It was not until three years into her marriage that Rachel began to think of her husband as The Mollusk, to say fuck you quietly when she hung up the phone. He was a twat, a jerk, an imperturbable jackass. More than anything, she told herself, she hated the situation. She didn't hate him. This was her fault. His barely redeemable human flesh, his inadequacies, his paleness and stark exhaustion. There was something she was doing. She didn't seem to have an appetite for anything anymore. She was like a keeper of needs. Earlier, in her twenties, maybe, she had been pliable, more relenting. Now she was a portrait-eater, a harpy. She had become some cold Attila. He was not the sealed grave. She was the hunk of bone.
And yet, she wondered, what was it that called her to him, that made her take comfort in him? He was like a magic box that held her former life. When she looked at him, she became infuriated at the lostnesses that had all gotten into him somehow, and then been locked away. She wanted to break him, but she knew that this was illogical. She improved her diet and hoped that it would go away. Fuck you, she said into the air above the dining table, after she had thrown the phone not so hard as she had wanted. Fuck you, fuck you, you closed-lip hunk of junk.
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