Whew, those weekends with Audrey and Chase (and Olivia) are getting so bad. And dinner last weekend with just Olivia? Wow! I've been in awkward situations before, but never like that.
The silence and anger between Gabe and Olivia was so palpable, so thick, you could have sliced through it.
I look over at the clock, it's 7am and summer. Hallelujah! I can hear Alexia and Joel stirring around downstairs. I love the summer; I love having my kids home all day. It’s hard for me to send them off to school with teachers I don’t really know, I volunteer in the classroom as much as I can, but it still gives me such anxiety.
Yes, I have major trust issues. My first husband, Robert, is an extremely chilling man.
It was of course, all roses and wine when we were dating and first married, but a terrifying secret was lurking just beneath the surface. It came out of nowhere, literally hit me smack in the face.
I was outside one early evening, enjoying the cool fall weather. We had been married about a month by then. I was clipping some sunflowers from our garden to put on our dining room table for dinner and had lost complete track of time.
I finally made my way back inside and I ran right into a wall of smoke. The smoke alarm is ear-splitting, and smoke is pouring out of the oven.
“Gosh dang it!” I yell.
I dropped the sunflowers right there on the floor and ran over to the oven, yanked the door open and saw my poor lasagna dripping its juices over the edge of the pan and burning black to the bottom of the oven. The top of the lasagna burnt black.
I grabbed hot pads from the counter to pull the casserole out, setting it carefully in the sink. Apparently, I wasn't careful enough because I burnt my forearm pretty bad on the glass dish.
In the midst of all the chaos, the smoke alarm still screaming at me, the smoke wafting gently toward the ceiling, Robert walked in.
“Thank goodness your home, can you give me a hand?” My voice was a bit muffled, as I was digging ice out of the freezer for my burn.
Robert didn’t respond and when I turned away from the fridge, he was standing just in front of the sunflower mess on the floor. Not reaching down to pick them up, not racing to a window to air the smoke out or checking to see if I was ok. He was just standing there with a very dark, menacing look on his face.
“Robert, what’s wrong?”
He walked over to me then, grabbed my arm in a painful, biting grip and whispered in a scathing voice, “What the hell kind of wife are you? I go to work all day, and this is what I come home to? This burnt slop for dinner and the house that I provide, practically burning down?”
I’m entirely speechless. This man in my kitchen had to be a stranger, an imposter. This isn’t the Robert I knew that I married. He shook me then, a rough hard shake that whipped my neck.
Was he expecting an answer? Because I didn't have one for him.
I thought we were partners, friends, lovers in all things. I came to find out over the next few years how wrong I really was.
YOU ARE READING
The Truth About Life
Teen FictionChase and Audrey's lives are turned upside down by their parents' divorce. Chase turns to drugs, Audrey feels like there's no one to turn to, until a new boy moves in next door, showing her life is still full of goodness, if we only look up. Olivia...
