Sayla
One morning I woke up and realised that I didn’t ache.
Not from my eye, my bruises or my rib.
Then again, I hadn’t moved yet.
I spread my arms and legs out and stretched my back experimentally.
Pain bloomed from my right side as I inhaled sharply.
Okay. The rib was still tender.
I relaxed and began to breathe the way the physiotherapist had taught me. Slow and deliberate, coaxing my lungs into cooperation.
Nine days of peace.
No looking over my shoulder. No demands. No performing my wifely duties on cue. No more pain dressed up as love. No more lies dressed up as passion.
Just healing. Just existing.
Flashes of anger came and went. The emotion was too overwhelming to hold onto for long and I didn’t particularly want to. My sleeping routine helped more than I expected it to.
I smiled at the ceiling.
Fighting the nine o’clock bedtime had become something of a nightly ritual. Not because I wasn’t tired—I was always tired—but because I needed to know what he would do. Whether there was a threshold. Whether eventually he would snap.
He never did.
Instead, the third night I’d pushed too hard, he’d simply left without a word. The silence had devastated me more than anger would have.
He returned with a stuffed penguin.
White and light grey, wearing a pale pink hoodie. Pom pom and everything. At least half the size of my pillow.
He’d set it down beside me without a word and tucked us both in.
I didn’t complain about the bedtime after that.
Not when I had a penguin to cuddle.
Not when I had happier memories to return to.
I wrapped my arm around Pandora, fixing her cerise pink zip before pulling her in for a morning cuddle. She clashed magnificently against the cornflower blue—her two-tone pink jacket completely unbothered by the colour scheme.
Nothing and no one was perfect.
And I was okay with that.
?
?
?
The white T-shirt and grey sweatpants were very fetching.
Me and Pandora watched him open the curtains.
“Good morning,” he said, turning to face us. Both of us, apparently. “Would you like to do some reading in the office with me after breakfast?”
I shook my head.
“Colouring in?”
I considered the colouring books and glitter gel pens on the desk and nodded.
It was a mindless task that kept my thoughts from wandering too far. Kept my hands busy. Kept the quieter, darker thoughts from finding the gaps.
Because he would be livid by now.
Frothing at the mouth.
Looking.
No. Today was going to be a dickhead free day.
He walked across the room.
That’s when I noticed the bulge. That thick unmistakable longish bulge. It was hard to decipher. Was it long? Or thick? Or both?
I closed my eyes.
Yet the shame didn’t come.
Daddy Asher should not look the way he did. It was unreasonable. Inconsiderate, even. I was a woman in recovery with a fractured rib and a penguin named Pandora and I did not have the emotional bandwidth for this.
I was sure he was doing it on purpose.
Why had I never noticed those sweatpants before?
“Mrs Davis won’t be happy if the food gets cold.”
His voice penetrated through my thoughts at a deeply inconvenient moment.
Lydia loved me. She wouldn’t say a word. Not until I’d safely left the kitchen.
I sighed and opened my eyes, carefully avoiding my father-in-law’s crotch-mound. One more thing I needed to shut away in Pandora’s box. My emotional support penguin was a Godsend.
?
?
?
Breakfast was served in the dining room.
He was back in his black trousers and an off-white shirt—some strange colour that sat between cream and pale green, yet suited his thick dark hair in a way that was frankly unreasonable.
He dipped the sliced bread into the soft boiled egg and handed it to me.
I preferred it when he fed me. It was a completely logical preference. Why expend my own arms and energy when there was a perfectly capable man sitting right there?
I ripped the head off the toast soldier.
His eyes dropped to my mouth as I chomped on it. I kept my mouth open deliberately, chewing with great enthusiasm. A lesser man would have flinched.
He turned and poured his coffee.
His back muscles pressed against the shirt. My eyes followed the line of his shoulder and down his arm. Taut. Strong. Deeply inconsiderate first thing in the morning.
I dipped my toast into the egg.
He poured my tea without being asked.
I ignored him.
He lifted his paper.
I snuck a peek.
“Finish your food if you want the berry and banana oatmeal pancake.”
He didn’t even look up.
He wasn’t the boss of me.
I took another bite. Chewed. Swallowed.
“With melted Belgian chocolate?”
“Sixty percent.”
I smiled and lifted my spoon.