My Body is a Cage and Other Stories

Something strange happened then, Dolly. She began telling me about the farm on the
outskirts she inherited from her great-aunt and how she moved here from Indiana just to keep it
up. She told me about having to learn how to takecare of chickens and cows and pigs and all the
assorted organisms a farm requires, because she onlygot to visit her aunt once every few years.
Not enough to properly be trained. She talked aboutthe high school boys who would creep into
the pasture and try to tip cows, and how she watchesevery Friday night from her front porch,
lights off, with a megaphone, just waiting for themto show up. The last time it happened she
used it to say, very calmly, “I’ll fucking kill you.”She said they screamed and tripped over cow
shit trying to get back to their honda civic, andone of them cried, “I think that was God, bro!”
It may not be as funny as it is written, but the wayshe told the story had me laughing.
Laughing despite my husband ruining our marriage,nearly to the point of tears. They were not
the kind of tears I expected to have at this meeting.
Eventually, we had overstayed our welcome at the dinerand made our way out to our
respective vehicles. She leaned against her rust-redpickup and asked me if I was okay. I said yes.
We said goodbye and got into our cars, but neitherof us left. We looked at each other through the
windows, then she sent me a text. “Give him hell”with a winky face as punctuation.
And I had fully planned to tell him. I would be patientwith him as he denied it, and
eventually he would break and confess and beg me notto leave him. I curled up on our recliner
and waited for his return. He came in, all handsomeand a little sweaty from the summer heat,
and he didn’t acknowledge me. Just went straight tothe shower. I stood in the doorway of the
bathroom while he showered and asked why he didn’thave to work late that night. “They didn’t
need me to,” was all he said. She ended things withhim. I asked him what he wanted for dinner.
“I really don’t fucking care,” he said. Somethingcurdled in me then, and I didn’t bring it up that