A Sweet Disaster

Chapter 10

“Alan, do you regret marrying me?” Katherine mused, looking down on her husband’s face illuminated by the diluted sunlight streaming in through the satin curtains.

“What a silly question to ask,” he murmured back, stroking her face. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t love you, would I?” He gave Katherine an affectionate peck on her cheek. His hand, which had been cheekily straying up the hem of her shirt, was slapped away.

“Do you not miss her?” Katherine asked in a tone of wonderment.

“Who, darling?”

“Emma.”

Alan’s whole body stiffened. “I told you, she’s not my wife anymore. Why are you asking me these strange questions? Are you having doubts about marrying me, or are you jealous of a dead woman?”

Katherine’s gaze turned a shade colder, but she kept her smile on and tried to salvage the mood. Lifting a hand she brushed his hair away from his face and gave him a long sweet kiss on the mouth. “Of course not, Alan. That is absurd. I am simply curious. It does not take an idiot to realize that as much as you dislike Emma, she was once the woman you loved. Love… does not go away that easily.” The last sentence was a whisper, more to herself than the man lying beneath her. Her thoughts were around her long dead husband.

“Emma Bridges Morris, is but a shadow of what she once was.” Alan’s voice was hard, flat. “I remember, if you do not mind me talking about it, that she was once full of a fire and a passion, and of course, a common trait in the women I fancy, pigheaded stubbornness. But she got boring. And when the gap between us first appeared, she took to fighting with me, which of course only made things worse. You know the rest.”

“And of Stephanie?” Katherine said. “Do you not miss your lovely relationship with your daughter?”

“Stephanie will come to terms with what happened,” Alan said surely, confidently. “Once she accepts you as her mother, this family would be whole and knitted again.”

“Don’t you think it was unfair, though? Throwing them into this situation, having a parent you know nothing of, a sister and a brother that you never knew existed, and the loss of a mother in Stephanie’s case, don’t you think that was, I don’t know, cruel of us?”

 Face rearranging into a frown, Alan said, “I don’t know where this is all coming from. Are you drunk? It must be the wine. It has fermented for about eighty years. The very best, of course, only for you. Now stop spouting nonsense and go to sleep.”

“It is only sunset,” Katherine said, bemused. But she fell asleep snuggled in the crook of his arm anyway.

 

“Mom! I’m home!” The strap of her bag was cutting into her back painfully and she dumped it in the hallway. Stomach growling and desperate for some food, Steph yelled again.

“Mom!” Only silence greeted her, and a feeling of dread bloomed like vipers in the pit of her stomach. Pushing it all back, she gave one last shout. “Mom!”

She’s probably bathing or something, Stephanie assured herself as she climbed the stairs. Or passed out from drinking, or from the drug high…

The door to her mother’s room was closed. Knocking softly, Steph heard classical music coming from inside and smiled. So her mother was in after all. “Mom?” she whispered. When no answer came, she was sure she was asleep, and twisted the doorknob.

Her mom was a shapeless mass on the bed. The feeling of dread erupted like alarm bells in her head, and the complete feeling of something amiss washed over her. No, cascaded over her.