Fleeing Egypt

The morning light warms her as she grips her coffee cup with perfectly manicured hands. Melinda sits in splendor among all the trappings that those who shaped her told her would make her fulfilled. The children fitfully slumber and the husband remains predictably absent. Through vision blurred by inexplicable tears, she surveys her surroundings. The Italian marble kitchen countertops are adorned with every possible appliance also owned by the Jones family next door, with whom she must keep up. The black market flooring cut from the teak forests in Southeast Asia, boasts its exclusive status. The very coffee in her cup is brewed from beans carrying a certificate of freshness from the boutique where she proudly invested over thirty dollars a pound. Soft music issues forth from speakers tastefully camouflaged by a San Francisco decorator and her senses are pleasured by the scent of the fresh cut flowers required daily from the invisible gardener.

As she turns her head ever so slightly she catches her mirror image in the window. She quickly turns away as the reflection testifies to the slight crevices appearing at the corners of her eyes and lips. The man she married over a decade ago, the one who made her feel like a real woman, the one who promised to love her for the rest of their lives, the one who used to make her laugh and believe she was the most beautiful he had ever seen, was tiring of her. His attitude had turned, in a few short years, from indifferent to brutal. The explanation he offers is not that he has undergone any sort of change but that she has somehow become intolerable. During his brief homecomings he menaces her with warnings as to how little time she has remaining in the privileged role as his wedded wife. He switches up between his disdain for her and applications of standards she consistently falls short of in her role of wife, mother and human being.

She is dying. The very things that bring us all life, not physical sustenance, like air, food and water, but the things that nourish our spirit, like love, affirmation, tenderness and a simple smile, have been stolen by a creature she no longer recognizes. She knows she is at a crossroads but hopes that enough sunshine, enough coffee and enough self-talk will present a fork in the road not currently apparent to her. Her sparse perception of religious conviction equips her only with the exhortation that a woman stays by her husband’s side, no matter what. Her liberality, borne of soap operas, romance novels and lunch with similarly afflicted acquaintances, tells her to pack her bags. Her fantasy life includes a cryptic lover who will love her as she deserves and cause her to sacrifice nothing. Could she not stay and go at the same time? All of these options before her and all she can do is sip coffee. Isn't the why of it maddening? She cannot move from that very spot because ‘Egypt’ is calling her to stay.