Middle Rage

Maria -- 21

But under his wing is my place, and I won't share it with anyone. I am not good like Soren; I can't stand any part of his heart attached to any other woman. I need him all to myself.

My face prickles with shame, but I'm not about to change my mind. And anyway, the whole situation has me aggravated. Oma's indignant outrage gets under my skin most of all. Since the election, her whole personality has become liberal t-shirts and squawking indignation over Trump or #MeToo. She is showing her whole ass with her temper tantrums — after everything that has happened in the world, only now, when she is the one who might be grabbed by the pussy, has she realized the world is unjust. As though she has never opened a history book or a newspaper and seen that men have done horrific things to women since the beginning of time.

When Oma sent out that mass email urging us to "vote blue no matter who", I knew what she meant: Vote Hillary Clinton, the woman who looks like Oma. Secure white women's place in the hierarchy.

Soren clears his throat, and I am back in the room with him.

He says, "I saw him again. The other day. Uh, at Dan's birthday."

Wh—? But before I complete the thought, I know, even though it has been at least eighteen months since Soren last spoke of him.

"Your stepfather?" I avoid naming him. Your dead stepfather, I definitely do not say. Your murdered stepfather — this part I do not even think, although of course it is there, the ghost of this ghost, as tangible as the air between Soren and me.

A cop can be many things and remain a cop — dishonest, abusive, surly, lazy, cruel, even corrupt — but they must live in reality at all times. A LEO with delusions or hallucinations? You're gone. Goodbye work family, goodbye any other job in law enforcement.

Soren telling me is an act of deference, of total submission to me. He lives at the apex of power — white, male, tall, cop. I am none of those things. When we first got involved, I told him all the reasons I would never trust him, and why I would never marry.

So he made a vow. He hands every paycheck to me. I make all the financial decisions, I make our family's investments. Soren tells me when women at work hit on him. He put a tracker on his phone and uploaded the data to mine, so I can see at any time where he is. He says it's for safety, but I know he's making good on his promise to prove he is trustworthy to me in his every action.

The vow means when I say, "Come with me and breathe it out," he drops whatever angry, frustrated thing he is doing, and submits. I read once that in BDSM relationships, the submissive is the one with the true power; of all the things the dominant can do, with one word, the submissive can stop everything.

This is, I feel, the secret nature of the bond between Soren and me, although it flips in my mind who is the sub and who is the dom. Outside our home, he is the king. Inside our home, I am. Confessing to seeing his dead stepfather is something Soren cannot tell anyone else in the world, but he delivers it to me unprovoked and awaits my judgment.

I exhale slowly. "Did he speak?"

Soren shakes his head once. No.

I wait, rubbing the back of his neck, as though he is a big cat I have by the scruff.

"He was only there a moment, in the corner of the room." The hairs on the back of my neck raise even before Soren says, "Before Dan crapped out."

"Why do you think he showed up?" But I already know the answer; because on some subconscious level, my husband interprets as signs and ghosts, his good cop instincts understood he was witnessing a crime. That's why he kept the vomit, even though he doesn't understand the logic yet. That vomit will lead him to Visine and then to Aimee, and then those women who pretend I am their 'friend' will drag me down with them.

Soren doesn't answer. His eyes have gone unfocused. "I'm sorry," he says.

"Why?"

He shrugs, uncomfortable. "Because of your mother. Me talking like this—"

I shift across the mattress to kiss him quiet. "I want you, all of you, and I'm not scared."

The last part is a lie, and he senses it. He just doesn't know what I'm lying about. I flitter through my options: I could cast doubt on what Soren feels, shade my answer that he should not trust this hallucination.

Never. I will never make him doubt who he is.

I could confess everything, affirm that Soren's strange understanding of the world is built on fact. An assault occurred in that room as he watched.

I don't choose this either. Not to protect myself, but because I know my involvement will hurt Soren. So I thread the needle. I tell him the thing that affirms his ghost but does not hurt our connection.

"Jenn went to the hospital," I say, as though this is a change of subject. "Oma and Aimee think it's Dan."

Soren sighs heavily and on it, I catch the change in his chemistry, the crackle of connection between us.

"You already knew?" It's not really a question.

"Spiral fracture." He doesn't need to explain. Bones only break that way if you twist them. For a moment, my own ghosts rise, memories of my mother's anguished face.

Now it's Soren who puts a hand on the back of my neck, fist locking in the hair at my nape, tugging.

"What will happen?"

"You know," he says. Same thing that always happens. They'll interview Jenn. They will present Dan with evidence of his crimes. They will both deny anything happened. Cops will toss it up to the courts. DA will dismiss; everyone will know he did it, but practically, you can't prove a domestic if both parties deny, and the DA wants cases they can win. "What did Oma and Aimee say?"

"They want to do an intervention for Jenn." My tone is quiet to match his. The smell of his anxious sweat. The smell of mine. Compared to my childhood, this conversation is so calm it feels like whole milk; silky and bland. For babies. I could not imagine safety back then. But now I feel the stress.

I smile to myself: how weak I've become. How soft. The words are damning, but they don't hurt me. Instead, there is acceptance, a smugness even. I am soft now. I am wanted. I am safe.

"I think that's a good idea," he says softly, and I hate it. But I will agree to anything he asks because he asks it. The silver lining: if I am assigned to helping Jenn, Soren will put her on my list of things, and he will not interfere.

He rubs the wrinkles out of my forehead. "Hey," he says. "You are good and strong, and the world needs that. Just be there for her."

I can't take this level of affection. It's too much, the brightest spotlight on all my insecurities, the strange sensation of praise without strings. I nod, vision going blurry.

He pulls me into his arms, my forehead against his collarbone, his muscles still wiry and hard even though he is pushing forty-five, "over the hill" according to my childhood memories of age. I twist my head and listen to the solid beat of his pulse, my own secretive, cagey heart reveling in victory. It's true I have given Soren a motive for foul play in Dan's incident, but the tension has left my husband's frame, and I know he believes my version: that the omen of his stepfather was triggered by sitting in the house of another violent man.

Not that Soren's stepfather was there as a murdered ghost, alerting Soren to another attempted murder.

A/N If you are enjoying MIDDLE RAGE, please let me know! Drop a star, leave a comment. You can find my other stories at 

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