A True Wife

“Jason!” Laurel calls from the kitchen.
           
I break my train of thought. Even hearing her voice annoys me. I don’t hate Laurel, I  really don’t, I pity her. She’s like a Barbie doll, plastic and bends the way you want her to.
Spending hours doing her makeup and finding the perfect dress to wear for her husband, who  doesn’t even notice her. He doesn’t see her as a woman, and she knows that, but she smiles hoping one day things will get better. I want to tell her to leave. Go find someone who will  appreciate you and treat you like a woman. But I know she wouldn’t listen to me, she’d just smile and dismiss every word I was saying.

Without seeing her, I already know how she looks.  She is masquerading in this long bright dress.  She wears dresses because she grew up to think
that women who wore dresses were happy.  Little does she know; her naïve concept of happiness
and family has been distorted to mistrust and infidelity.
“Jason!” Laurel called again.
“What do you want?” I ask her as I walked into the kitchen.
 
It isn’t unusual for me to speak to her in this manner. I was cold and emotionless towards her because of the façade she lives. I want my words to hurt her and make her realize
that her home was in shambles.  She smiles to me in return because she does not recognize my Lack of feeling and I am not surprised.  

“I made you some breakfast darling.” She chirped then smiled at me.

I looked over at the table she has set, it was designed for love and togetherness, but I knew that’s
something that will never be found in this house.

“I’m not hungry.” I tell her.

She looks at me with disapproval, but then realizes that she can’t make me eat anything so she leaves the kitchen. She smiles on her way out and says I love you before she heads upstairs.
          
I pick up two pieces of bread and wipe a lot of peanut butter all over them and the same with jelly.   It won’t fill me up, but it will keep me alive.  I wonder what I really want to
stay alive for, but I eat because I am more afraid of death.  I eat the bread and wipe the peanut butter away from my mouth.

I hear someone come down the stairs and it’s my father. Or should I
say CEO of Victor Enterprises. He comes into the kitchen and sees that there is a table of food and nobody eating it. He looks at me.

“So, you’d rather eat a sandwich over all this good food.” He said while making himself some
coffee.

“Are you gonna eat it?” I gibed at him.

“No I have a very important business meeting.” He said smiling at himself.

“Oh yeah I forgot, what’s her name this time? Is it Hannah, Mariana, or Stephanie.” I glowered.

“Boy, you better watch your mouth when you’re talking to me.” He said walking towards me. He
came up to me and I backed back.

“What are you going to do, hit me?” I said smirking at him.

He stopped and glared at me, before he could say anything his phone rang. He looked at me before taking his phone out and answering it.

“Hello, yes this is Michael Victor.” He said with authority in his voice.

“Tell Hannah I said hi.” I jeered at him and walked out the kitchen to go upstairs.I go inside and close my door. I lay on my bed looking up to the ceiling trying to understand how life got this screwed up. We hadn’t always been living rich.

We had once been
poor. We were once happy. My father was a hard-working man. He came up with the idea to start a record company. It was a rough start at first, but the work paid off.  Victor Enterprises became known as the new Motown. He was signing artist left to right, and the artists he signed
brought in record sales, awards and most importantly money. My father hit a million when I was twelve and expanded his company to New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. But with the fame and money came unhappiness. We My father started his company at first to help pay for
my mom’s medical bills and the idea of a record company came from Mom. Mom loved music and even had dreams to be a singer at one point. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when I was only eight. She was in and out of the hospital every week, and the bills eventually piled up.
At first it worked, mom got five-star medical treatment, she began to feel energized and it was almost like she was back to her old self.  We moved into a three-story mansion, he bought three cars, and I had every toy and game system that a child could want. This was the happiest I had
seen my mother before she was diagnosed with cancer. But when my Father began to expand the
company, he started to step out on his marriage. When mom found out, they started to fight almost every night and she got worse. She went in the hospital and never came out, I was
fourteen.  The doctors said that stress is what killed her, but I knew better, he killed her. After mom died I could never look at him the same way I did when I was young. Mom told me before she died that life is like baseball you hit and miss and you run and you get out you win or lose
but the game is always in your hands. That was one of the last lessons she ever taught me.  My father was my hero, my confidant, but now he’s nothing but a shadow of the man I once knew.