FAMILIAR

Chapter 17

Novo Amor - State Lines.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Rosie

Dalton had come home late every night for weeks. At first, I hadn't even noticed. I was too consumed in my depression and detached from the rest of the world to realise that my husband was sauntering through the door at 11PM every night. He wouldn't come back to a home cooked dinner. We stopped dancing and laughing and talking. Instead, he'd come home to a sleeping, frail woman who couldn't even recognise her own reflection in the mirror anymore. When the wine couldn't put me to sleep, the pills did. They were prescribed to me by my doctor, but they were drugs nonetheless. They kept me groggy and my emotions at bay.

It was the night I didn't take my sleeping tablet that I noticed. I wasn't sure what made me not take it that night. I think it was because I decided to make a chicken, and I had to wait for it to thaw before I could even start cooking it. By the time it was marinated and in the oven, my sleeping tablet window had closed. My doctor said if I took it any time after 7PM, I would start feeling hungover in the morning. So, I decided not to take it that night.

I read a book to keep me company while the chicken was browning in the oven, an herbal tea in my hand as I flipped through the pages. Camomile, I think it was. It was about a woman who had lost her husband in a bushfire one day. They were a seemingly happy couple with a child on the way. And then he just disappeared when the fires died down, though his body was never found, she was left with no one to support her or her baby.

But in a way, she was relieved. And she didn't know why she felt that way or how she would ever survive without her husband's income. But she was relieved, because she realised in his absence that it wasn't love that she was seeking from him, it was his security that he could provide for her. And now that he was gone, she could finally look for love again.

I tried to relate to her story, and in some way, I understood. He was a cold and unloving man, and they didn't have passion that she so clearly desired. Having been married so young, she never had the opportunity to become anybody else but someone's wife.

But then I thought back to my own husband, who was nothing but loving, supportive and burned brighter than any star that ever existed. There was no extinguishing our fire, and so I decided that the character in the book and myself were nothing alike.

I thought about what would happen if I woke up one day, and was told that Dalton was nowhere to be found. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I never saw his face again, never heard his voice or felt the warmth of his skin. And it nearly knocked the wind right out of me even trying to picture a life without him. I didn't care if I became nothing else in life but his wife, if it were my only purpose. My heart seemed to only beat for him, and without him, she would lose her purpose.

The timer on the oven roused me from my deep thoughts, and I realised he still wasn't home. When I called him, it went straight to voicemail. I rang a few more times before finally trying his assistant, but of course, he had already gone home by then. My stomach growled, and I decided to set up the table anyway in hopes he was driving home already.

Something about the book, and how she had no husband to cook for anymore, made me want to put in more effort that night. I was thankful I had someone to come home to everyday. So, I lit candles and put a Novo Amor vinyl on the record player. I shimmied a blue knit sweater on after a while, somewhat cold that Dalton hadn't come home yet.

And then I thought back to the previous nights, and I realised I hadn't been awake when he came home. All I knew was that he was beside me when I woke up.