Page 1 of Wrapped Up in Holly

Evan

Bing Crosby crooned through the speakers while glasses tinkled and voices chattered all around us. But Holly and I, we were silent.

I flipped my knife and spoon.

She sipped from her glass of white wine.

I cleared my throat, tugged on my button down.

She fiddled with her gold necklace, the one I’d given her a few years ago for Mother’s Day. The one engraved with our daughters’ name on a gold bar.

I tried, “Did you see they have chocolate mousse cake?”

Holly nodded.

“You going to get it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

And we fell silent again.

When our marriage counselor assigned us this homework, I didn’t think it would be so difficult. Take Holly on a date and not discuss our work or children? Easy.

Until we got here, and I faced my wife of ten years and suddenly had nothing to say.

I didn’t know how we got here.

Well, I know how we gothere, to this slow death of a date. It started a while ago; I supposed. As our girls got older, and as I expanded the business, Holly and I grew apart. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint when, but we’d stopped kissing each other hello and goodbye, stopped talking during the day, and rolled away from each other at the end of the night. Then, a few weeks ago, during the November lull when I had the whole day off, and I treated myself to doing absolutely nothing besides lying around in my sweats,ithappened.

With no one else home, I decided to scroll through a porn site and jack off. But Holly walked in, right at the moment I was moaning while my orgasm hit. She froze, her brown eyes wide and staring at me on the bed with my dick in my hand, the evidence of what I’d done on my stomach. I didn’t even have time to say anything before she bent over and started crying.

Not the wailing, painful kind of cry that might have made me feel better. Like it was something I could fix or protect her from.

No, that day, in our bedroom, she had wept silently, like something inside of her snapped. And she was done.

I couldn’t fix it.

I couldn’t protect her from myself.

So, here we were on this date, and my wife and I could barely look each other in the eyes.

Our server arrived with our dinners. The scallops for her and the ribeye for me. Holly always ordered seafood when we went out to eat. Something passed down from her mother, who hadn’t made a lot of money, so when she had received a bonus, she’d always splurged on seafood. They’d get dressed up in their best clothes and share crab or lobster or scallops. Still, even now when we had a healthy home and savings, Holly only ordered seafood when we went out.

We ate in silence. Me tossing furtive glances her way. Her ignoring them.

“How is everything?” the server asked, and Holly nodded, her hand over her mouth as she swallowed a bit of risotto.

“It’s delicious, thank you,” I said. “Can we order the chocolate mousse cake for dessert?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll put that in. Anything else?”

I eyed Holly, then added, “Another glass of wine for my wife.” I lifted my beer. “And I’ll take a refill as well.”

The server nodded and was off, leaving us to finish our dinner in silence.

Later, when the cake was delivered, I nudged it closer to Holly, gesturing for her to help herself, but she didn’t move. Instead, she set her focus on a couple a few tables over.

I watched them, too. They were older, maybe in their seventies, and they clinked their glasses together. I idly wondered what they were celebrating.

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