Breakfast

Here were his thoughts—stuffed inside envelopes at the Post Office. As he stamped away at the right corners, his eyes became numb to the addresses printed before him. Places he pretended to know existed.

Clock in at 7 am.

Up the shute.

Down the shute.

One sip of coffee.

Two sips of coffee.

Too many sips now…gotta take a bathroom break.

Now it’s early afternoon. The hours drag on the longer he stays. Dan swings around the corner and they take a cigarette break outside. There’s gum stuck to the tables that have rested here for half a century atop the concrete slabs. Here was his cinderblock paradise during his breaks outside the office.

Here was his every morning.

The only mornings that are different are Saturday’s.

His favorite days. There’s no work. His children are consumed practices or rehearsals. His wife is the one who has to remember it all. Saturday’s are his.

He still manages to wake up early on those days off, but instead of going into the office as usual, on Saturday’s, he makes the drive to the downtown diner. Rain or shine.

He sits at the counter, sipping coffee and eating ham and eggs. Over-easy.

He lets the other diners around him wonder, What’s his story? Where’s his family? People say he comes in every Saturday.

He comforts himself with the thought that he is the one to sort and send their mail where it needs to be. He wonders if that makes him important.

He talks to the waitresses as much as is necessary, with their hair done-up in messy buns and their eyeliner smudged—makeup from the dollar store next door.

He even managed to go home with one of them a few weeks ago.

Her apartment was dingy like the office and she had a small, yapping terrier and a screaming toddler that clung to the yellowed walls.

They sat side by side on her couch as he slowly began to wonder what made him want to come here. They kissed and that’s all they did because that was all he wanted.

And he still felt nothing.

And now, at the diner she doesn’t even look his way. And he’s ok with that. Because he doesn’t look her way either.

But he watches her move when she won’t notice in her tight, black work pants. And he wonders why his wife doesn’t look or move like that anymore.

One Saturday was different. This Saturday he drove home from the diner and his wife’s light blue minivan was gone from their driveway like it always was.

But this time it was gone for the rest of that Saturday. And it was gone after he woke up on Sunday, the days they usually attended church. And it was gone the entire week. And the next week.

And it never came back.

His two children were missing from their beds and his wife from their’s. The silence that filled his Saturday’s he craved was now always looming.

Now at the diner everyone still wonders the same questions about him but they should be wondering more.

He doesn’t even go anymore.

And he doesn’t have to go on bathroom breaks as often at work because he stopped drinking coffee. He’s always awake, no matter how tired he is or how dark his bedroom gets at 3 or 4 in the morning. He waits for them to come home even though he doesn’t even know why anymore.

On Saturday mornings he stays home and he leaves the front door open in case they happen to bustle inside and lets the breeze seep in through the screen door and rustle the newspaper he’s reading.

He makes his own breakfast of fresh orange juice from the orange tree he planted out back and ham and eggs. Over-easy.

And he places daisies in a small glass vase to rest as a centerpiece at their table.