door and walked outside with her. “Well?” he said, a smile on his face for the benefit of a patient who walked around both of them to enter the clinic.
“Well what, Ian?”
“You really have a pissy attitude lately, Emily. I don’t like it. At all.”
“I know,” Emily said, marching toward the parking lot. What was it her mother always said, don’t cut off your nose to spite your face? Something like that. And that’s exactly what she was doing. It was time she asserted herself where Ian was concerned. Right now the laundry was the biggest bone of contention. Grocery shopping the second. Their attitude toward one another. Slave-master relationships, Pete said, went out with the dark ages.
Maybe she had things out of order. She didn’t know anything anymore. She was a robot doing things automatically. She didn’t think anymore, didn’t exercise her brain at all. All she did was work, eat, sleep, and cry.
Things were going to change, Emily thought as she jammed the key in the lock of her apartment door. And they were going to have to change soon.
Someday I’m going to live in a real house and this rinky-dink apartment and all my problems will be over. If you believe that, Emily Thorn, you’re a fool. She sat down on the hard, wooden chair and stared into space. Someday…
Chapter 5
E mily stared at the laundry basket. in her eyes it represented an insurmountable mountain. Each day it got higher and higher. She stuck her foot into the basket and crunched down Ian’s white shirts. She didn’t feel any kind of satisfaction. Suddenly she wanted to count the shirts, needed desperately to know the numbers so she could calculate the days she and Ian had been at war. She upended the basket, kicking each shirt into the basket as she counted. When she was done, she jumped into the plastic basket and stomped with both feet. Forty shirts at three shirts a day meant thirteen and a half days. But then that wasn’t right either because Ian hadn’t come home for a few days during the snowstorm. She was stomping on two weeks’ worth of white shirts, maybe more.
The refrigerator was still empty, and there were no goodies or munchies in the cupboards. She still made only her side of the bed.
The Thorns were at war.
Emily’s nerves were in such a fragile state she no longer knew if what she was doing was right or not. If Ian would just say something, do something, make some kind gesture, she would react accordingly. Positively. She couldn’t go on like this much longer. Emily looked at the clock. Five minutes to midnight. She was home early tonight because Pete had decided to close early.
Emily raced for the bathroom and turned on the shower. When Ian wasn’t home, she could make all the noise she wanted. She could stand under the shower for hours or until the water ran cold. Tonight she’d be able to wash her hair twice with the new coconut shampoo and hopefully get the stench of Pete’s deep fryer out of her hair. The cigarette smoke she reeked of would disappear if she carried her clothes out to the kitchen and dumped them in her laundry basket.
“You are one screwed-up, mixed-up puppy, Emily Thorn,” she muttered as she lathered up her hair. In some cockamamie way she justified the feeling by telling herself if she recognized that she was half nuts she wouldn’t cross over the invisible line into insanity.
An hour later, Emily’s hair was dry, she was powdered and dressed in a high-necked, flannel nightgown and in between the covers. She was almost asleep when she heard Ian come in. She felt a tremor in her body and then another. God, how she wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted him. But more than anything, she wanted to rear up in bed and scream at the top of her lungs, I’m sorry! Love me, Ian, please love me. I’ll do whatever you want. Say you love me, say this is just something married couples go through. Say it, say it even if it’s a lie and you don’t mean it. She fought with
“Well what, Ian?”
“You really have a pissy attitude lately, Emily. I don’t like it. At all.”
“I know,” Emily said, marching toward the parking lot. What was it her mother always said, don’t cut off your nose to spite your face? Something like that. And that’s exactly what she was doing. It was time she asserted herself where Ian was concerned. Right now the laundry was the biggest bone of contention. Grocery shopping the second. Their attitude toward one another. Slave-master relationships, Pete said, went out with the dark ages.
Maybe she had things out of order. She didn’t know anything anymore. She was a robot doing things automatically. She didn’t think anymore, didn’t exercise her brain at all. All she did was work, eat, sleep, and cry.
Things were going to change, Emily thought as she jammed the key in the lock of her apartment door. And they were going to have to change soon.
Someday I’m going to live in a real house and this rinky-dink apartment and all my problems will be over. If you believe that, Emily Thorn, you’re a fool. She sat down on the hard, wooden chair and stared into space. Someday…
Chapter 5
E mily stared at the laundry basket. in her eyes it represented an insurmountable mountain. Each day it got higher and higher. She stuck her foot into the basket and crunched down Ian’s white shirts. She didn’t feel any kind of satisfaction. Suddenly she wanted to count the shirts, needed desperately to know the numbers so she could calculate the days she and Ian had been at war. She upended the basket, kicking each shirt into the basket as she counted. When she was done, she jumped into the plastic basket and stomped with both feet. Forty shirts at three shirts a day meant thirteen and a half days. But then that wasn’t right either because Ian hadn’t come home for a few days during the snowstorm. She was stomping on two weeks’ worth of white shirts, maybe more.
The refrigerator was still empty, and there were no goodies or munchies in the cupboards. She still made only her side of the bed.
The Thorns were at war.
Emily’s nerves were in such a fragile state she no longer knew if what she was doing was right or not. If Ian would just say something, do something, make some kind gesture, she would react accordingly. Positively. She couldn’t go on like this much longer. Emily looked at the clock. Five minutes to midnight. She was home early tonight because Pete had decided to close early.
Emily raced for the bathroom and turned on the shower. When Ian wasn’t home, she could make all the noise she wanted. She could stand under the shower for hours or until the water ran cold. Tonight she’d be able to wash her hair twice with the new coconut shampoo and hopefully get the stench of Pete’s deep fryer out of her hair. The cigarette smoke she reeked of would disappear if she carried her clothes out to the kitchen and dumped them in her laundry basket.
“You are one screwed-up, mixed-up puppy, Emily Thorn,” she muttered as she lathered up her hair. In some cockamamie way she justified the feeling by telling herself if she recognized that she was half nuts she wouldn’t cross over the invisible line into insanity.
An hour later, Emily’s hair was dry, she was powdered and dressed in a high-necked, flannel nightgown and in between the covers. She was almost asleep when she heard Ian come in. She felt a tremor in her body and then another. God, how she wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted him. But more than anything, she wanted to rear up in bed and scream at the top of her lungs, I’m sorry! Love me, Ian, please love me. I’ll do whatever you want. Say you love me, say this is just something married couples go through. Say it, say it even if it’s a lie and you don’t mean it. She fought with
Similar Books
