Catherine:

She sits, watching George crunch on his toast nonchalantly. A kitchen table crafted for four, yet only two seats are filled. This is Catherine’s worst nightmare.

The silence needs to be broken.

She offers to have dinner ready by six. There needs to be something tangible she can completely indulge herself into on her days off from the library (which are rare), and an immaculate dinner would be perfect. The meal would require an entire day’s worth of planning and work. Possibly a grocery run would be necessary, but the project was worth it.

Mr. Domain responds with a desperate attempt to steal his wife’s dinner-making privileges away as he offers to replace her position. How dare he, she thinks heatedly. He dallies off to a day at work, to clock in and become another man. Another career. Another life. And here I am, living one in continuum with no escape. That bastard. However, she realizes this is just the sleep deprivation talking and quickly redirects her thoughts. Remorse flows through her. She cannot allow George to see her in such a state; it would simply be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Withholding all of the agony she felt was worth sparing her husband of insanity. She must compensate him.

“No, no, no, I’ve got it George, you just make sure you bring me home a nice bottle of wine on your way home.” Catherine reassures him gently. No reason to rile him up, there is more than enough on everyone’s plate. However, she assigns him the duty of fetching a bottle for the same reason she takes sanctuary in her cooking practice. There needs to be a purpose for the other.

Her husband mumbles something as he abandons his eggs, barely touched, and drained his mug. Nothing about this man’s expression has altered since he woke up this morning. He wasn’t even talking to Catherine. She wasn’t sure who he was speaking to, anymore.

“George, I know.” Empathy is hardly synonymic. It was an understanding of so much more.

A slap in the face, the door shuts hard and cold in front of her. Before she can remember why she said it, George pulls swiftly from the driveway. The Honda eagerly races to fill its vacant parking spot, so the man inside can punch-in to his second life.

Catherine gazed out the window for a moment longer (whatever a moment may be) and then turned to scrutinize the delicate glass elephant perched in the cabinet, which George often referred to as “the menagerie.” The elephant figurine had been a gift from George’s mother, Henrietta, who Catherine had simply adored. “Now, Cathy!” She had gushed as she had affectionately rubbed her daughter-in-law’s swollen belly. “I pray to God that this child looks more like you than George, he takes after the men in the family, if you know what I mean.”

Recalling this now, Catherine laughed; it had turned out quite true. Samantha bore the same fine auburn hair, warm brown eyes, and even sparse freckles like the youth Catherine. In fact, the only thing Samantha had inherited from her father was his “sense of humor.”

Catherine laughed, she bent over ninety-degrees. Soon, hugging her sides and not having the ability to make it back to the kitchen, she collapsed onto the champagne sofa in a fit. Any other witness would be forced to believe this woman belonged in a straight jacket. Barely able to breathe, she kept on laughing; laughing so hard, that she began to cry.