I was so naive a girl that everything he said was true. Every word that came right from his mouth resembled like a drop of honey for a deprived child. And somehow, as time gradually faded to years, and years to decades, a sliver of light came through my vision and slowly crawled into my conciousness. Our marriage would still last a lifetime without a faithful partner and a loving wife. And our children, Melissa and Justine, would still live like normal children without a joyful light to guide as they face their approaching maturity.
From the day that Gary casually told me he had an affair with a woman named Carla, an attractive, bright personnel from our children's school, the silence hadn't been in any position to falter the conversation. My chest bursted out with only a bag of air coming through my throat. From then on, everything was lost. Within seconds, I built a wall against the romantic disillusionment that every broken wife was inclined to embrace. We was a hog that was running away, never would its head turn back.
It was all gone except the occasional intimacy we shared everynight with a cold and damp emptiness. Though I never let disgust pollute my thoughts for the fact that he was still my husband, and we were united by the sanctity of God. I just moved around the house like a rodent, scavenging for leftovers, because by this I know that he would realize how much he had done all of us wrong to turn a house upside down.
One night, a month after his untoward revelation, a month after the pain that marked and seared my soul, came another blow that would take a longer time to heal. As I came home that evening from work, I swung the door open and saw him dragging a mouthful of smoke from his cigarette. I was trembled, witnessing Gary as he turned into something unrecognizable.
"You shouldn't be smoking here," I said. And to emphasize my shocked displeasure for he used to abhor smoking inside the house especially for Justine, I walked past him near enough to drag wind across his face.
"You shouldn't care," he replied darkly with this voice that I would never forget.
My feet were glued on the floor and my eyes bulged, and an unexplainable scalding material ran through my veins. I turned and looked at him which later on I regret because of the words he threw in return.
"We're married but that doesn't mean I couldn't be on my own." My knee weakened. It sounded like he threw away all of our life together, although that wasn't what he meant. But he spoke like it was so easy for him to do.
"And you're in my house," he added. He continued sucking that mouthful of smoke from his stick.
But I didn't want it to end there. It took me a moment to turn around and walk towards his direction. Slowly. And then I slapped him in the face. After the cigarette he was holding flew across the tiled floor, he raised his hand to return my gesture, but it didn't happen. Instead, I continued staring at him. I glared at him to vent out my utmost anger, disgust, ill-will, and the most unspeakable curses that a woman could convey with the lenses of her eyes; enough to give him nightmares everynight he spent with another woman and the night he spent with me while preoccupied by other woman's breasts. I looked at him like a raging monster.
After a while, my emotions were subdued. With his hand still in the air, I said,"The dinner would be in a while." I walked away, and therefrom went uptairs, shove the door closed, and cried. That night, there had been no dinner.
It had been a deep, cold one. The sheets were damp, and the pillows were wet. It had been a question that I hadn't been dehydrated because I managed to pack up my things without craving for a glass of water from the refrigerator.
Gary was at his nightshift, managing a food shop and serving nocturnal people. The whole house was unusually dark for no one would usually be responsible upon turning the lights off. I continued walking over each tiles with uttermost silence. I wouldn't want my children being awaken from the wee hours of night. I could just tell them about this tomorrow after school so I just plodded across the stairs to check on them.
Several steps passed and I was about to grab the knob when something clicked behind my head. From that point, I froze, and sob tearlessly after hearing my husband speak, "You wouldn't leave us until I say so."
"So you will kill me?" I dared him. I was no longer sobbing, but deep inside I was starting to fall. I was still standing there in the dark, facing the wall, imagining the pistol we bought ready on his hand.
"I wouldn't hesitate once you step closer to that door."
I cried silently. I could feel fluid running down my nose, as well as my pants. "Because you have Carla."
I started crying audibly when he grabbed my neck and dragged me across the floor. I almost crawled to keep up. The bag that I was holding fell in the carpet with an absorbent thud.
"Please, Gary! Don't let your children see you doing this."
"I dont care." He started pulling me by hair, dragging me further upstairs, into our children's room.
I pleaded, but he didn't seem to care.
I pleaded again, and he grabbed my hair even tighter while I was almost on my fours.
"Jason, you son of a b----! Wake up!" He called up and kicked the door open.
In one loud attempt, their faces were revealed. I tried to smile like a crazy woman but their faces were still masked by potential madness. My head was bent grotesquely.
Pulling me further inside the room, our Justine spoke, stammering with fear, dripping with tears and perspiration. "Papa, no. Papa." He was cowering at the furthest corner of the bed beside Melissa who was covering her ears.
"Gary!" I screamed. "Gaary! You're killing your children!"
He pulled me up by the hair like a rabbit. The dread of the night came a step closer to my conciousness. A shot reverberated through the room, and might as well through the neighborhood. At first, I couldn't understand. My sight momentarily blurred like I was about to pass out. I didn't budge. I dared not to move lest a slight movement would dismantle everything. Time slowly dragged me away, into a place that was both dark and blinding.
"Drink your milk."
"Not again, mom," Justine protested as he hid under the blanket.
"C'mon, don't make your papa come here," I said. "Melissa, your milk."
I turned to Melissa. "I thought you want a beautiful skin."
"I could use a moisturizer," she reasoned out. "With milk."
Then at the door materialized my husband. I looked at his hair and fell in love again.
"What's up here?"
"They wouldn't drink their milk," I said, fixing their bed while the two pretended to sleep.
"Well, don't bother them. Let's sleep."
With another wasted batch of milk in my hands, I waited for him outside as he turned off the light and closed the door behind him. We kissed.
When I woke up, I was in the hospital. But I was too weak to remain awake. The second time I woke up they said Justine died as the bullet came straight through his brain, but it didn't bother me at all or made me looked at the person who was speaking. Among the indistinct chatter, the depressing fog of sympathies, or the distant ringing of beaconing bells, I was focused on the fresh young violets that were crumbling and bleeding on the nearby window.
I wished I never woke up.
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