A noise was heard in the empty house as the door was opened. A man came through the door, his face sporting an emotionless poker face as he walked through the dark rooms, lit only by the moonlight coming through the window. He loosened his tie and sighed as he went through a doorway only to be met with with the sight of a woman standing with her back turned. She turned around to face him, with a melancholy half smile on her face. He could see the remnants of what looked like party decorations strewn about, in the process of being cleaned up. As the man looked into her eyes, the resignation and disappointment were the emotions that colored her eyes dark.
They both both stood there in a deep moment of silence, the mood that dyed the tension with the events that had withered this family’s joys and happiness. The wife gave a short chuckle, full of self ridicule and sadness, “I bet you didn’t even realized you missed her birthday. I bet you didn’t even think to check on your own daughter with the things you’ve been doing late at night. I bet not one thought about your family even crossed your mind tonight.”
He gave a start at what she said. The emotions on his face were all too clear to the woman that he had lived with for close to 10 years. The woman laughed even louder than before, the sound full of heartbreak. “I’ve lived with you all this time and you’d think I wouldn’t notice.” Her voice trembled and crackled as her body shuddered. “I loved and believed and grown and struggled with you for all this time and you thought I wouldn’t have noticed what you had been doing.”
The man could see drops of shining light begin to drop down the woman’s face. He could feel the pain in his heart as he watched her yet he stood there, unmoving, rooted to the floor, unable to lift a single hand towards her. The shock he felt right down to his bones had frozen him completely still as he watched his trembling and sobbing wife from the other side of the kitchen, the few feet feeling like miles between them.
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“I had thought you still had enough love for your own family to show up to your own daughter’s 7th birthday. Even if you had been more distant than usual and stayed away on trips far longer than normal, I thought it was just the work dragging you away from us but it turned out, I was completely and utterly wrong.” The words dripped of rage and disbelief as they were spat out. More streams of light could be seen flowing down the woman’s face as she strode over to him. “If you had come back sooner, you would have learned that you have another child on the way but I guess our family has lost all worth compared to the outside.”
He saw as her face became clearer the closer she came towards him, the face that was usually full of love and laughter was now vastly changed by the anger that now filled her features. Her hands could be seen clenched at her side as she stood an arms length away from him. The woman stared at him with eyes that could tear steel to shreds for what felt like an eternity. Resentment could be seen from every corner of her body as she stood there glaring at him.
Abruptly, she turned and walked towards the stairs, climbing up them two at a time, her small figure now in shadows as she went up the stairs. The man again stood in the silence of the house, only the slam of the door breaking it for a moment. He stood in the middle of that dark kitchen for a long time. He slowly moved towards a chair as he sat down, his head resting in his hands as his body shook. The house that had been full of lovely memories had been destroyed by his own hands, all that was left was an empty house full of unhappiness, broken promises and regret.