Baltimore, 2008
His sister gave us double walled juice glasses. These like insulated glasses that look nice and are aggressively impractical. He had a habit of putting silverware in the glasses in the sink. To soak. I guess. But then he'd set something on top and the spoon would punch through the glass.
Once, I trapped a housefly under one of these glasses. I watched it flying itself over and over against the interior wall until *crack* the glass fucking cracked. How impractical is a glass that can't withstand the assault of a housefly.
We received 6 of these glasses as a wedding present. By the end of a month only 2 remained.
I hated these glasses for their fragility. I hated them for their ostentation. We were not a household for delicate things. And yet his family had given us many delicate and impractical glass objects. Like an omen: Step lightly. Like a curse: When the last object has broken you will be struck down dead. Like a blessing: Maybe the glass will make him mind his temper.
I hated coming to the sink and seeing a spoon in the glass like a time bomb.
Who can remember why we fought? We fought endlessly about everything. But the fight escalated and I mentioned the glasses. My resentment. And I threw them at the floor. Release the curse. Let it be over. The glass exploded into shards like powder. When they redid the interior of the house, shards of that glass were surely still embedded in the floor. Between the rotten linoleum. I'm sure when I painted the kitchen, bits of that glass were in the wall, painted over. Sealing the curse in the house. The interior air gap in the glass contained the poison that would kill us both.
When they were gone I felt relieved.