The Watcher

16

The night she found out, she’d made his favorite meal and set the table using the best china. She had dressed up even though they were just eating at home. She left her hair down, over her shoulders, because she knew he liked that. Then he came home, helped himself to the lamb and the potato casserole, and said that he appreciated her efforts.

She had time to think that tonight was the turning point. As of right now, everything would be better. There’s nothing to worry about, she thought. He loves me.

Then the blow came. He told her about the woman he was seeing, the woman he was cheating on her with. Life was dislocated, and she disappeared into herself just as she had done one time before.

Days and nights followed when she didn’t get out of bed at all. Dark, pounding hours when she couldn’t absorb what had happened. But then, finally, the truth forced its way in under her skin, searing into her flesh. The extent of the betrayal was clear. As were the parallels to the past. Everything was still in her, everything.

But even though he must have realized how much he’d hurt her, he didn’t show any remorse, didn’t ask for forgiveness.

Sharp thorns penetrated, poking holes into old wounds, and outran something stinky and viscous. A black sludge filled her cells and veins. It took over, became one with her. She didn’t feel hatred. She was hatred.

Her husband, who said he loved her, who had lulled her into a sense of security and made her deliver herself into his hands. Her husband, who had promised to love her until death do them part.

That husband.

Suddenly she knew, with a conviction that cut through everything else, that whatever happened from now on, under no circumstances could she allow him to keep on living as if nothing had happened.

She couldn’t allow him to live at all.