Chapter 3 #2
I looked at the dark windows of our apartment. Somewhere in there were our bed, our life, all my unfreedom — and yet it was the only place I knew.
— I can't, — I said, and got out of the car.
Dana didn't drive off until the building door had shut behind me. In the dark glass I saw her sitting there, her head dropped onto the wheel. I think she was crying. For me. Because I'd forgotten how.
Mark came back toward morning. I wasn't sleeping — I sat in the dark kitchen, not turning on the light.
— You put on a show, — he said from the doorway, without even a hello. — Ran off like a hysteric. Everyone was asking what happened to my wife. I was ashamed.
— You were ashamed? — I choked. — Her hand was on your knee! In front of me!
— And? — He poured himself whiskey. — Grown adults. Nothing happened.
— Who is she to you?
— Nobody. One of many. — He drank, watching me over the rim of the glass.
— You want the truth, since you're so brave today?
There are a lot of them, Ariana. So many I sometimes mix up the names.
And you know what's funniest of all? Not one of them fries me eggs in the morning.
But you do. So of all of you, the most pathetic one is you.
I jumped up, knocked into the chair, and it crashed to the floor.
— Shut up! Shut up, do you hear me?! — The tears burst through after all, streaming down my face. — Seven years! I gave you seven years! I buried myself for your sake!
— Nobody made you, — he shrugged.
And then something threw me. I grabbed his glass of whiskey off the table and hurled it — at him, straight at him, aiming for that calm, sated face. He swayed aside, the glass grazed his shoulder and shattered against the wall behind him, dousing the wallpaper in amber streaks.
— Why, you… — Mark took a step toward me, but I didn't retreat. For the first time in seven years — I didn't retreat.
— I hate you! — I shoved him in the chest with both hands. — Hear me?! I hate you! Scum! How dare you, how dare you treat me like this?! I'm not furniture! I'm alive, I'm a person!
I hammered at him with my fists, wherever I could reach — his chest, his shoulders — and tears flew in every direction, and I didn't care, didn't care, for the first time in my life I didn't care.
He caught both my wrists, squeezed — easily, almost without effort, and at that ease with which he held me, all my fury turned into something else. Not submission. Exhaustion — dull, hopeless.
— Done? — he asked quietly.
— Let go.
He held on another second — so I'd feel who was stronger — and unclenched his fingers. I stepped back on my own, wiped my face with the back of my hand, straightened up. I didn't apologize. For once in a very long time — I didn't apologize.
— I'm not afraid of you anymore, — I said hoarsely. — Hear me? I stopped shouting not because I gave up. I just don't think you're worth the breath.
He smirked, as if I'd said something amusing. But at the bottom of his eyes something flickered — brief, vicious. It seemed that, for the first time in a long while, I'd gotten to him.
— Grown bold, — he ground out. — How come? Dana teach you?
— You know what you did? — I didn't retreat. — You cut me off from everyone. Friends, work, the city — everything I had stayed somewhere back there, before you. Only Dana's left. One person in the whole world.
— And rightly so, — he nodded, as if I'd praised him. — Fewer people, fewer stupid ideas put in your head. See where heart-to-heart girlfriends lead? To hysterics in restaurants.
— You did all of it yourself, — I said evenly, without tears, looking him in the eye. — Cut me off from people, from money, from my own self. And now you stand there amazed that beside you I've become empty.
— You're not empty, — he smirked. — You're convenient. That's not the same thing. An empty one I'd have thrown out long ago.
— Then I'll leave. Hear me? I'll leave you.
He laughed — genuinely, cheerfully, to the point of tears in the corners of his eyes.
— And where to? — He wiped an eye with his knuckle. — On what, Ariana? The apartment's in my name. You haven't had money of your own in seven years — you're "just a keeper of the home." No job, no account. Your parents are old and far away. Well, go on. Leave. I'll even hold the door for you.
He came right up and took my face in his hands — almost tenderly, and that tenderness made me want to howl.
— You have nowhere to go, — he said quietly, looking into my eyes. — And we both know it perfectly well. — His fingers tightened on my cheekbones for a moment, briefly, painfully, as if setting a period. — So go to bed. And tomorrow — none of these theatricals of yours.
He let me go, drank off the whiskey, and went to the bedroom. And a minute later his even, calm snoring came from there — the snore of a man with nothing to reproach himself for.
I stayed sitting in the kitchen until dawn. I didn't cry — the tears had run out back there, in the restaurant toilet. I just stared at one spot, and inside it was empty and hollow, like a room they've carried all the furniture out of.
And in the morning I got up first again. Took out the eggs, the butter, turned on the stove — my hands did everything on their own while my head was somewhere far away. Mark came out to breakfast well-rested, fresh.
— Peace? — He pecked me on the crown of the head, the way you peck a dog, and sat down. — See. And you always dramatize.
Silently I set the plate in front of him. What was there to say.
He was right. I had nowhere to go. And the most terrible thing — I was already beginning to believe that this was how it should be. That I really was worth nothing without him.
That was exactly what he'd been after all seven years. Only I didn't yet know this was just the beginning. That very soon he'd bring them into our home — and make me set the table.