Free Seventy-Two Hours by C. P. Stringham

to them. They’d be saddened, but understanding
and supportive. Our families were going to be the antithesis of
understanding. My parents would voice their disapproval and do their best to persuade
me to work things out. My mother was fond of saying, “Marriage, like everything
else, takes a lot of hard work to make it right.” She’d tell me that if I was
unhappy, I should do my best to work with my husband to change it. I had
complained to her on several occasions about Chris’ absences. She would remind
me about how important his job was and how many people relied on him to do it
right, including our family of five. I’d hear how, with a husband like Chris,
I’d never have to worry about him cheating on me with someone else because he
was deeply committed to me. After comments like that, I wanted to tell her
that being ignored was practically just as bad.
    I flipped onto my stomach rolling the bottom
of my tank top up so I could get some sun on my back. I even curled the
waistband of my shorts down a full turn. I’d probably fry my skin. Creamy ivory
complexion was something else my father had passed down to my brother and me along
with the auburn hair.
    I felt someone approaching as the dock shook
with little tremors before I heard it. I stayed still. Maybe he’d think I was
asleep. Or dead. Whatever.
    “When the hell did you get a goddamn
tattoo?!?”
    Initially, I was startled by the tone of his
voice when he asked the question and then I got angry. “I’ve had it for two
months. Don’t you find it strange that your wife has had a tattoo for that
long and this is the first you’ve noticed it?” I replied without looking up.
    My tattoo wasn’t very large. Maybe two
inches in diameter. Black ink. It was a simple Celtic symbol called a Triple
Spiral. It was also strategically hidden from plain sight. I was a teacher
after all. Respectable. In need of keeping up appearances. I had it placed on
the upper left side of my buttocks. Normally, it was well concealed, but not
with the waist of my shorts rolled down.
    I would swear to it on a stack of bibles that
I could feel the heat of Chris’ laser eyes as they stared a hole into my
backside. For some reason, his indignation was making me smile although he
couldn’t see it. Pity.
    “Why?” he asked exasperatedly.
    “Why not?”
    “Answers like that got you pushed into the
lake before.”
    “If it’ll make you feel better.”
    This time, he sat down beside me with one leg
dangling off the dock and the other leg tucked under so he was on an angle and
could see me. “Does he like tattoos?”
    “Oh, for God’s sake, Chris, it has nothing to
do with him. Do you honestly think I’d get a tattoo to impress a man?”
    He’d really blow a gasket if he saw the other
one. That one involved exposing, what he would consider, forbidden flesh.
    I felt his fingers as he pulled the waistband
down further. “What is it?”
    I rolled onto my right hip so he’d remove his
hand and snapped, “It’s a Celtic symbol that means Maiden, Mother, and Crone.
It signifies female power. Carson researched it for me.”
    “Carson?”
    “Do you even live in the same house that I
do? How is it that everyone else in the house knows that Carson and I went
together to get tattoos?”
    “Jesus Christ. Both of you have
tattoos?” He didn’t sound pleased.
    I sat up putting my tank and shorts back into
place. “Since when do I need your permission to do something to my own body?”
    “We’re still talking tattoos, aren’t we?”
    I scoffed, “Nice.”
    “I just wanted to clarify. You could have
been making another reference.”
    “I wasn’t.”
    He shook his head, waved off my comment, and
said, “I can’t believe you encouraged this tattoo business with Carson.”
    “He came to me and asked. He thought it was
something special we could do together since he’d just turned 18. He got a
Celtic symbol, too.”
    “What teenage boy does that? Goes with his
mom to get