All Saints by K.D. Miller

bite-sized chunks on the breadboard she and Dave bought at the Army and Navy Store in Vancouver thirty years ago.
    She buys baguettes and other special breads at a bakery two subway stops south. That morning, just as she was getting off the train, she spotted Dave at the back of the crowd pushing to get into the same car.
    Did she just happen to be looking in his direction, she wonders now while she saws the baguette. Or did something—the set of his shoulders—something familiar and known, even expected—pull her eyes his way?
    And what about him? Because he was looking back at her. And he said her name. And her own lips formed the word hello. No sound, just a shape. Her lips held the final syllable a beat longer than necessary. All he would have seen was her mouth forming an O. Maybe, she thinks, he’s still trying to decide whether she said hello or no . Maybe he’s thinking about her right now, while she cuts up a baguette on their old breadboard.
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    â€œIs she younger than me? Do her tits still stick straight out? Is that it?” She hated what she was saying, hated the sound of her own voice. Shrill. Shrewish. She had become a walking cliché. “Have there been others? Oh God. All the years. How many others have there been?”
    â€œNone. Not since we’ve been married.”
    â€œBefore, then. What about before? Liz. You told me Liz was the only one.”
    â€œLook. All I can say is that I’m sorry. I did not plan this. I did not go looking for it. But it has happened. So can we please just do what we have to do? The Chinese porcelain lamps. Can I have one of them?”
    Today they were dividing up their things. Yesterday they had met with the lawyers. Tomorrow they were going to the bank to close their joint accounts. Their shared life consisted of get-togethers whose purpose was to score them as a couple neatly down the middle and rip them apart.
    â€œWho else knows? About you and her? Besides me? Do all our friends know?” This is how it must have been for Cass. Needing to ask. Hating to find out. Knowing that nobody will tell you, because nobody wants to admit they knew and didn’t tell you.
    â€œWe’ve been discreet. Can I have one of the Chinese lamps, please? Yes or no?”
    â€œIt’s blow jobs, isn’t it? She gives you more blow jobs. Or she does them better. Okay. Okay. I’ll do anything. Any way you want. Just tell me. Tell me what you want.”
    â€œEmily. I am going to box the lamp. If you don’t want me to have it, just take it out of the box when I’m gone. I’ll have all this stuff out of here by tomorrow. Promise.”
    â€œI could put it out on the street. I could. Every one of these boxes. For anybody to take. The second you’re out of here. I could do that.”
    They both knew she wouldn’t.
    â€œWhat about when things break around here?” All the stupid things she couldn’t help saying. Is it my writing? You don’t want a writer wife? Okay. Okay. I’ll stop. I will. If I feel a story coming on, I’ll pull it out like a weed. “Who’s going to fix things for me when they break?”
    â€œI’ll leave you the tools.”
    â€œThe tools? The tools ? You’ll leave me the fucking toools ?”
    He came and enfolded her and pushed her face into his chest and she bit him hard through his shirt and he said “Ow!” so comically that they both laughed and he got a hard-on and she unzipped him and knelt and sucked him off. Then she stayed on her hands and knees, wailing, while he boxed the lamp and left. Then she crawled to the couch where he had sat and lay face down. Sniffing. Sniffing.
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    It feels strange to have to ask him to sit down.
    â€œMartini?” She doesn’t even know if he still drinks them.
    â€œSure. Thanks.”
    In the kitchen she remembers to run the lemon twist around the rims of the glasses. She hasn’t had a