Elegant Literature: Issue #32

RAGE AGAINST THE SEWING MACHINE

Published in Elegant Literature Issue #32: Bad Blood

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‘Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars.’

I’m going to vomit.

Eight years of education, three years of residency, and those hands—those very expensive hands—were performing a cardiac running whip stitch on a throw pillow.

Chain stitch.

Feather stitch.

Ladder stitch.

I’m going to get carpal tunnel from stitching rainbows.

Dr. Marigold Banerjee flexed her fingers. ‘Shoot for the moon’ was her top selling pillow, followed very closely by ‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ Sometimes, she intentionally swapped the two and sent the wrong pillow to customers.

She’d never once been contacted about the mistake.

This species deserves extinction.

The whole thing was Neil’s idea. He’d gotten sick of her sleeping until noon, wandering aimlessly around the house in a bathrobe, and crying during sex. Or so she assumed. They didn’t really talk much, these days. But he’d enrolled her in classes with The Nimble Thimbles and driven her there himself.

“I don’t know how to sew, Neil.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Flesh, not fabric.”

“How hard can it be, Mari? Swap your scalpel for a needle. Use your skills.”

He petted her hand. She refrained from biting him. He told her he’d pick her up at eight.

Her Etsy store was now a raging success.

Cathy Baker, President (and Treasurer) of The Nimble Thimbles, had been trying to recruit Marigold for the regional quilting competition in Oro, but Marigold had politely declined. The idea of winning an award—for this—gave her horribly intrusive thoughts about ceiling fans.

Marigold softened the blow with a tray of brownies. She’d bought them at the gas station, wrapped them in wax paper, and stuck them in a cookie tin from Christmas.

“Did you bake these?” Cathy asked.

“Yes, I did.”

Cathy hugged her. “We’ll make do at the competition without you, Mari. Maybe you can join us next year.”

I’d rather surgically remove my own appendix.

“Enjoy the brownies, Cathy.”

Marigold had been able to perform a flawless appendectomy once upon a time.

“You’re so gifted for a resident, Marigold,” they’d say. “You have such natural talent for a resident.”

It made her want to nick people with her scalpel.

Neil was the first surgeon to praise her without the disclaimers. To tell her she was skilled in the field, not skilled for a resident. He began requesting her more and more frequently, courting her over exposed hearts in open chest cavities day in and day out until one day, after assisting in a very lengthy left ventricle valve replacement, she’d agreed to let him massage her aching feet.

He’d given her a thorough refresher on anatomy instead.

Marigold stabbed her needle into the canvas. She needed to finish the moon and stars and get the stupid pillow packed for shipping so that she could focus on getting ready for the evening.

“This is a big deal, Marigold.”

He said it like she didn’t know it was a big deal. Like she wasn’t also a doctor and familiar with such things.

“I need you to look your best. I need you to make an effort.”

He’d always asked too much of her.

She pulled the last bit of thread through—snip—and held the pillow up to admire her handiwork. The stitching was perfectly symmetrical, no lumps or pulls or mistakes anywhere to be seen. It was flawless, just like her two thousand and eleven five-star reviews on Etsy.

Avoiding the temptation to prick herself and bleed all over the pillow, she packed it up neatly in a silk-lined box, tied it with a ribbon, and then sealed it shut for the post office.

It’s what Neil wanted from her. He wanted her to wrap herself in silk and put on a bow. Wanted to remind everyone that Dr. Marigold Mrs. Neil Banerjee was a beautiful woman with beautiful dresses. Wanted her to place her ring hand on his arm at dinner, diamond sparkling.

Look what I bought.

She was never sure if he meant her or the rock.

“You’re so lucky,” the other wives would say. “Neil is such a catch.”

She’d thought so, once, when he was teaching her how to perform a CABG on a still-beating heart. Now all she saw when she looked at him was skid stains.

She’d bought him all-black underwear for Christmas.

It took her forty minutes to convince herself to leave her craft room—Neil’s personalized gift just for her—and get in the shower. It took until the water went cold for her to begrudgingly wash her hair.

She didn’t bother shaving her legs. It felt like a bad idea to hold a razor. Like she might shave off an eyebrow instead, or something.

She had been so honoured, once upon a time, to stand by his side at these things. To watch him accept his awards, and laugh at the jokes she wrote for him, and clap at the moving, inspirational phrases she’d come up with.

“I’m so proud of you,” she’d say to him as he tucked his award under one arm and her under the other.

He’d pretend he lost his valet ticket just so he could wink at the drivers.

It’s the McLaren.

He liked expensive things. He’d always liked expensive things. And nothing was more expensive than a trophy wife with student loans for a medical degree she didn’t use.

He’d hung it on the wall above the sewing machine. 

Sometimes, in the afternoons, she’d stare at her framed medical degree and picture smashing it over Neil’s head. She’d use a shard of glass to surgically extract his adenoids so that she didn’t have to listen to him snore ever again.

It would be the most use her medical degree had been put to in a long time. The thought made her want to set Neil’s scrubs on fire. 

She made a mental note to pick up more candles.

Marigold spent the better part of two hours coiffing herself, plucking her eyebrows and contouring her cheeks, drying and curling her hair, pinning it up so it cascaded down one side of her neck and shoulders.

Neil loved red lipstick. Said it was sexy. Said it got him hard.

She picked the beige instead.

Smacking her lips together, she leaned forward and kissed the mirror like a teenager, leaving a circular brown smudge on the surface.

My gift to you, she thought. It was her very own skid stain. Kiss my ass, Neil.

She eyed the slinky, silver satin dress she knew he wanted her to wear.

“No,” she said aloud, before lowering herself to the floor and stretching out naked on the thick carpet in her closet, staring up at the various colours and textures of her abnormally large formal wardrobe selection.

It had been all scrubs, when she first moved in. Blue scrubs, patterned scrubs, four pairs of comfortable runners with good arch support, two pairs of jeans and a leather jacket. That’s all she’d had.

“We’ll fill your side up,” Neil said, rubbing her arm.

She’d thought he meant with black scrubs, like the attendings wore. Like the ones on his side of the closet.

Will anyone notice if I wear my running shoes under my gown?

Someone would probably take a photo. Post it on Instagram.

“Look who still thinks she’s a doctor!” the caption would say.

Marigold was supposed to meet him at the ceremony. She was supposed to meet him at every ceremony.

“I need you, Marigold.”

He’d been at a medical conference all week—if schtooping his medical research assistant in Cabo could be called a conference—and was going straight there from the airport.

“Bring my cufflinks.”

“What ones?”

“The ones from my grandfather.”

“What ones are those?”

He’d said he had to go and hung up.

She took his gold cufflinks—the ones she knew were from his grandfather—and hid them at the back of his underwear drawer.

Marigold was just about to step outside when her phone beeped and she glanced down at the notification: ETSY—You have received a new order.

Oh, goody.

She fumbled with her phone, trying to read the rest of the message.

“Fifteen? Fifteen orders of ‘Shoot for the moon’?”

It’s a typo. It has to be a typo.

It wasn’t a typo.

It was for a bridal party.

“Who has fifteen bridesmaids?”

I’m definitely going to vomit.

Marigold wanted to turn around. She wanted to get back into her bathrobe and slippers, take a handful of Percocet, and pass out so thoroughly that she didn’t have to think about pillow orders or the kind of people who had fifteen bridesmaids or Neil for at least eighteen hours. But she caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror, polished and professional in her one-piece pantsuit and very tall in her ridiculous heels, looking like she was on her way to accept an award of her own. 

They don’t give out awards for showering. 

She twisted the doorknob, thumb already aching from the thought of doing fifteen pillows by mid-week, when her left heel caught the lip of the door frame and folded into itself like a lawn chair. She dropped like a sack of bricks, hip slamming into the foyer tile, as the ceramic key dish slid off the hallway table and exploded into a million pieces. The keys to the McLaren skittered across the hardwood and into the dining room, the screeching wail of the alarm going off from inside the garage making her wince.

Or maybe it was the unnatural angle of her ankle.

Could have gone either way, really.

She tried to sit up, blood smearing across the tile as she brushed the ceramic shards out of the way and reached down to unstrap her shoes. She paused, surprised, and raised her arm.

Oh.

She blinked, stunned. There was an enormous piece of ceramic embedded in her wrist, rivulets of red streaming down her forearm. For a moment—perhaps too long a moment—she thought about climbing into the front seat of the McLaren, yanking out the shard and bleeding out all over his precious upholstery. 

She could feel it in her gut—laughter—bubbling up inside. It was the uncontrollable, hysterical kind. The inappropriate kind. The kind that makes people wonder if you’re crazy.

This marriage has flatlined. Time of death: 17:58. 

She laughed until her ribs ached more than her ankle.

When Neil got home that night, he was greeted with an open, empty garage and a pool of blood in the foyer. He found a ceramic shard and blood-soaked towel in the kitchen sink, right next to a pillow that had been propped up against a first-aid kit.

A diamond wedding ring had been sewn to the middle of the rainbow.

It had been attached by a perfect cardiac running whip stitch.