This story was first published in Port City Review in 2015. Please note it was written to imitate the writing style of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.

It was an hour after I had gone to bed that Carolina appeared in our bedroom, the gold watch I had bought her for her birthday last week clattering carelessly on top of her vanity. I watched her perform her nightly ablution from behind closed eyes, so accustomed was I to every sound she made. She turned on the light—the back of my eyelids went red—and would bind her russet waves atop her head, keeping them out of the way. The loud rush of water, then silence. She sighed, gently caressing away her makeup with a damp towel as if it were just a fine layer of dirt upon her skin. Again the rush of water, the towel rinsed. She would unbind her hair and comb it free, then plait it to sleep in once she had slipped into bed with me. I heard the sliding of her dress as she removed it and hung it in the closet, which was filled with other nice outfits I had bought her, then the rustle of her nightgown pulled over her head and she switched off the light.

The mattress barely dipped as her warmth crept in beside mine. Turning to her, I opened my eyes and saw the moon reflected in the whites of hers staring back at me. She murmured an apology for coming home late, and I wanted to believe the sincerity in her voice was not a practiced art she had perfected over the last few years.

Delicately fingering a lock of my hair, she spun a multitude of excuses to explain how her secretary failed to inform her of an urgent meeting with her boss, which she was late to. And once there, it was decided their whole project had to be redone and six of them stayed in the office until a new plan was drawn up. Then the power outage stopped all the elevators—surely I had experienced some of that?—and she was very slow going down the stairs. The midnight traffic had been such a small blessing to not delay her further.

She added:

“I can take tomorrow off. We’ll both sleep in and maybe go to the park in the afternoon.”

“If that’s what you’d like,” I answered, and rolled to my other side.

Her hand fluttered to rest over my belly, the caress failing to induce the reaction I know she sought. She whispered other romantic suggestions in my ear and tempted me with dreams of a vacation at our cabin in the country, situated across the road from a honey bee farm and a long distance from any commercial establishment. I dreamt of our old summers there and nights full of cricketsongs floating above the tall grass, the nocturnal animals making their quiet noises next to the windows when we had been quiet for some time, the early morning whistling from birds unseen. The creek was half a mile behind our house and an excellent place for fishing, though I did little of it; I often took my wife to walk through the woods and across the creek to enjoy the simple beauty of nature we couldn’t find in the city.

I loved it more than she ever did; it bored her after a few years. She found more excitement in dedicating her life to office work and fighting to survive in the steel and concrete jungle. I stayed away from the cabin out of respect for my wife’s opinion and because we needed the money.

The morning light chased away the dourness of the previous evening, and sweet Carolina took the day off as she said she would. My disappointment in her always waned overnight, and she knew morning was the best time to exchange kisses and have my sympathy as she told me again of her difficulties yesterday, the impending workload next week, and how long we might have to wait before going on vacation; but it was forgotten, and she looked into my eyes with sensual delight and a rosy flush of desire in her cheeks.

The bed was a modest one with cherry posts at each corner and pewter bars between them that twisted and arced. Little chips of wood had flaked away from the numerous injuries it had endured as we went from one house to another on the outskirts of the city. She had no modesty as she stretched her white skin before me, teasing me with her hands.

Our room with its cool green walls was not suited to the intimacies of passion, as there had been no passion between us since I repainted the walls two months ago. The soft light of the rising sun came into the room with a sudden intensity, as though a cloud had covered it until that moment I was so engaged with my wife.

Caroline, clad only in her frothy bathrobe, left me to morning ablutions and shave while she made a late brunch for us to share on the back patio. Our backyard was a small one, consisting of poorly tended grass riddled with weeds and a handful of rose bushes on one side that needed trimming, all surrounded by an unpainted wood fence. I would have the time to make it less of an eyesore today, but with Caroline staying home and doting on me as she once did, I was strangely not possessed by the desire to make my home more acceptable to the neighbors.

The moment our breakfast was done I wanted to take her in my arms again on the uncut grass. She was unopposed to this idea until one of our young neighbors ran screaming back into his house and the child’s angry mother told us we were as indecent as animals, copulating in broad daylight where a child could see them.

Inside our bedroom again, I savored the renewed feeling of our old passions. We reclaimed each other from the empty lives we had constructed in each other’s absence. She undid all her late nights at the office as I undid all my nights of turning my back to her in feigned sleep. Briefly, I wondered how long this rekindled flame might burn, and feared how soon it might again go out. We had never suffered such a time of disinterest in each other before this and I had no memory of when it first began; but if we had fallen to a passionless lull once, would we not fall to it again? And could it be fought as this one was, or was something new required each time?

I looked into sweet Caroline’s eyes, but she seemed untroubled by the same thoughts as me.

I asked her:

“Will you stop working late so often?”

She considered for a moment, then answered, “Yes, but I may need to go in early every once in a while.”

“Early is better than late.”

She laughed the young laugh I feel in love with long before we were married and resolved to spend the rest of the day in our bed. I had no argument against this, even as the annoying voice of conscience reminded me of the backyard and its ragged-looking grass and twisted rose bushes. I would trim them later.

For more on this story, including modern day reflections on different ways to interpret this story, I invite you to read Reflections on Writing “A Rose of Success”.

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