after the last bouquet

for our five-year anniversary, he gets me flowers—a sweet gesture, but a gesture for someone else. the thing about it is, he has never gotten me flowers before. in fact, the only flower that has ever existed in this household was just that, singular, flower, the orchid from our wedding that i didn’t know was real until our first anniversary. it looked like plastic, i told my sister and my mom and anyone who would listen. he wasn’t listening because he thought he already knew the story. yes, the orchid is fake. yes, the orchid is still alive. yes, the orchid is taking up too much space on the kitchen table where we don’t eat or play games or set things onto to talk after work. yes, dear. yes, dear. yes, dear. his head bobs with each nod—when does a bobblehead break? when its head falls off, and when it happened, there was nothing underneath it. the spring had rusted through, leaving no trace. one month after he revealed he had been unfaithful, he got me flowers to show that he remembered we had been married. five years? he asked, as if he was being cute and not asking for real. yes, i told him, we’ve been married for five years. i love you, he said. i love you too, i said. he nodded at me, or at least i think he did, and i nodded back because i could. i placed the flowers where his head should have been and he didn’t understand.