The Sleepless Night

The silence of the house was heavier than the shouting had been. I lay on the edge of the king-sized mattress, my back turned to the center, listening to the rhythmic, maddening sound of Mark’s breathing. He slept like the dead, or the innocent. It was a terrifying skill, the ability to power down his conscience the moment his head hit the pillow.

I turned over, the high-thread-count sheets rustling like dry leaves. The moonlight filtered through the sheer curtains, casting a pale, spectral grid across his face. He looked younger in his sleep, the stress lines around his eyes smoothed out, his mouth relaxed. He looked like the man who had proposed to me in the rain, promising that we would build something solid together.

But we hadn't built anything. I had built it. He had merely occupied the space.

I traced the line of his jaw with my eyes, resisting the urge to reach out and shake him awake. Bella’s words from the elevator echoed in the dark. *I just wanted what was mine.* She believed the Vance fortune was her birthright, and Mark had become her instrument of retrieval. But what was I?

I looked at his hands, resting loosely on the duvet. The hands that had signed the marriage license, the mortgage deeds, the children’s birth certificates. Every signature had been a transaction. I wasn't his wife; I was his line of credit. I was the guarantor who made the loans possible, the human shield against the financial ruin my sister dragged behind her like a train.

Did he ever love me? Or was I just the necessary infrastructure for the life he wanted with her?

A tear slipped from the corner of my eye, hot and humiliating. It slid into my hair, cold against my scalp. I wiped it away furiously. I couldn't afford grief. Grief was a luxury for women who weren't calculating the precise moment to destroy their husbands.

Mark shifted. His brow furrowed, a sudden flicker of distress crossing his features. His hand twitched, reaching out into the empty space between us. He was dreaming. Perhaps of the flight on Friday. Perhaps of the money clearing.

I held my breath, watching the rapid movement of his eyes beneath the lids. He let out a soft, whimpering sound, the noise a child makes when they lose a toy. His fingers grasped at the sheet, pulling it tight.

Then his lips parted. The word was soft, a breathy exhaling of longing that shattered the last fragment of my denial.

He murmured 'Bella' in his sleep.