She returned indoors, concern etched in her brow. Her limbs conveyed greater weight now, the muscles sapped by the prospect of a weekend being spoiled in its infancy. She thought of the child sleeping in the room beneath, imagined a future with them both by her sides, healthy and harmonious. The thought became ever more difficult to conjure, the image increasingly obscured like something viewed through a cataract, or a bottle.
She settled into her side of the bed and drew the covers about her neck, shivering. If only he would cease the binges, then the alcohol wouldn't be a problem, she thought. There had been a time when he would consume socially acceptable volumes, and converse, and be charming. But there was something inside him that seemed to increasingly malfunction. Rather than having a drink or two and retiring for the evening he would forget the will to stop or to eat. Beyond worrying about him, something about the practice frightened her.
She tried to retain some positivity within the frame of her thinking, but her mind conjured the image of a disheveled figure with a cigar perched between his teeth. She saw him sitting in the old leather chair by the fire, pouring from one bottle while another lay discarded at his feet. She saw the ashen complexion and the thick stubble standing out above it. She saw the oil upon his unwashed skin and smelled the pang of unchecked body odor rising from beneath his arms. She smelled the faint aroma of urine that had spilled upon his trousers and been forgotten. Above all this, she smelled the stale cigar smoke that permeated the scene and overpowered her. If her thoughts could have frozen here, she thought she might have been able to forget her love for him. If it were still just he and she, and his habits and self-control had degraded so far she guessed she could have left him. Reality was different however, and her thoughts could not freeze, and there were no longer just two to consider. She would continue to try, even if he seemed intent on destroying himself.
She lay, adjusting and readjusting her position in the bed until he arrived forty-five minutes later. He slipped into the room and undressed quietly, climbed in the bed behind her. Carefully, he placed a kiss upon her head, rolled to his side. She smiled, turned now from the fearful thoughts, and contemplated tomorrow instead. Perhaps they would bundle up in warm clothes and head out upon the lake together in the rowboat, channeling the country air into them in the hope of some medicinal effect. She visualized the child smiling between them as they rowed the little blue painted vessel through the darker blues of the lake, glad to have her father at her side. She held onto the image and as she was carried over into sleep, she saw it still.
YOU ARE READING
Song, Unheard
Horror***Featured in Fright Profile*** Life has been different lately. She feels a growing sense of dread and wishes for things to be normal. His drinking is out of control. The child seems frightened and withdrawn. And then come the birds. Strange b...
