Tulips
A Short Story
I put the tulips under the pillows then I set fire to the house. God damn tulips, she always loved them.
“Bring me tulips,” she’d say whenever we were trying to make up after one of our fights. No tulips, no make-up loving. Do you know how much tulips cost when they’re out of season? I had to ask the florist to run me a tab.
Well, the last time I brought her a dozen tulips, she showed me the papers instead of the love. Divorce, who would have suspected? She told me she hated me, but she’d said that often enough. It was part of our game. Fight…make up…then a couple of days of sweetness.
I admit, it had started to get a little out of hand lately, but it always kept things exciting. I always thought she was happy. But she was serious. She wanted out.
In the settlement, I got the car and the dogs, she got the house. Where was I supposed to keep the damn dogs? I’d be friggin’ homeless as soon as I moved out, but the idea of packing up was more than I could bear.
I decided to give her more tulips than she’d ever received from me before. Too bad she wouldn’t see them. I put the purple ones under the bedroom pillows and the orange ones under all of those decorator pillows she had to have. Then I soaked everything in gasoline, lit the match and walked away.
They traced me through the florist because one of those tulips fell unharmed into the front yard.
Jail isn’t that bad, but what really gets me is that Caroline used the insurance money to move to Holland.
