The inherited clock from Jonathan’s great grandmother (a Vanderbilt, who was splendidly spoiled on a checkerboard black-and-white plantation) ticks just past noon in our charmingly lifeless town of Darlington, South Carolina. The dimpled King of his miniature pack, his father’s junior, scampers across the spectacularly splintered oak floor as the giggling Count and Countess waddle out after him like a row of ducks. Olivia, the delicate runt of the group with devilishly innocent freckles, wobbles out last. She is the lovely left-over—a preciously glowing diamond amongst dazzling dancing rubies. The others have already dreamt themselves into a pirate cove embedded into the wickedly manicured blades of grass that sprawl out for acres and overlook the magnificent South Santee River, where hardened souls are beautifully buried underneath its waves of suppression and bigotry.

My finer husband creaks a door open somewhere among the facetious frames of four bedrooms; each a fabulously dull tint of pastel that echoes into every crevasse of our grand ole’ estate. Its charismatic apathy swirls in through the kitchen first and whisks away the sweet aroma of homemade submission, and then floats through the ever-changing sparkles on Mr. Vanderbilt Sr.’s chandelier, brushing the crystals together to conduct a tragic orchestra of wonderful wealth.

The time passes in a marvelous monotony as my vision blurs first to splashing bathwater from my toothless twins, to the scrumptiously stark folding of linens, and finally to the impeccably plain silverware that I unconsciously lay into Mrs. Vanderbilt’s precociously plaid napkins. The clock hands whirl around the scripted numbers that have been aged by handsome obedience; an heirloom of beloved chauvinism. Day by day, each one as pleasant and dreary as the last, I pour the lemonade into the transparent vase that has lost its luster years ago. I sit on our white porch, whose painted panels are the clouds among the lemon yellow door and sky blue siding. The children flock to this haven where I greet them with a sad smile masked by a cherry-printed apron.
As they congregate around the fading vase, their echoes of amusement disguise the ticking of the clock that hums in my ear like my dear Olivia whimpering to catch up with the others. The marvelous symphony of misery steals me away in a moment of sweet serendipity, and nudges my legs into the seat of the pearl white car that I have never been granted the permission to drive. The vase shatters into radiant shards of broken rituals that sparkle in brilliant shame.
The ticking runs away down the vanishing road behind me and the spectacular mansion filled with splendid acquiescence fades into the sky. The beautiful friction of black rubber with fantastic gravel fills me with autonomous longing. Gone forever, eternal severance, everlasting desire.