Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2023
Bethany Bruno
Pages 5-26
Pulling Up Azaleas
Can a marriage be irrevocably broken before it even begins? In this work of marriage related ethical fiction, the story starts with the narrator holding uprooted azaleas in his hands, with a shotgun pointed at him. His wife and child watch from the upstairs widow of the house behind him. In the moments before his end, he recounts the story of their marriage and its failure; his wife’s father giving him an antique pocket watch on their wedding day, and accusations from that same father, shortly thereafter, of infidelity. He recalls the birth of their child as well as the death of his wife’s father. And finally, he recalls the infidelity and fights that lead to the narrator moving into the arms of his co-worker mistress. Everything has gone wrong and none of it, at least according to the narrator, is his fault.