I wonder if the garbage men will take my wooden chair. I couldn’t believe my luck when I spotted it at the yard sale. I was going to repair it, paint it blue and stencil daisies across the seat. Now it sits at the end of the driveway. Never painted. Wood split and curling. Just a cheap broken chair. Worthless junk. 

I didn’t know he hated me until today. Married twenty-four years. He has hated me for a long, long time. I didn’t know. 

Every mistake I’ve ever made. Every argument. Every insult. Every slight. He has hoarded my failures like priceless treasures, playing each one over and over in his mind and memorizing its details like the words to a song. 

He has absolved himself of any responsibility. Any guilt. As if he were not the leading man but merely an usher looking on from the back of the balcony. Remote. Disinterested. Unwilling to believe I want to work things out. Too self-absorbed to care.  

I heard the neighbors fight one day. The husband stormed onto the porch and yelled, “I’m leaving.” A few weeks later their house was empty. A three-legged nightstand sat on their curb for months.