Wendy BooydeGraaff ~ Horizon

She spent hours look­ing for the per­fect sink. Farmhouse sinks with enam­el apron fronts, vin­tage cast iron with attached drain­boards, stain­less restau­rant-grade util­i­ty sinks. She want­ed a lit­tle style, she told him, a lit­tle upgrade to what had rust­ed and leaked. She loved the dou­ble basin mat­te black on sale but it might be too wide for the space. She could see her­self wash­ing dish­es in the sig­na­ture cop­per under­mount, or rins­ing let­tuce over the dou­ble off-set bowl of sparkling gran­ite. She had spent too much time on this, she knew, but she was get­ting close to mak­ing a deci­sion. What he heard was chat­ter, chat­ter, Sink! chat­ter, chat­ter. The sky dark­ened in the west, cloud for­ma­tions chang­ing quick­ly, pos­si­ble rain, pos­si­ble sun blow­ing in. Sink, she want­ed a sink. Yes, he was lis­ten­ing. Just as soon as he was done dig­ging this drain; he want­ed to see how it worked in the upcom­ing maybe rain. Clouds. Sink. Dinner. Chatter, chat­ter, sink. Afterwards, he got in the truck, drove to Farm & Home Supplies under the glow­er­ing sky, picked out the sec­ond cheap­est sink, a nice sink, brought it home, installed it. Voilà, sink. No chat­ter. No kiss. No thanks for his pur­chase, his hard work, his instal­la­tion. A slammed door. The end.

~

Wendy BooydeGraaff’s work has been pub­lished in Critical Read, Across the Margin, Jellyfish Review, Litro Online, and else­where, and is forth­com­ing in match­book, Flash Frontier, and NOON.