Page 46 of Unwell
At least she gives me what you couldn’t.
TWENTY-SEVEN
NANCY
The weekend stretched out, every second marked with tumultuous emotions. I wavered from deep pity to dark anger. From murderous rage to longing for a time when I didn’t know my husband’s true form.
Two days of soul-crushing silence. Of lying on my side of the bed and refusing to look at his. Two days where I didn’t step outside nor answered the phone for fear of breaking down to whoever was on the line. I didn’t dare face the asylum. I couldn’t.
Not him.
Or her.
But the world didn’t stop to let me figure my shit out. The bills would still stack and the cupboards would empty. The wages Robert and I earned barelystretched far enough as it was. I couldn’t afford another day hiding from my problems. Especially if I was going to divorce my husband.
Besides, if I stayed away too long, Ginny would be completely at his mercy. All of those assholes’ mercy. Who would hold her hand when she cried and try to shield her from the very real dangers all around her? Who would soften the blows, if not me?
If I quit, she’d have no one. Her family clearly didn’t have her interests at heart. Hell, Ginny’s mom let Robert have his way with her and then dropped her off in hell herself.
And how would I find out who was telling the truth about the timeline if I didn’t go back? The unwell woman or my monstrous husband?
The flat reeked.
No matter how hard I scrubbed, Robert’s aftershave clung to everything. It had soaked into the carpet, splashed onto the curtains. The stuff even drenched my hair.
I gagged as I scoured the stain; the cloth growing raw against my palms. It was no use. My house would stink of my goddamned perverted husband for who knows how long.
As I cleaned, I muttered to myself, going over and over what I knew.
Ginny’s ‘boyfriend’ hadn’t been imaginary. He was either always Robert, or he’d smelled enough like Robert for her delusions to replace Elijah with him. Keeping the idea of him alive was a shield her mindhad built to protect her. But from what truth? That Elijah had abandoned her, or that he never existed.
Robert was the ghost in her bed, but for how long?
I’d been unable to force myself to eat, and my stomach rumbled with emptiness.
All I had wanted was a family. A child to love and a good man by my side. Every monthly bleed, every heavy loss had taken a piece of me, clot by bloody clot, until I had nothing left to hope for.
And now this.
My husband using a broken and deluded girl as an unwilling surrogate. His baby in her belly.
The baby he swore was forme.
It wasn’t fair. A child conceivedforme, but not within me. And that child’s mother loved it endlessly already. Having it ripped from her would fracture her further.
I found myself in the room I so rarely dared to enter. The nursery I’d prepared for my first child, long before it was sensible to do so. So everyone told me. Their superstitions came to be. For years I’d added to the room. Just little things that called to me in the store. A teddy here. A onesie there. An adorable little pair of brown leather shoes.
My favourite outfit lay in the centre of the cot, dusty from years of avoiding my pain. Embroidered yellow ducklings covered the cream fabric, from the neckline to the footed toes. It was so soft beneath my fingertips. Holding my child, and snuggling into their warm, cutely dressed self was all I’d wanted.
The ache in my chest brought tears to my eye as I turned away from my dreams while trying to thrust away the sordid thought that I could steal Ginny’s dream.
And no one would care.
When morning arrived, it brought a day as grey and sad as I felt. I washed and dressed almost mechanically, pulling my hair back tight. My uniform was stiff against my skin as I affixed my cap on top of my head, the pins digging against my scalp.
I barely recognised myself. Red-rimmed eyes, bagged with exhaustion. Lips raw from chewing and my face ghastly pale. New lines on my forehead. Carved by Robert’s deception.
The car ride blurred from either the rain or my tears. They came as fast as I could dab them away.
