By Judith Shapiro

She hated the way he parted his hair, a comb-over, who was he kidding; that he grunted putting on shoes; stole the covers at night. He cut his toenails without a care where they landed. She’d cringe as she spotted one, sliver moon sticking up out of the blue shag carpet. Worst was sharing dip. He submerged overloaded chips, licked his fingers, plunged back in to retrieve broken pieces.

She’d pledged for better or for worse, but she couldn’t take it anymore. It was the little things, she said. The big things, they weren’t so bad. Not bad at all. 

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Judith Shapiro spends half the year on the opposite coast, confused about which way is north and marveling at the sun that sets over the ocean instead of rising. When the novel she’s writing looks the other way, she secretly writes anything else. Her work appears in The Citron Review, Moss Piglet, The Sun and elsewhere. See more at PeaceInEveryLeaf.com.