The Spontaneous Occurrence of Fig Bars

by Teresa Milbrodt

For the past week Ansel has tried to apologize for ruining my dinner with Kit. I didn't want a romantic production, but my hobgoblin thinks I'm lonely since he had candles and a vase of roses on the table when Kit and I walked through the apartment door. Ansel was only supposed to make sure that the lasagna didn't burn, not turn this into an occasion. Kit looked worried about my intentions when they saw the roses, so I was quick to blow out the candles and move the flowers to the counter. I almost got out plastic tableware  to make a point that I wanted to talk about work, the 10K walk we planned to do the next weekend, and how I’d tried a no-boil lasagna recipe that worked well. 

Kit relaxed after I relocated the roses, but I worried they’d be standoffish at work for the next week and avoid me in the teachers’ lounge. While they didn’t react that dramatically, Kit kept more space than usual between us on the lounge’s couch, and gave me a nervous smile for a few days before they relaxed on Friday. 

I still need to talk with my hobgoblin, since he’s attempting to apologize the only way he knows how: through gifts of food. I’ve been eating fig bars for breakfast for the past month but griping about how much they cost, so Ansel has made boxes of fig bars appear on the kitchen counter with great regularity. I’ve shared some with my students, particularly ones who stay in the art room after school to work on projects.

Ansel hoped this would smooth everything over, but it’s not that easy. Hobgoblins are supposed to help you around the house, not meddle in your social life. But I think many of them have that tendency to overstep those bounds. Ansel and I watched too many romantic comedies when I was a teenager, and he assumes I want that kind of relationship, or he wants one for me.

“You just have people over for coffee or to watch a movie,” Ansel says while we’re making dinner that evening, grilled cheese and tomato soup since I want to focus on having a serious talk. He stands on his stool beside me at the kitchen counter, a hobgoblin the size of a three-year-old and just as determined. 

“There's nothing wrong with a movie night,” I say.

“No, but it’s boring,” he says.

“And I want to keep it that way,” I say. I’ve been thinking about the potential for drama at work if the school levy doesn't pass, but Ansel is more focused on the flowers-and-cards-and-candy love stories that he probably watches on TV when I’m not home and he’s vacuuming the carpet. I can’t blame him for being dreamy, but he’s surprised a week later when I come home with a fistful of wadded-up tissues in my hand.

I cried on the drive home since my friend Angela, who teaches freshman science, found out she’ll be laid off next year and classes will be consolidated. Four other teachers got that note today, even before the levy vote, but Angela’s story hit especially hard.   

“She's pregnant, her husband is a nurse doing seventy-hour weeks at the hospital, and she has awful morning sickness,” I tell Ansel as he heats water for tea. “She was hoping to take maternity leave over the summer and come back in November, but she'll have to look for a new job. She doesn’t need that with a baby on the way.”

This isn't the kind of relationship drama Ansel had in mind. He unwraps a raspberry fig bar, places it on a plate, and microwaves it for twenty seconds because he knows I like them warm, then he pours hot water into two mugs and adds mint tea bags. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing my back and sitting next to me at the kitchen table. I let myself lean into him slightly.

“I know things were easier when I was young and we watched Friday night movies and ate bags of coloured marshmallows and I just wanted someone to love me,” I say. “Even though it didn’t seem easier at the time.” 

Ansel nods. We’re both thinking about when I was in high school and the guy I asked to homecoming said he wasn't going but showed up with a date. I left the dance early and went home crying. Ansel hugged me with his short arms, rocked me on my bed, and promised to turn the guy’s skin purple for a week. I was too broken-up and ashamed for him to do anything ostentatious, though I appreciated how Ansel made sure he got five paper cuts over the next week, then ate salted popcorn. 

My sweet and ambitious hobgoblin always dreamed up somewhat impractical revenge, but he had lived at a time of witches and devils, then had to shift to one of cell phones and social media, where people could wreak more havoc with words than he could imagine with demons and hexes. He’s still wrangling with that change.

“I wish I would have found someone to take you to prom,” Ansel sighs.

“I had a better time going to the movies with friends,” I say. “That’s what I want now, just friends, good friends, and to keep my job and pay rent. I want to be boring and practical and survive.” 

“I brought you more fig bars,” he says, nodding to the box on the kitchen table. 

Ansel is trying to cling to the comfort of the old ways when he knew what to do: clean the cottage, tidy the yard, fix anything that was broken, and occasionally invent love potions for young ladies when they were concerned about hope chests and embroidery and having children, not earning a paycheck.

“I don't want you to be lonely,” he says while I sip my tea. I imagine he’s terribly lonely for many things, including every decade he can remember in which he felt better understood and honoured. People left out bowls of milk and bread with honey on the table for their hobgoblins, a pleasant if more distanced relationship than having dinner every night. 

Ansel and I want the same things—for the world to stop moving so we can catch our breath, to close my eyes for a moment so I can get rid of my eyestrain headaches since I need new glasses and have put off going to the optometrist. I appreciate the fig bars that mean Ansel is trying to be helpful even if I’m not falling in lose-my-appetite-and-sense-of-time love.

For now we have peanut butter and banana sandwiches for dinner, find a bag of coloured marshmallows in the pantry, and I pat the couch cushion beside me so we can fall asleep watching a movie like old times, though it’s a documentary about Arctic creatures—whales and polar bears and caribou. I can't escape real life and real peril. We cuddle with our marshmallows, his tiny hand on my knee, cradling the compulsion to tell each other that yes, we can wrangle through difficult moments, and everything will be okay.

Teresa Milbrodt is the author of three short story collections: Instances of Head-Switching, Bearded Women: Stories, and Work Opportunities. She has also published a novel, The Patron Saint of Unattractive People, a flash fiction collection, Larissa Takes Flight: Stories, and the monograph Sexy Like Us: Disability, Humor, and Sexuality. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous literary magazines. She loves cats, long walks with her MP3 player, independently owned coffee shops, peanut butter frozen yogurt, and texting hearts in rainbow colors. Read more of her work at http://teresamilbrodt.com/homepage