plug.
 
Not like this.

           
She took slow, deep breaths on the way home, trying to contain her excitement.
 
She was thrilled that it was finally time for things to be different.
 
She and her husband, Greg, could be like newlyweds again.
 
How was that not fantastic?
 
There was a slight rush of adrenaline as she walked through the door of her home.
 
She was ready to make things better.
 
Greg was watching TV and looked up as she came in.
 
“You’re late today.
 
Did something come up?”

           
It wasn’t an accusation, but Meredith immediately became annoyed… with herself.
 
She taught first grade.
 
The school day ended at
3:25
and she usually stayed after to do paperwork or tidy the classroom.
 
But not on Fridays.
 
On Fridays, she liked to leave right after the last student.
 
This was Friday and she was coming home just before
6 o’clock
.
 
Of course Greg noticed.
 
She was an idiot for not thinking of something to say.
 
But she couldn’t lie to him any more than she could casually mention where she had actually been.
 
Why didn’t she have a speech prepared?
 
And why didn’t he care!?
 
After
 
two
full minutes of watching her stand open-mouthed in the doorway, he turned back to the TV.

           
She felt all the air coming out of her inflated resolve.
 
“Well, if you’re not even going to wait for an answer,” she huffed, and stormed up the stairs.
 
She looked around their bedroom.
 
She groaned.
 
There was no food in the bedroom.
 
Why did she come upstairs at dinnertime when there was no food in the bedroom?
 
Meredith briefly imagined going back down and asking the man she had just snapped at if he had made her something to eat.
 
That would surely improve everyone’s mood.

           
She groaned again and changed her clothes.
 
It was completely out of the ordinary for her to change clothes after work, but felt it gave her an excuse for having come up the stairs.
 
Then she went back down to the kitchen intending to make a sandwich.
 
She found a plate of leftovers in the
fridge,
Greg
had
made dinner, and warmed that up instead.

           
She sat at the table eating and pretending to watch the news.
 
She was really watching Greg.
 
They had been married for six years and she still loved watching him.
 
Talking to him had become another matter altogether.
 
Each conversation seemed to revolve around that which they were not talking.
 
They had fallen into an accepted silence.
 
But it was not the happy, confident silence that results from being so comfortable with each other that words are no longer necessary.
 
It was a sullen refusal to communicate and it seemed unlikely that they were going to bond over the shared stubbornness.
 
Meredith had called the attorney during a weak moment when she did not know what else to do.
 
Sitting there starring at Greg, she knew now it was time to figure out what else to do.
 
It was time for a plan.