A Beauteous Flower

Chapter 34 - The Lonely Night

How had it come to this?

Madison wondered that thought in front of the rain darkened French doors and silently wept out at the night beyond. Streaks of rain on the outside of the window matched the streaks of tears on her reflected face. Momentarily she focused on her reflection and took stock. It wasn't a pretty picture. Her hair was disheveled, and her eyes were puffy and red from forty-eight hours of weepy sleep deprivation. When she sighed at the sight, her voice rasped.

With a sniffle she turned away from the window and surveyed the bedroom. It was a cavernous space, yet it had a cozy feel with a fireplace faced by two easy chairs, and walls of dark wood paneling. Her king-sized canopy bed dominated one corner of the room. She recalled how excited she was when the bed was delivered and set up. It was exactly what she had wanted.

In fact, the whole room was decorated exactly how Madison had dreamed her bedroom would look when she had been a little girl, right down to the large walk-in closet and its adjoining shoe closet. Her husband had been so patient and generous while she fussed and worried and fretted about every detail until she had everything exactly the way she wanted it. He spared no expense from the handmade oriental rug under the bed, to the polished hardwood floors to the wallpaper boarder that ran around the room just below the tray ceiling.

The thought of her husband brought her eyes to the large picture of them taken at their wedding. Madison, with raven hair that spilled onto her white wedding dress, beamed a smile that would rival the lights of Times Square, and posed with her newly minted husband, Daniel. He was slightly behind her, tall, lean, and dark in his black tuxedo. That day had gone exactly how she had planned it and she had been thrilled with every bit of it. Her husband played his part with quiet dignity, and he saw to the intimate details, such as her family's accommodations and transportation to the wedding ceremony and had recited the vows Madison had chosen in his smooth, baritone voice. Hot buttered auto mechanic is how her mother had described Daniel's voice.

Madison had everything she could have hoped that day; a pretty home, a high value man and a marriage with a future as bright as a spring sunrise. She was the luckiest girl in the world and all her jealous girlfriends had told her so. She had been well on her way to realizing the "Mrs. Somebody" dream, until she had carelessly savaged it, like a foolish child with a butcher's knife. A fresh sob of misery came from her lips.

Her eyes turned back to the window and stared out into the rain. Thick yellow light oozed around the curtains of the cabin windows and lit little patches of the night around the cabin. A trickle of smoke emanated from the chimney as Daniel stoked the fire to keep the early fall chill out.

He was in that cabin. Madison's husband was there in the cabin just yards away from where she stood, but he might has well have been on another continent as far as she was concerned. Madison turned from the window and decided to prepare for bed.

As she brushed her teeth, she had a sudden flash of boss bitch energy. Daniel had to crack eventually. Maybe even tonight. After days of despair a little hope from anywhere was welcome and soon she had talked herself into the idea that Daniel would, in fact, come to her. He couldn't keep this up forever. Eventually Daniel would be persuaded by her pleas, and their problems would vanish in a welter of tangled sheets. This thought cheered her. All she really had to do was be available. After all, when she asked her friends about the situation, they had been unanimous in their assessment that a man's need for sex would eventually overwhelm his anger. It was just a matter of time now. Once he laid eyes on her after enough time had passed, this little bump in the road would be behind them.

But then the night dragged on, and Madison went to the kitchen for another peek. Nothing had changed. Daniel stayed quietly ensconced in the cabin, so she ate a lonely, cold supper in front of the television. While she washed her dishes, she again peeked out towards the cabin and saw the lights were on and smoke billowed from the chimney. Still nothing. After a cool wait in the living room with the television until midnight, she took one more peek out the kitchen door and saw no changes. Daniel still had not budged and she felt defeated as she trudged up the stairs alone. Again.

Once in bed she noted that there was no fire in the fireplace and Madison's heart skipped a beat. Normally on cool fall evenings Daniel would light a fire and sit in one of the easy chairs and read quietly while she prepared for bed. While she sat in bed and applied cream to keep her hands and feet soft and supple, he would finish his chapter and then come to bed and lie down between her and the door. He always placed himself between her and whatever might be outside, but tonight he was not there, and as dark rain pattered on the roof and windows, she felt his absence very keenly.

Madison missed everything about Daniel. She missed his scent, his quiet and stoic presence, the feel of his solid and sinewy body, gentle touch of his hands on her hips, the way his lips tasted on hers and the way his fingers ran through her hair, the feel of his skin on hers and the sensation of connection as his body merged into her in a shared mix of lust and love. At that memory, she felt slick between her thighs and was immediately ashamed of herself for that thought. A boss bitch didn't cave in just for sex.

She tried to steel herself against the night tide of loneliness and cold with these thoughts, but as she lay alone in her cold bed Madison visualized Daniel, physically just a few yards away in the cabin in the back yard but thousands of miles away and, for the first time in Madison's memory, boss bitch Madison cracked under the pressure. Fresh tears wet her cheeks and In her lonely bed under the dark rain, a cold and ugly possibility of truth began to coalesce in the back of Madison's mind. 

Maybe this was all her fault.  

Maybe Madison made this mess in the first place.  Maybe she had opened the gulf that yawned between her and Daniel, and now she was alone in a cold bed. Maybe, just maybe, boss bitch Madison was the reason it had come to this and, worse, it was entirely probably that she she had no earthly idea how to clean that kind of a mess up.

"This can't get any worse."