by Sam Mariano
Years of carefully nurtured hatred and disdain, and here he was, reminiscing.
Without waiting for him, I take my food over to the table and sit down. I forgot to grab a drink, and a moment later he emerges from the fridge with two sodas instead of just one for himself. He pushes one across the table at me, reminding me of when he used to do that all the time.
I’d forgotten about that.
My distrust of him grows by the second. Fear suddenly slices through me and I’m caught off guard by the thought, Is this it? Is this the night he finally kills me?
My favorite meal for a last meal, reminiscing over nice—if one-sided—memories like we’re already at my funeral. Serving me a drink like he used to when he didn’t hate me so much.
I didn’t know how he was going to react to what Liam did. He was accustomed to me coming up against him, but I’m small, I can’t hurt him. Liam stepping in, that was something different. That wasn’t even “pick on someone your own size,” that was David and Goliath.
What if it was too much?
What if I’d finally pushed him too far—and not even through my own actions?
This wasn’t how I expected it. Not calm. Not premeditated. It had to be impulsive, in anger. He didn’t deserve to take me out anyway, but this cool, premeditated bullshit—fuck that.
“Marlene busy tonight?”
He doesn’t tense at the blow, he sags. Sighs. Drops his fork. No anger. I haven’t riled him. He looks sad. Maybe she dumped him.
He doesn’t say anything so I just keep eating.
After watching me take four bites, unconcerned with whether he eats or not, there’s finally an edge of sarcasm when he asks, “How’s Thor?”
I can’t help smiling, and to be honest, I don’t try. I smile, big and unapologetic, and take another bite.
He doesn’t need to know Thor no longer comes around.
Paul sulks. Pushes his pasta around with a sour look on his face. “How’d you even meet that guy anyway?”
“Oh, you know, at the deli counter, buying cold cuts.”
He is unimpressed. “Fine. Guess it’s none of my business. I’m just your husband.”
“I don’t ask how you meet yours, you don’t ask how I meet mine.”
This seems to jar him, like he’s never once considered he’s not the only one who fucks around. “How… How many others have there been?”
“Does it matter?”
He looks so disenchanted I almost feel bad for him.
Well, no, not really, but it is amusing.
He’s trying to wrap his mind around what I’ve just said, head shaking in denial. “This is not what I wanted.”
“Same.” I’m glib, coldly meeting his gaze.
His head drops into his hands. I roll my eyes at his dramatics and go to the fridge for more parmesan to shake over my pasta.
While Paul processes whatever emotions he’s dealing with over there, I enjoy my pasta. It’s good. Maybe not as good as I remember, but it feels like my world is different now, bleaker, and even delicious pasta doesn’t hold the same appeal.
It’s disappointing.
I almost wish he hadn’t bought it, then I could always imagine it would’ve been as good as I remember.
A dark, dismal cloud settles over my head all of a sudden. It drapes itself around my shoulders like a physical weight, and suddenly I’m exhausted.
There’s still nearly half a plate of pasta but I don’t want it. Shoving it to the center of the table, I announce, “I’m going to bed.”
“Wait.” The sound of chair dragging across the floor makes me tense. I don’t stop, I keep going to the bedroom, but he follows me.
I run through the phone number Liam left me. I kept the paper it was written on, but I also memorized it, just to be safe.
“I’m tired,” I say, wanting to be left alone.
He grabs my arm—habit—but lets go as soon as I glare at him over my shoulder. We’ve made it to the bedroom. He raises his hands as if in surrender, implying he meant no harm.
“What?” I snap, tired of the guesswork.
He sighs and sort of glances around, as if for someone to help him talk to me. Obviously there is no one, and his gaze wanders back to me, but he looks a little lost, a little helpless.
“This isn’t…. I don’t want things to be like this.”
I don’t dignify that with a response.
He continues. “What if we… what if we went on, like, a date night or something?”
I’m grossed out that he used the words “date night,” but much more so that he used them in reference to something we would do, like an actual fucking married couple.
Instead of showing the disgust I’m swimming in, I display the complete and utter fucking befuddlement with a blank stare. “Why?”
It ruffles him, like it was meant to. Finally something familiar happens and he clams up, growing angrily defensive, like a little boy who answered wrong in class and got laughed at. “I don’t know. Jesus Christ, I try to suggest something nice…”
“We don’t do nice things, Paul.”
“And it’s so wrong to want to change that?” His voice rises now. I’m surprised it’s taken this long. He usually resorts to yelling much faster. “You’re my—” He stops short of calling me his wife, and I watch him wrestle with his temper for a minute.
This is new. He usually lets it run wild and free, but I guess the fear of Liam provides better incentive than I expected.
Once he’s had a minute to reign it in, he continues more evenly. “I have a proposition. Something for you to think about.”
I’m silent, but I’m listening.
“What if we gave this a real try? You stop fucking Thor, I’ll stop fucking Marlene, and we could maybe give this a real go. See what happens.”
I’m completely shocked. I don’t show it. I remain impassive, unsure how to play this. I couldn’t be less interested—if he stopped sleeping with that girl, he’d want to sleep with me, and ew. I also have no interest whatsoever in growing a relationship with him. He’s the worst. We’ve never been anything. I wasn’t interested at the beginning, anywhere in the middle, and I’m damn sure not interested at the end.
I don’t know how to say that. I want to laugh, but he seems as sincere as I’ve seen Paul, so I don’t. Who knows, maybe Marlene is sweet enough not to engage his Hulk side. Maybe we bring out the worst in each other. He certainly brings out the worst in me. This can’t be his best side, or no one would ever want him, and women have. For some reason.
Gross.
The kindest thing I can do is turn and walk away from him, so that’s what I do. I drop my shawl over by my bedside table and climb into bed, digging under my fortress of blankets. I’m too tired for him to spring shit like this on me.
He stands in the doorway for a long time. Or, it feels like a long time. Maybe it’s only a few minutes, but they’re long, awkward minutes. Finally he gives up and heads back to the kitchen.
I close my eyes and search for my safety. It’s here somewhere. My eyes open and I check the windows one last time.
Disappointed, I close my eyes and steady my breathing.
My eyes open again, parted by some instinct, and I’m not sure, but I saw a flash of something at the edge of the window.
I keep my eyes open that time, staring at the spot. Nothing moves, but I’m sure I saw something, so I throw back my covers and pad over to the window. Pressing close to the pane of glass, I look, but see nothing. A woman on a mission, I unlock the window and lift it, popping my head outside to check both directions.
Nothing.
Maybe it had just been wishful thinking. Maybe I saw what I wanted to see.
I frown, disappointed, and head back to bed.
Annabelle
Another week passes and nothing happens.
No Liam sightings, no sudden, inexplicable love for Paul. After a couple of days without interest, Paul went back to Marlene.
Maybe tha
t’s why he did this. Maybe he was so mad at me for not jumping at the offer to suddenly try for a relationship I had never wanted, he decided to punish me. He couldn’t inflict bodily harm on me, since he still thinks I’m having an affair with Liam, but he could drag me to my old home and force me to sit through a ‘family dinner’ with the snakes who currently reside in it.
Pietro was already here when we got here, and—to my horror—approached us as soon as we walked in the door.
He didn’t acknowledge me though. Didn’t even look at me. It was like Paul walked in alone. Pietro came over, put an arm around his shoulder to pull him in real close, and hauled him away. I caught, “Now tell me how this happened,” before Paul laughed a little nervously and they disappeared inside my dad’s old study.
Now I’m sitting on an ugly fucking floral couch that my mom picked to replace our old one. She remodeled everything after my father’s death, systematically, room by room. First she just wanted to replace the carpets, then the downstairs bathroom, then the upstairs bathrooms really needed revamping as well. The entryway, so outdated! And before long, the only thing left of my father’s home was the crystal chandelier hanging in the foyer.
I haven’t been in this house for dinner in a long time. When Paul and I first got thrown together, we came over biweekly, I think just so everyone could make sure I hadn’t run away. I was so furious at every single one of them for not stopping the wedding that I wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t eat. I sat there glaring at anyone who would look at me, and smacking Paul’s hand away when he inexplicably tried to caress it on the table. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t do that in front of my family. Maybe he thought I’d be meeker.
Eventually he gave up on that lost cause and we stopped coming to the horrible dinners.
Then we only came over for holidays. Not how I wanted to spend my holidays anyway, but it didn’t matter. There was no better alternative.
For our first Christmas together, my mother had given me the gown I was christened in. I held the soft fabric in my hands and stared at it, horrified at the prospect of birthing a half-Paul child to stuff into it. As soon as my doctor’s office opened after its Christmas break, I made an appointment to go on the pill.
Shaking off the memories being in this place stirs in me, I stand. I’m bored and I don’t know where my mother is. Paul is still closed up in the study with Pietro.
I make my way back to the foyer and gaze up at the massive chandelier. On Christmas Eve, we always put Santa’s milk and cookies on a little round table underneath it. Normally Mom had a doily and a vase of fresh flowers on the table, but for Christmas Eve we used it for Santa. Sometimes I left him a little thank you note, in anticipation of the presents he would give me.
Even the damn table is gone, replaced by one of metal and glass. A new vase full of flowers rests on top.
My heart accelerates as I make my way upstairs. I never go upstairs. The halls I used to make my father chase me down are up there, and my shrieks of laughter as he lumbered after me still echo off the walls. My childhood bedroom is up there, though I’m sure it’s been remodeled into something unrecognizable at this point. She probably gave it to her new daughter; not because there were no other bedrooms, but because it had been mine.
Sorrow washes over me the moment I step foot on the landing upstairs. I consider turning back; the last thing I need is more sadness.
But I go forward. I can see the heavy oak door of my old bedroom. More memories, insignificant shit: painting my nails at the desk in the corner, listening to pop music and gazing lovingly at the photo of the boy I had a crush on, curling up in my bed after an inconsequential fight with my mom.
The world had been alive and full of possibilities for the girl who lived here. She could’ve never ended up like me, and yet, here we are.
I push open the door. The creak as it swings open sounds amplified and I look around the hall, paranoid that someone will come, like I’m doing something I shouldn’t be. Trespassing.
I feel like I am.
This isn’t mine anymore. I don’t belong here.
I step inside anyway, and surprise floods me at the sight of the same delicate pink walls, the same posters and picture frames I had decorated with.
Nothing has changed.
My room is untouched.
The girl who slept here no longer exists, but somehow, all of her belongings remain unmolested.
I hate myself for the faint trickle of tenderness that pools around my heart. Why? Why would she leave this room, of all the rooms, as is? She can’t even have an accent table that reminds her of our family, but she left my whole bedroom exactly as I’d left it.
And I do mean exactly.
Stretched across the unmade bed is the nightgown I wore the night before my goddamn wedding. If I picked it up and brought it to my face, it would probably still smell faintly of the optimistic hopes and dreams of a girl who was certain her mother could never go through with betraying her so horrendously.
I step away from the bed and hasten over to my dresser. If everything is still the same, that means…
A smile transforms my face as I pull out the diamond and ruby ring Daddy gave me for my 16th birthday. It was the last gift I ever got from him, and I’d regretted not wearing it the day of the wedding so I’d still have it. Afterwards, I was too angry to go back for my things. The following day when I was supposed to go pack, I’d been too traumatized. I hadn’t left the bed. Three days later, I still hadn’t. Eventually they gave up and Paul brought home a suitcase full of things my mother had picked out from my dresser. That was it, every belonging I brought with me from my old life into my new one. I’d never stepped foot in my old bedroom for anything again in the ten years between then and now.
The ring still glistens as I move my hand in the light. I don’t wear Paul’s wedding ring, so I put it on my bare ring finger. It’s as beautiful as I remember.
“What are you doing in here?”
I start, clasping my hand protectively as I turn to see Sofia, my 7-year-old half sister. She has a touch of my mom in her, but it’s Pietro’s chilly eyes that look out at me.
“This used to be my room,” I say, since I really don’t have an explanation for what I’m doing in here.
She glances around at an old room that means nothing to her. “Yeah, Mom told me. We always keep this door closed.”
Since she seems to want me out, I leave. She follows, closing the door behind us. I imagine in some cases she would want to show me, her older sister, what her bedroom looks like, since I’ve never seen it and we’re already up here. She expresses no such desire, and we make our way downstairs without another word.
My discomfort only grows from here. I follow her to the kitchen where my mom has already started on the wine. I wonder why she didn’t share. Wine would probably make me more pleasant company, even though she’s drinking red and I strongly prefer white.
When I come in, instead of offering me any, she plugs the wine and puts it away.
“To chill,” she says. “We’ll have some with dinner.”
“Is that ever happening?” I ask.
Pietro, Paul, and whomever else they have locked away in there haven’t emerged.
Taking a leaf from my book, she ignores me and flits away to pretend to do something at the other end of the counter.
Then, reconsidering, she turns back. “Please be pleasant tonight. Pietro has had a bad week and the last thing this family needs is you making things worse.”
I’m suddenly glad she didn’t give me wine, because the glass would shatter in my hand right now and a perfectly good serving would be all over the ceramic Tuscan tile.
If looks could kill, my mother would join her first husband right now.
I turn and quit the room.
I’m angry. So angry. Furious. My face is hot with it and there’s a strangled cry of fury trapped in my throat.
I hate her.
I hate all of them.
Just as I�
�m fixing to storm outside and, I don’t know, run home, the study door opens.
I catch a glimpse inside. The once red walls are blue now. The door closes and Pietro is looking at me.
It always feels like a stare-down when I don’t adequately avoid his gaze. Once we’ve made eye contact, I won’t look away, no matter how much I want to. Won’t let him think there’s any part of me that submits to him.
“Annabelle,” he says, pleasantly enough.
I don’t return the greeting. My jaw locks, my teeth smashing together. In the jumble of frantic heartbeats I notice my breathing is getting irregular. I try to bring it down a notch, since this is how my panic attacks start. It’s been probably a year since I’ve had one, but all the ingredients for one are certainly here tonight.
My stomach feels tight. Sick. I won’t have an attack in front of him. He’ll see it as weakness, and as far as he’s concerned, I’m motherfucking Sparta.
In my mind, at least.
I don’t really care what I look like in his.
But then the bastard takes a step toward me and drapes an arm across my shoulder like he did Paul’s earlier. I’m too stunned to react and somehow I’m being led down the hall along with him.
“I hear you’ve been a bad girl.”
He says it lightly enough, but I don’t trust it. My mind blanks before racing through all the things I’ve done lately that he could object to. I don’t know how to respond because I’m not sure what he’s referring to.
“You’re gonna have to be more specific,” I shoot back, as if unruffled.
He laughs, and the sound makes my skin crawl. His arm still draped around me probably helps.
After a moment, when I don’t offer anymore or respond, he says, “Good wives don’t cuckold their husbands.”
I smile. “And what do you know about good wives?”
This slight to my mother should offend him, anger him, but his grin only stretches wider. He looks bizarrely pleased with my response, and for a split second, my confidence drops.
