Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 105667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
It’s disturbing. Profoundly, deeply disturbing.
Chapter Fourteen
The rest of the night has been much less disturbing. It’s passed by without incident, actually. I held my panic attack at bay and sat through dinner, feigning normalcy. Mari hasn’t shown back up, and neither has Saint. So far.
Each bite of Shephard’s perfectly seasoned chicken felt like ash in my mouth. I smiled, I nodded, I asked the girls about their week at school, all while feeling like I’d just earned the World’s Worst Wife and Mother of the Century award. I can feel it, a tarnished invisible medal hanging heavy around my neck.
The acute tension that clung to me earlier in the day has settled now into something deeper, something heavier. There’s no easy way to release it. We move through the motions of a normal evening with the clatter of dishes as Shephard cleans up, the familiar shouts of the girls from the guest room, but nothing feels normal. It’s all a flimsy stage set, and I’m a terrible actress tonight. I try to lose myself in the routine of bedtime, helping the girls brush their teeth, the minty scent a fleeting comfort, tucking them into their brightly colored duvets, kissing their foreheads as they drift off. The familiar comforts of motherhood should ease my mind, should anchor me, but they don’t. They only amplify the piercing guilt.
The girls are out by nine, asleep together in the spare bedroom. I stand by their door for a moment, watching their peaceful, unsuspecting faces, my heart heavy with a guilt so profound it threatens to swallow me whole. How can I possibly reconcile myself to the fact that I’ve so irrevocably betrayed the life I built with Shephard, the life I treasure as their mother, to the dark, illicit secret now pulsing beneath my skin? The guilt gnaws at me, twisting my stomach into tight, painful knots, a persistent, physical reminder. But I push it down, deep down, as far as I can, burying it under layers of denial, and head into the living room.
I text Nora as I make my way toward the couch. Shephard and the girls just showed up unannounced. I hit send.
Immediately, she responds with Noooooo. Asshole!
I sit next to Shephard on the couch and chuckle at her response. She knows what it’s like being a writer and in the groove, only to be interrupted countless times by people who don’t get it. It’s why I have to write somewhere away from home—because home is a constant revolving door. If it’s not one kid, it’s the other, or Shephard, or my sister, or my mother, or a UPS driver. Although, the UPS driver is usually my fault. I tend to online shop when I get emotional about work.
I get a lot of packages delivered.
Shephard doesn’t look up from whatever he’s doing when I sink into the couch. We don’t feel the discomfort when the girls are in the room, but when it’s just the two of us, there’s a distance between us that wasn’t there before, or perhaps was always there, only now it’s become a yawning chasm. Since I stopped being able to write and the money issues began, we argue more than we compliment. He’s lived a cush life until now.
Now, he’s just stressed. All the time. When I started making better money, he took a lower-paying position to ease his stress, but he’s regretting it now. He hasn’t said it, but he implies it with little jabs here and there. I just ignore it. Sure, I wish I had a husband who understood the emotional trauma I’ve been through, but I guess both spouses end up feeling the fallout of financial burdens, so I understand that he’s under stress too.
He’s beside me physically, the familiar warmth of his leg brushing mine through the denim of his jeans, but mentally, emotionally, we’re worlds apart, orbiting different planets. His laptop is propped on his knees, the screen casting a pale glow on his face, his fingers tapping away on the keys as he catches up on work, bills, something mundane and responsible.
He’s focused, absorbed in whatever report or email he’s typing up, his brow furrowed in concentration. I wonder if he senses the shift between us, if he can feel the chasm growing wider, the silence between us thickening with unspoken grievances. Or is he truly oblivious?
He has no idea that he isn’t the last man I kissed. The last man to see me naked. The last man inside me. The thought sits like a cold, heavy stone in my gut.
I have the television on, the screen flickering with chaotic scenes from some show I can’t even remember the name of. Distant gunfire, dramatic music. But I can’t pay attention to it. The characters move across the screen, saying words I barely register. My mind is elsewhere.