Hardwood
The blood in his veins seemed to drop sharply in temperature as she walked by, then spike again as she crossed to the other side of the room, stockinged feet tapping out muffled rhythmic thumps on the hardwood floor. This was the difficulty in marrying a girl so stubborn; he couldn't help but love her, but damned if she didn't make him angry sometimes.
Today he wasn't even sure what he'd done wrong. They'd been having a normal dinner, or as normal as it got around here when he asked a question about her work. Long ago, he'd learned that most such questions were either ignored or the answers given bore little resemblance to the nature of the query, but today was different; something was wrong and he knew it. He could tell.
The question was simple enough, even if he couldn't remember the exact words that had tripped off his tongue to apparently assault her ears. He had to believe such had happened, that perhaps they carried a poison sting or sharp-tipped barb, to make any sense of her response. Standing, she'd pushed her chair began and begun a slow loop of the room, hands on hips and nose high in the air. Between asking him just “what he thought he meant” with such a question, she shot him looks of varying emotional engagements, though none of them appeared to be pleasant.
She was impossible to deal with when she got like this; a raging tempest that had to be endured rather than conquered for his night to go anywhere approaching well. He could fight, certainly, stand up for himself and what had been merely spousal concern at her stress but it wouldn't end well. Too stubborn to sleep on the couch, he'd end up back to back next to her in bed, a cold wall of silence neatly dividing them and soaking the room in a stomach-turning saturation of stress. Neither of them would sleep.
Lithe arms went crossed as she completed another circuit of the room, though she hadn't spoken in at least five such laps. Usually, she let fly with logical quips about whatever she was feeling; hardly the perfect way on his part to get his wife to open up but at least questions got her moving, got her talking, even if it was an outburst at the “insensitive” nature of what he'd said.
From the few words she had spoken this evening the problem seemed to lie around his desire to know more about her work. Honestly, he'd given up caring what she did a long time ago and had just wanted to know what was making her so sad, what was drawing her away from him each and every week. He'd expended all of the energy he had searching for the true nature of her work – she wasn't a hooker or a spy and he had enough friends in the Federal building to know that she was no illegal immigrant. At a certain point he'd resigned himself to the fact that she was who she was and that he would simply have to get used to it.
Some days, though, were harder than others, and he wasn't about to be put off tonight, cold looks and distant bed or not. He was going to get through to her.
“I don't know what your problem is,” he said flatly, almost aggressively, and she stopped in her tracks, “I just wanted to know if you were OK, to see if there was anything I could do to make your day better – like a good husband should - and now I'm being punished for it. Rae, what is going on? You don't have to tell me what you do – but please, tell me what's wrong!” His voice warbled on the last bit; he knew that logical presentation of facts would do the most to get her attention, but this was more to him than just logic.
“Walt,” her voice was low and soft, as calm a tone as he'd ever heard from her in this state, “please don't. Please don't ask me any more questions. I know you're just trying to help, but please...I can't. I can't!” The inflection at the end drew his attention; unless they were actively creating a a dual-backed monstrosity in the middle of their bed, he rarely her her tone deviate from the straightforward and the calm.
He was getting to her.
Standing, he moved across the room to her and opened his arms, expecting her to back away or throw up a hand to stop him. Instead, she merely held her ground and waited, green eyes chilled but curious at his approach. He encircled her small form quickly and put one hand to her head. How could such a small form seem so large, so imposing when they were separate? She needed love and protection just like anyone else.
She was rigid and cold beneath in his arms but he felt a pulsing in his chest, a spreading warmth that traveled down his stomach and into his legs. Together, they would get through this. Together, they would find a way.
“I love you,” she whispered, “and I'm so sorry.” Sorry? He stepped back; tried to, at any rate, but her arms had locked around him, crushing him to her and preventing his escape. Another bloom of heat blossomed, this time in his lower abdomen and he shuddered. What had she done?
“You were never the target, Walt,” her voice ghosted through the still air in the room, “but I've got my orders and I don't have a choice. If you found out, if I told you...if I became emotionally attached...”
Legs turned to jelly gave way as he crashed down, slipping to the floor through her arms and oozing onto its cherry-wood surface. They had picked the color together a year ago, one of the only things they had ever both liked, both agreed on.
It hid the color of blood remarkably well.
- D
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