Molly Snores

by Kevin Brennan

Molly snores. 

We can't sleep together anymore because of her snoring. She picked it up last year in Wyoming, where the air is so clean and cold, she says, it's like ether. It gave her such sleep, she says, and the depth of her sleep grew abysmal. 

I sleep in the bedroom, on the good bed. Molly sleeps on a futon in the living room. This is not my choice. She offered. She feels bad about her snoring, even though it is something over which she has no control. We hear there is an operation, some sort of adenoidal nip and tuck, but I would hate myself if something went wrong. 

I would agree to take alternate nights on the futon, or alternate weeks, or any arrangement that would be more equitable. But Molly says no, it's all right, she'll sleep on the futon from now on. 

Even in the bedroom, from the good bed, I hear her. Molly's snores are so low and rich that they sound like tympani. That she sleeps an azure-lidded sleep there is no doubt. 

I seldom sleep, even though I have the run of the good bed. This is the fundamental injustice in our marriage. She sleeps and snores and I therefore cannot sleep with her; I do not snore, but it's mostly because I don't sleep. 

—I might be leaving you one of these days, Sam.

—How come?

—Something's missing. It's like you have a soul but it's never awake. 

—Oh, please.

—Really. It's like you don't have any joie de vivre. You used to have it, and I liked it in you. Now that you don't have it anymore, I'm not sure. 

—The reason I don't have any joie de vivre is that I don't sleep. I'm too tired for joie de vivre. 

—That's a problem. 

—What should I do?

—Get some sleep. 

So Molly threatens to leave me if I don't start sleeping, get back some of that joie de vivre for which she apparently married me. 

I frankly don't remember how I used to be. 

Children are out of the question for us, though Molly sometimes wishes. I am not parent material. I have too many needs of my own. I would always be straddling the line between the infant's needs and mine. The infant and Molly would sleep, I would not. The infant would have unlimited access to Molly's nipples, I would receive mere rations. The infant and I would have words. 

Molly is not good parent material either, but she would at least make an effort. Only she could never say to the infant:

—I might be leaving you one of these days. 

When I tell her this, she smiles and goes about her business of scaling the trout. Trout with pine nuts and pepper sauce. Baked trout with the eyes left in. 

—You could never do that, you know. The infant is your sidekick for eighteen to twenty years. 

—Be a sport and run to the market for me. We're completely out of saffron.

She means the gourmet market thirteen miles from home. I wish she had said store instead of market. I am out of her way for at least an hour. 

At dinner we get a little drunk on the wine I bought at the market. The trout is wonderful; Molly has always been a fine cook. The wine makes the fish's eyeballs more tolerable. 

—Are you leaving me tonight?

—No. Not tonight. 

She laughs. Her hands support her chin like a plate stand. 

—Maybe we should make love then.

—Aren't you too tired?

—No. I've been conserving energy. 

We leave the trout bones and tidbits where they are and undress idly as we walk to the good bed. Even in her characteristic insouciance, Molly is sexy. Her eyes are dark, her skin scrubbed. She lets her long hair wave down her back. She lets me hold her for a moment before we fall to the bed. She lets me drape her in kisses. 

The good bed cries and creaks. The springs hum. I can hardly chart all our mutual memories as we make love, our plans, rolled up and stored like blueprints. Our conversations, threats, our promises and jabs. Her body seems the same to me as it used to, though I know it has changed. Her smell—apricots—is not new. She still closes her eyes during love and opens them only when the last spasm of interest has come and gone. 

What if she is getting pregnant now? 

I see myself raising Molly's infant for eighteen to twenty years, Molly making good on her threat to leave us. I see a diaper bucket in my bathroom. I see stars pasted on the infant's ceiling over a merry, twirling mobile. 

—If I get my soul back will you stay?

—I never said you don’t have a soul. I said it's never awake.

—If I wake it up will you stay?

—Yes. 

I rest on her body and start searching in the fog for my soul. Before long, Molly snores. 

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Kevin Brennan is the author of eight novels, including Parts Unknown (William Morrow/HarperCollins), Yesterday Road, and, new in April 2023, Three for a Girl. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Berkeley Fiction Review, Mid-American Review, The Decadent Review, Sledgehammer, 3rd Wednesday, Tiny Molecules, Flash Boulevard, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Atlas and Alice, LEON Literary Review, MoonPark Review, Mantis, Atticus Review, and others. A Best Microfiction nominee, he's also the editor of The Disappointed Housewife, a literary magazine for writers of offbeat and idiosyncratic fiction, poetry, and essays. Kevin lives with his wife in California's Sierra foothills.