The Life Of Michael Afton

{8} Break

After that night, things change in their house. William starts spending more time working, preferring to use his free afternoons at Henry's house working on his designs. He comes home later and later, until finally Kathy doesn't wait for him at all, choosing to go to bed early to wake with the twins. This arrangement...doesn't quite suit them, but they see less of each other and speak little, causing no room for an argument. Their short conversations are stilted and awkward, and they avoid each other as much as they can.

Kathy wishes she was braver. She wishes she had the courage to talk to him, to bring up their argument and fix it, fix everything. But she doesn't, and Kathy hates to argue. So she ducks and avoids her husband, even as her heart aches.

The twins speak only French, now, lacking someone to teach them otherwise. Kathy cannot teach them English—partially because of her own lack of knowledge, partly because she cannot bear to do what William had promised he would. So their household dynamics shift, and where it was once William and Kathy and their two beautiful children, it's now Kathy and her two beautiful children.

And... Kathy hates it.

She tries to talk to William, but he keeps distancing himself. He doesn't talk to her or the children now, completely immersing himself in his work. Slowly her attitude starts to shift from guilt to anger. William is ostracizing himself from his own children. Their short conversations turn to arguments, until they begin to blame each other for every little inconvenience in their lives. When Michael gets sick with the flu and she stays up all night helping him, she screams at William the next morning. When one of William's robots malfunctions and blows up in his face, he yells at Kathy when he comes home.

With all the tension in their relationship, it only takes one bad incident for it to snap.

William comes home late as always. This time, though, Kathy is standing in the doorway waiting for him. "William. We need to talk. Now."

"Katherine, I don't have the energy to fight—"

"Your son certainly did this afternoon."

She steps into the light, revealing bandages wrapped around her arms. "Look, William. Look what your son did to me!"

"He's your son too—"

"Yes! He's my son too! I should know why he went fucking insane! Yet my goddamn secret-keeping liar of a husband didn't tell me, and— William, my son was gone. When I looked into his eyes it wasn't my son staring back , that was a golden-eyed monster."

William stares in shock. "My son is not a monster."

"So he's your son now when he nearly kills his mother, but he's just my son when he's normal?!"

"Kathy, he couldn't control it! If his eye was gold—it wasn't his fault, you can't blame him for what he did then!"

"Please explain how it wasn't his fucking fault that he fucking skinned a man alive!"

He goes quiet. "I...can't."

Kathy laughs, a short, disbelieving huff. "You can't. Okay, you can't explain something concerning my son—"

"No, I literally can't. I can try— his is different than mine. He's young, he can't control it. But...there's a trigger, and when that trigger is activated, it's like his conscious mind is pushed back and he's just overtaken with...well, you saw what he did. You could explain it better than I could."

Kathy gestures helplessly. "William, that explains nothing."

"It's a curse! A goddamn curse and we can't get rid of it! We tried, Kathy, we tried for years and all I've gained is enough control to not instantly kill the first person who pisses me off. And believe me, you've tested that control so many times by now."

"Are you trying to threaten me, William Afton?" She stares at him, chuckling as she puts her hands on her hips. "Wow."

He immediately backtracks. "No, I was just trying to make you understand how important—"

"If it was so important, why didn't you tell me?! Why didn't you say, 'Oh Kathy, our son might lose his mind'? It would've been nice to have a little warning!" Kathy knows this is hypocrisy, that she hasn't told him everything either. But she is mad. "I was scared out of my mind, William. He wouldn't respond to his name or his sister and he tore my arms apart when I tried to hold him back. He was dangerous, William. He was a monster."

"He is our son!"

"You certainly don't act like it!"

Their argument continues well into the night, and both stomp off in a fit of rage. She doesn't know where William goes after he leaves the house, and she doesn't care. All she wants is to scream until her vocal cords tear, but she just bites her pillow and goes to sleep.

In the morning, William takes the kids to Henry's house. He comes back and gives her a paper.

"I want a divorce."

Kathy signs on the dotted line.

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