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She was no great beauty, just in line with your average girl next door, but she was diligent in self-care—everything from her nails to her hair and makeup. Tired green eyes and dull, brown hair she often curled in the mornings. Hiding her damage under frilly skirts and bright lipstick, he had often found her admirable.
There had been others. There were always others. But she had been a friend of Stanley’s in those days, and Easterman had grown fond of her as a boy. She was kind and loyal as can be, the sort you could count on to wait on the corner, hoping to catch his eye and grace him with a polite smile. It’d been flattering, watching the poor thing going the extra mile to spend time with the Easterman boys. He had come to rely on such consistency from her, his darling Irene.
Decades rolled by at the speed of molasses, and they now sat together in a too-dark room, the curtains drawn and the lamp’s dull bulb emitting only a soft orange hue.
His wife was the only thing truly lighting up the small space, and his fingers ached to reach out for her radiant skin. Something in her gaze stopped him, the glossiness in her eyes that seemed to take in nothing at all—not even his presence as he stepped up beside her.
“Irene.”
“Hm?” Only then did she blink, turning to face him with a mild look of confusion.
So often did she lose herself to her inner musings. It was enough to embitter him. More and more every day, she was distancing herself from him, and he didn’t have the faintest idea why.
“You’re drifting,” he said.
“Am I?”
“You are.” Easterman caressed her cheek, turning her to face him. “Where did you go?”
Irene’s lips parted slightly, opening and shutting, before the words finally came to her in a careful construction. “I was… thinking. Of old memories.”
“Memories?” His thumb pressed firmly into her cheek, even as he rubbed soothing circles over the surface.
Irene’s smile was a flash of an apology. “When we were younger.”
This dance of hers grew tiresome. He wasn’t so fragile that the very mention of it would shatter him. Childhood hadn’t been so unkind that he would discard it from his memory altogether. The past had its time and place.
This, however, was not the time for it.
“Ah, the naivety of youth,” he sighed. “I try not to dwell on such things.” Little ever came of it.
It had been such a long time ago now, the day he and Irene had first met.
“We were so happy then.” Irene’s gaze was full of longing.
He pulled away from her, studying her features with a critical eye. “Hmph,” he hummed. “Feeling sentimental?”
“You were a different man.”
“Weren’t we all? Stagnation is the enemy of progress, my dear. Life is a persistent cycle of death and rebirth. None of us remain the same forever.”
When she didn’t respond, Easterman frowned at her. The emotion held in those glossy eyes of her unsettled him to his core. God, he hated it when she looked at him like that. Like something was off. Something he was missing. A secret she was keeping from him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t perceptive enough to comprehend her every whim. Irene was a dreamer with puerile fantasies and delusions that would make even children laugh in bewilderment. He wished she would be more present. More grounded in reality, instead of wasting her time on the frivolity and fickleness of her sex.
His thin lips curled into a mirthless smile. Before he could stop it, the bitterness was seeping out of him, accompanied by a withering glare. “Do you prefer him? This younger version of myself that you’ve immortalized in that silly head of yours?”
She softened her features. “Don’t be angry.”
“I’m not,” he snapped, and his fist came crashing down on their bed’s footboard, silencing her.
Damn her, she always did this. Always played the victim, always the mousy girl who didn’t know any better. Always wishing for more. Meek. Quiet, so quiet. Eyes wide like she could scarcely recognize him. What was worse were the tears that would silently fill those very eyes, held back by the occasional sniffle upon receiving a well-earned reprimand.
It wasn’t fair. Not in the least. He was far from cruel to her. Their union could be a worse affair. He knew how other husbands treated their wives, battering them down at the first sign of trouble. He was as imperfect as any other man, and yet, he never raised a hand to her, despite the injustice of it all.
As if he were to blame for the natural progression of time. As if he were solely to blame for the turn their relationship had taken.
Those green eyes held an accusation most days, one that left him with a hole in his chest and an urge to break away from her and bury himself in his research just to avoid their punishing stare. It wasn’t his fault.
Everything he did, it was for him. For Stanley.
Why did she have to look at him like that?
She didn’t understand. Nobody did.
The sting of ripped hair from a scalp, whispered secrets behind closed doors, and a need to escape and become something greater than yourself. Stanley had understood, and he had been stolen from him.
Their once inseparable trio—the two brothers and their not-so-secret admirer—had been destroyed beyond repair. Did she blame him for that too?
What did Irene know? What did she know of grief when she sat in the comforts of her gilded cage, spoiled by his love and affections?
“Answer me,” Easterman ordered. Almost begging. He needed to know he hadn’t lost her too. “Do you wish you could go back?”
Irene couldn’t even meet his eyes. “In truth, Hendrick, you frighten me terribly at times,” she said in the softest of whispers, the feeble words barely lifting from her tongue. “And I feel that the longer you’re away, the more I lose you bit by bit. I’m afraid that one day the man who comes home to me won’t be one that I recognize.”
Absurd. Utterly absurd.
He could hardly believe what he was hearing.
Easterman smiled far too tightly to be considered kind. “You’re being ridiculous. I’m your husband.”
“You’re just as married to your work.”
“I’m your husband, and I love you,” he spat out, trying to get it into her thick skull. How far gone was she that he had no choice but to remind her of such things? “Isn’t that enough?”
“Sometimes, I don’t think you know how to love, Hendrick.”
Of all the things to say. His love for her was as great as the sun, and she had the gall to doubt him?
There were a million and one thoughts racing through his head. His emotions were overflowing, anger the most prominent of them all. Before a single word slipped free, Easterman’s lips were crushing against hers. He didn’t hold back, gripping the back of her neck as he held her in place. She was pliant and soft and had no choice but to accept the uncompromising nature of his affections for her.
When he pulled back, slightly breathless, his dark eyes met hers with the promise of a sharp rebuke. “Never say such foolish things again, you impudent woman.” His firm hold on her neck loosened as he caught the flicker of fear in her irises. “I love you more than anything. You know that.”
Irene closed her eyes, and for a long time, she didn’t say anything at all. Only when his fingers twitched to squeeze her harder did she look at him and whisper, “Okay.”
“There,” Easterman breathed out, a smile naturally forming. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He pulled Irene closer, her forehead cool beneath his lips. “I’m going to take care of everything, you’ll see. I promise you won’t even remember being upset with me in the first place.”
A ghost of a smile graced her soft features. “You’re right, Hendrick. You’re always right.” Staring down at her feet with that frigid look on her face, she murmured, “I love you too.”
And Easterman actually believed her.