Gordon ran in and jumped over the chair, skidding to a stop in front of the empty cabinet. He batted each of the broken pieces with his paws as if to confirm to Jack what he’d just done and what couldn’t be fixed. Jack thought about fleeing, at least until later that evening. That way he could allow some time for Laurie to cool off. His eyes met the door handle and he considered following the impulse, but he knew that all his absence would do was prolong the blowout that awaited him the next time he saw his wife. He reached for the broom and began sweeping the pieces into a pile in the corner. The dust on the floor lifted and settled in new places, momentarily revealing polished floorboards that he and Laurie had toasted to finishing a year before - before it happened. The crunching of footsteps on the outside path meant Laurie’s arrival had come prematurely. Jack flinched as she burst through the door in a rush, pushing past him and picking up the phone. He knew by the way her hands trembled as she dialed the numbers that it had happened again - an attack, a flashback. Her knees seemed to nearly buckle at her every movement and her eyes brimmed with pain. He listened to her one-sided phone conversation as she made the same comments, absorbed the usual directions and applied the same reactions. The panic attacks had become a regular occurrence and by now Jack knew exactly what the doctor would be saying. That ‘they’re something to explore with care and insight, and they’ll pass in time’ - but Jack definitely didn’t see them as something that should be approached positively.

The conversation was short and succinct and he counted down the seconds until she would hang up. Unlike every other occasion, Jack hoped the conversation would continue forever. He knew that Laurie would already be in a state of high anxiety and the shattered plates would only send her far beyond that.

The phone hit the receiver with a bang and Jack prepared for mayhem as he turned to face his wife. Her eyes weren’t on him or the empty cabinet, or the pile of memories that he’d swept into the corner. She looked straight out the window at the set of children’s play equipment, her eyes empty - sometimes the only expression she would emit for weeks at a time. “Why do we keep that?” she said, motionless, as she began the conversation that always followed the phone call. Jack would have normally expected it, but this time he thought it might be different, he hoped it would be different.

“Put them in the garage and we’ll have it picked up on the weekend”, she said. But Jack knew that the next morning she’d just be outside again; cleaning them, pinching out any surrounding weeds, and finally sitting in the swing.

Jack thought back to a few weeks earlier. He’d been driving to work and had noticed a bumper sticker above the exhaust on the car in front of him. It read “Are you living or existing?” and he realised he could categorise himself into one, whilst at the same time he longed to return to the other. His feeling of regret was overtaken by rage. Every inch of his body and mind pulsated with it. Rage that a bumper sticker on the back of a Datson 120 posed the question that determined his happiness, and rage at Laurie. Her ‘state’ was the only thing that was forcing him to choose the latter. Married life was not meant to be like this. It was definitely not what he had planned when he entered into it. Jack had always seen their marriage at such a young age as a risk, but he was prepared to accept that, and now he faced the consequences. Of course what he hadn’t prepared for – what no married couple prepares for – is exactly what did happen and now it had escalated into a circumstance that was completely out of his control. Although he would never fully recover, he had already given up enough of his life to mourning, and change seemed to be the only cure to the sickness of grief. If only Laurie could see it that way.

Jack’s attention returned to the room. The kitchen became a completely different place as Laurie’s eyes fell on the pile of shattered family plates in the corner. Jack saw a glimpse of the feisty, vivacious character she used to be and the stranger he had lived with for the past seven months was momentarily lost. A different rage grew in Laurie’s entire stance. Different from the sort he had experienced since that day. The plates represented the future Laurie had imagined her life would consist of - family dinners, the three of them, maybe four; loving, engaging, alive. Now in pieces, Laurie was edging on an explanation. Jack moved his lips to voice “it was an accident” but his mind confessed “I did on purpose.”