The Wine

There was a man once who had a daughter with his wife. Before this happened, the man loved his wife. In fact, he loved life. He indulged in the simplest of pleasures. He wasn't an eccentric person, he was actually very much the same person you would expect to run into while ordering a coffee or picking up groceries. You'd never think of him as anything else except a piece of flesh acting as the filling to the life around you. But this man truly did appreciate the squishy texture beneath his feet in the grocery store, he truly did appreciate the busy souls bustling around him in the coffee shop.

He absorbed everything metaphorically, physically, literally and spiritually. The sense of him was overwhelming. You could know in an instant that he was happy. He adored his wife. He adored her humor, her humility and her depth. He was stimulated by her in every sense of the word and longed for her presence every time they were away. Life, it would seem was a wonder. They carried on their way and fulfilled themselves with what they wanted.

The wife was beautiful and timid, often speaking volumes in her notebooks, though most would never have the privilege. She worked a retail job, often mundane she would remember and scribble about in her notebooks, but she was humble and merely did what she was intended to do. She brought home a paycheck and smiled. Though their home creaked and the faucets leaked, it was theirs. They had one small television and couch in the living room, one small oven and fridge in the kitchen, one small bed and clock radio in the bedroom and one small Chevy in their garage. It was enough and they loved it because of this amazing fact: it was theirs.

The wife’s paycheck covered just enough of their expenses, and for this the man worked almost as a sport, playing bartender two nights of the week. This was their play money, the kind of things like movies or dinners got paid for. The rest of the week, the man did many things that he only thought most men should. He was very creative and very smart, so he spent his time sharing with the world. He played his songs, he painted his pictures, he wrote his words, he spoke with strangers, he spoke with friends, he bettered himself- in the classes he took, in the runs he'd run, in the conversations he'd have and in the sermons he listened to.

Then, it struck them like lightning. Their evening of passionate love for each other had a desperate consequence...the woman became impregnated. It was too soon, but they decided that was not their decision and embraced the consequence and took on their new responsibilities. Oh and how easily they adapted to this new life. Nothing mattered but their love for one another and their love for all the things around them. Naturally, the man did more than just bartend two nights a week and the woman picked up several more shifts at work, but this was just what had become.

One day, the man's father came to visit. He was very much the father of the man with a kick in his step and a sparkle in each eye. Because the woman was so close to giving birth, he wanted to give his celebratory gift. Oh and what a gift it was. It was not just one bottle of Rothschild red wine circa 1890, but two. The man was a connoisseur of course and was deeply humbled by such a precious gift. His father, however, asked he save it for the most important day of his child's life. This was no question and no discussion followed, for it made such perfect sense to the man and the wife to hold it for such a momentous occasion.

Time passed and they had their beautiful daughter. They bought her several videos for the small television, kept the fridge well stocked, put a small bed in the spare bedroom and traded in their Chevy for a Volvo. They adored her so. Everything they ever were told about children or about the wonders of having them were so very true. They lived comfortably the three of them for so long, until about the time she turned sixteen.

The daughter, was not really like the man or the woman. She was a brat desensitized by the world around her, bitter and full of angst. She despised people. She did not seek improvement or fulfillment in any way and rarely smiled. In fact, the only way she was similar at all to either the man or the woman was because she liked to write-but she wrote trite and awful poetry, often regarding trite and awful topics. The man and the woman encouraged her in her endeavors, always offering bright solace for their troubled daughter, but their attempts were ill guided and futile.

It wasn't long that the bright and charming man and woman became pale and withered from exhaustion and defeat. But what were they to do? They loved her so. They gave and gave and gave, it literally was as if they gave their heart and soul because the expressions on their face and the demeanor they carried had no such characteristic. Then one day she did the one thing the man and woman hoped she would not.

She took her life. Selfishly, after a trite and awful fight she had with her trite and awful boyfriend, she drove out onto the wrong side of a busy highway. It wasn't until the man and woman saw it on a local news report that they found out; they just assumed she was out late again without calling to check in. They were devastated. They sobbed uncontrollably and the woman locked herself away from the man for hours. In his frustration and rage, the man searched for comfort in the liquor cabinet, and came upon the red wine. He took the bottle, uncorked it and drank nearly its entirety in one swig.

He wiped his lip clean and called out to the woman and heard no response. In a sort of stupor, he unplugged the television from his living room and threw it atop a chest in his bedroom. He closed the blinds, crawled into bed and the glow of daytime soaps, game shows and court shows illuminated the bedroom. Shortly, the woman stumbled in with the second bottle nearly empty in hand, wiping mascara away with her other hand. She crawled into bed next to him and lay still beneath the covers. They sipped their wine. That's where they stayed.