vehicle tender_square he doesn’t like her taking the car. he insists on driving her wherever she needs to go, picking her up within a time-window of three hours for anything social she does, if not sooner. she has asked him on several occasions why he resists her taking a car that is part hers. she didn’t buy it, but her name is on the title. “i don’t like being left without a car. what if i needed it?” he reasoned. he never goes anywhere. ever. for years, to avoid fights, she has capitulated for harmony’s sake. now, she’s tired of being a background voice and the song between them has become discordant. last night, he insisted she take the car two blocks away to attend a party with her girlfriends. she questioned why this situation was suddenly any different than all the others. “if i needed the car, i could call you.” he didn’t elaborate on what this hypothetical situation meant; if necessary, would he walk over to her friend’s house to get the car? or, did he expect her to leave and bring it back to him? where the hell would he need to go? she was his whole life; he didn’t have anyone else. “he ‘let’ me take the car tonight,” she admitted to a girlfriend at the party. she hated this, using the word “let,” because it made her sound weaker than she realized and it embarrassed her. in times previous, whenever he had refused the car, she upped the ante: i will bike. i will walk. i will take the bus. no. no. no. “i don’t like you cycling with those crazy drivers.” “i will walk with you.” “the bus is not safe; i’ll drive you.” she blinked back tears as her friend looked on sympathetically, nodding and saying soothingly, “your relationship has always been like this.” and she remembered connie for the first time in fourteen years. she worked with connie in her early twenties at a fast-food chain; connie was in her early thirties but she looked older—world weary. connie was married without kids and she let it slip gradually during their shifts that her husband was controlling. connie never used this word though, the scenarios she mentioned spoke volumes, she didn’t realize what she was revealing each time she found herself near someone willing to listen. her husband always drove her to work and picked her up. the only way she could see her mother was on breaks during her shifts, and they’d sit in the lobby together talking quietly and looking sad. she remembered feeling sorry for connie, not understanding why she’d allow herself to live this way. and now she realized she was connie. “y’know, i mentioned to him when we first got together that the only reason i was able to start a relationship with him was because my first husband and i got a second car,” she said. “and i’ve wondered if that’s why he doesn’t let me out alone with it.” it’s not a fear he’s aware of, it’s unconscious; she has asked him directly if the car is a symbol, a vehicle for his trust in her. he insists they’re unrelated. “okay, but he got into a relationship with you knowing full well what had to happen to allow you to be together,” her friend reasoned. “and he went along with it too.” her friend wasn’t wrong. why had she never considered it from this angle before? maybe it because she always blamed herself, taking on responsibility for problems in her marriage that were not hers to hold. all night she kept the volume of her phone on, in case he called needing the car. after three hours of merrymaking were up, she texted him. “i’m going to be a little longer, i’m sorry.” she wasn’t staying behind to make a point; the party’s gift-giving festivities and solstice rituals had not yet gotten underway and she didn’t want to miss them: there were things in her life that no longer served her that she wanted to release in the bonfire, there were intentions she wished to welcome with the increasing light after the darkest day. she turned the volume of her phone off when she anticipated she was five minutes from leaving. but the festivities carried on past her estimations. when she pulled into their driveway, she saw his shadow hovering in the foyer window, and he opened the door for her as she entered, her arms laden with bags and her mouth spilling profuse apologies. in her phone, she noticed a text from him she hadn’t heard, sent right as she left the party: “are you guys winding down?” 211218 what's it to you? who go blather from