Lit eZine Vol 5 | p-3 | AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT | One Day on 86th and 5th by Suzanna C. de Baca

We bring to you our featured writer Suzanna C. de Baca
with her poetry
WAXING GIBBOUS MOON,
THE JOY IS IN THE JOURNEY
and her prose
ONE DAY ON 86th AND 5th
plus
AN INTERVIEW with Suzanna C. de Baca

FLASH FICTION

ONE DAY ON 86th AND 5th
by Suzanna C. de Baca

After 10 months of being separated, my husband and I were in yet another session at our marriage counselor’s office. Each week, we met at the doctor’s small, elegantly appointed office on the Upper East Side. I’d take the green line and sprint the few blocks, passing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, taking in the grand steps, wanting to turn left into the museum instead of right to the doctor’s office. 

Week after week, we sat in that tiny room, my husband and I in beige armchairs opposite each other; the therapist ramrod straight in a black chair at the head of the room, legs crossed, notebook in hand, looking polished and thoughtful. The conversations became more and more similar over time – the same arguments, same examples of how I was disappointing: I worked too hard, was too depressed, had ceased to be fun. 

I had started to disassociate in these sessions; I spent the time looking at the ivory walls, not even hearing the words coming out of my husband’s mouth. His voice had started to sound like fog, dense and impenetrable, just a gray noise. This week, he started the same litany. But we had not lived together for months, so the words were stale and old. I asked him once more if he wanted a divorce and he said no, of course not. Did he want me to come home, I asked, and once again, he said, not yet. 

I stared at him, hearing those words clearly: “Not yet.” This was a man who had been cruel, violent, erratic. And now, he was being unfeeling in a different way. That day, something shook loose when he said those words. Suddenly, it was as if a light beam came through the window. The walls glowed. The chairs seemed bigger. He seemed smaller. And I knew. I said, “I’m done now.” I reached for my purse, wrote a check to the therapist, stood, and walked out, down 86th Street, all the way to the Metropolitan Museum on 5th Avenue, where I caught a cab and never went home again.