Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s afraid to move and break this moment into a thousand pieces. He’sdesperatefor my touch, terrified to ruin it. So he’s stopped breathing. Just in case intaking air might scare me off.
There’s a distinct power imbalance when it comes to us.
I’ve always felt it.
I’ve recently struggled against it.
But I’m only now realizing who has the upper hand.
And it’s not him.
“Ten minutes,” I whisper, reminding myself of the days I’ve survived so far. I picture touch after touch after touch in my brain. And then I dare to scoot forward. My stomach tightens as I fit my body against his, head to heart. He doesn’t move. He still isn’t breathing. But hisheart.
It hammers.
My eyes close.
Nearly a full minute passes before his chest shakily moves. His arms hesitate before closing in. Once settled around me, tension abandons him. Desperation becomes relief. And I could rip it away in an instant if I wanted to. I could pull out and watch him break. With one look, I could make him beg.
“We’re less than a month away from Flag Day,” I say.
“One day less,” he murmurs.
“Do I really have to attend the ball?”
As his wife, technically, he has every reason and right to mention how it’d be of some significance that I attend my brother-in-law’s wedding. As a driving player behind the planning, it would be logical to note how my presence might assist in keeping the event running smoothly. There are a handful of reasonable arguments.
But Malcolm doesn’t bother with any of them.
Instead, pleading tints his voice as he says, “Please let me see you in blue.”
I smile. Then I muse, “I wonder if the dress you custom-ordered or my divorce papers will come in first.”
“There are no divorce papers.”
“Not from you.”
His muscles tense. “It’d be foolish to divorce me now. Nothing’s changed between us, and the longer we’re married,the more of my assets you could leave with. But, first, we need years together. To prove you deserve them.”
As if I care at all about hisassets. “Nothing’s changed?” I ask.
“We haven’t exactly done the things that husbands and wives do.”
I huff. “Sure we have. We fight all the time.”
He laughs; my head tremors from the vibrations in his chest. His bare fingers comb through my hair. “Did you have a rough childhood, dove?”
Rough? I don’t know… “My parents passed away when I was little. I don’t really…” My muscles constrict as the burn of alcohol lingers in the dark recesses of my mind. “I think my mother got sick.” My vision blurs, and I try to focus it on my little ceramic crow, but the shadows stretch off his feathers and blacken the room. “She passed away in a hospital bed. So…pale. White. My father couldn’t take care of me afterward. My aunt took me in. Later, I overheard that he’d also died. From a broken heart, everyone at the funeral said. I was too little to really understand what was going on. All I remember is my relatives and his friends murmuring about how he should have held on, for me. There’s a chance it felt like my fault for a while. Like I’d done something wrong. Something to make him not hold on. A few weeks later, my aunt couldn’t take care of me anymore, so I guess I figured I’d messed up there, too. Thinking back on it all, though…” My fist tangles in Malcolm’s shirt. “…it’s very likely my father committed suicide, and I reminded his sister too much of the brother she’d just lost.”
Stable, Malcolm’s hand flattens against my back. Soft, he says, “Where did you go after that?”
“System. I was passed around because I was a handful. You know. A child in the developing stages of madness. Eventually, I aged out. And, finally, I could embrace the madness undisturbed.” Until he came by, at any rate.
“I’m so sorry.”
My shoulder lifts, a weak half-shrug. “I don’t think about it much. I guess that’s part of the charm of not really feeling my emotions well. It doesn’t hurt even if maybe it should. It’s just stuff that happened. I don’t really feel like I was a part of it. It’s all kind of hazy, like a dream I’ve already woken up from.”
“Do you think…” His lips settle against the top of my head, and the sensation of his words hum in my brain. “…being in the hospital so often on top of how everything else played out contributed to your set of rules?”
