shopkeeper's wife

mary is the shopkeeper's wife. she opens the front shop door at 6:50am every morning, wipes her feet on the mat, then picks it up and shakes the mat off onto the street. she will not leave dirt, only remove.

she heads to the shelves and arranges the handmade candles in an orderly, militaristic line. looking at it straight on, there seems to be just one candle. 

she recalls making these candles a few months ago. the night she skipped dinner at her cousin's house because the wax didn't properly fold into the glass the way she liked. so she stayed up all night scraping at it. it's not how her mother taught her to make candles, but she liked doing it this way: meticulously slicing, carving, melting the wax again and again until the shape was to her liking. it also gave her an excuse to not have to go to bed and spend those few moments together when they were both awake. she liked entering into bed when her husband was sound asleep, turned over. she liked the challenge of not waking him up. she tiptoed, and felt like a masterful orchestrator as she did. she loved feeling the creek of the wood about to scream under her foot, and slowly putting more weight on the other to balance, a see-saw ballet that no one would ever get to watch. she folded her body, crawling into the bed as if she was 80 pounds lighter. she slipped underneath the covers without ever touching them. she lay on her back, sinking, replaying her stealthy entrance over and over again until she slept and didn't dream.

mary wonders why it's 6:59am and her husband hasn't come through the back door yet. he usually stumbles through at 6:58am, happy to see the lights on, the candles arranged, and a whole two minutes left to make his way to the register, sit down on his chair and get ready to greet his customers. 

she bites at her nails, smiling. she does one last dust of the dull metal spoons that have never collected any dirt, and slowly heads toward the wooden register chair, which has a gray tint on the seat from her husband's levis. she hovers over it. the back door creeks open.