CHAPTER THREE

The weeks flew by with the bitter winter wind. Not that it was ever very sunny in Mississauga but the air didn’t drive this sort of chill that hugged your joints and bones or perhaps it was the air from my lonely nights that had grown cold.

Each night since the agreement started it took him longer and longer to return to my bed. The room that was one ours slowly became mine and no event proved it more than the night he didn’t return to warm my bed.

“Why didn’t you come?” I asked with short breaths running off my nostrils.

“I...I...I...” he replied with a stammering tongue.

“Why didn’t you come back, Gregory Conor?”

His shoulders flattened with heavy bouts of air existing his lungs.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I must have been really tired.”

“It’s okay,” I replied, jumping down from the bed and knotting my arms around his neck.

“Get ready for work,” I said with a little sob distancing myself from him.

By the time the first light of day cracked the shell of darkness, he was already by the side of his vehicle, the Subaru. As the second largest shareholder in the company he was entitled to the latest versions of each model and the Impreza was his darling whose black colour shone brightest among his collection.

His face bore no emotions, watching me on the balcony as the engines roared and the tires screeched for the road.

“Good morning,” Agatha greeted from behind me.

“Agathaa,” I said, dragging the last stretch of her name a bit too much to shrug off any dark clouds of pain or pity hovering over my face.

“How did last night go?”

“Usual.”

“Goo...”

“I’m pregnant,” she said and upon her words my heart missed a beat as a line of sweat broke loose from my forehead.

I held my mouth with my palm as gasps gushed out.

She stood a few feet from me rubbing her tummy eloquently with an elongated smirk.

Minutes later I strode to her, embowing her with a warm embrace and a kiss to the forehead.

“Thank you,” I said as she remained unfazed, only passing a wrinkled smile at the death of my every sentence.

By evening Patricia had returned with her from the clinic, walking through the door exchanging giggles and laughs about themselves. Even Gregory flew up at the sight of her, tossing off my head kept on his shoulder. He stood licking his lips as he strapped his arms round her.

“Welcome,” he said.

“ Welcome,” I said with wrinkled cheeks as we held hands.

“Thank you,” she said, turning to Gregory perching the side of her head against the side of his hairy chest which the buttons refused to conceal.

A deep pit grew within the walls of my stomach as my head and shoulders slumped downwards.

I rolled my hands back and forth against my knee as darkness loomed outside my window in the background while I stared at the door, waiting for him to come through that door so I could fire off my tantrums.

“Why were you like that with her?” I asked once he had shut the door.

“Like how,” he replied with a snarl.

“You come back late at night or not at all and now you’re treating her like your wife!!” I said with a drag of air.

“ I thought you said you wouldn’t get hurt by all this. That it was okay with you?” he asked with a discerning gaze.

“Not when you rub it in like that,” I said with shoulders pulled tightly together as my left arm rubbed against my right.

“But this was your idea, wasn’t it?” he yelled

“And now you're blaming me.”

I sensed the flow of raging blood course through him. His skin boiled red and his clenched fist trembled as he looked at me.

“Calm down,” I said, grabbing him by the wrist as he darted towards the door but he brushed aside my hold and continued his raging movements.

“Greg...Babe,” I said chasing after him but he giant strides landed at the mouth of her door as he flings it open and bangs it shut against my face.

“Gregory, Babe,” I yelled, hammering at the door.

“Please...” But my constant knocks and screams were replied with long moans and groans, echoing about the room, the thud of tense bodies scrubbing against each other scrambling across a spread of nylon sheets.

A swelling current slowly rose like a tide covering my eyes and blurring my vision. They fell down racing towards my chin on either side with each sob.

Storming off, I collapsed on the foot of my bed, soaking myself in this river of flowing tears, feeling deep breaths sojourn from me as my body rose and fell. The hot boiling liquid peppered like that of the one from a few evenings ago.

He sat across the extravagant dining table that stretched between us. His eyes bulky as he rolled his fork around the bowl of spaghetti rather than fitting it in his mouth.

“What’s wrong, babe. You’re not eating?” I asked in between mouthfuls of spaghetti.

He hung my questions unanswered, still toying with his food with a face despondent of any feeling.

“Greg,” I called out.

“I lost the client, okay! The company is going bankrupt,” he replied with a hard smack against the table as he stood up.

The smack sent a jolt of shock rummaging through my body as my hand latched on to my drumming heart.

“Babe, we can talk about this gently. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Easy for you to say,” he replied with a snivel, dragging off his coat from the chair as he dashed off.

“Greg,” I said, chasing after him that evening just as I did now but he never responded, he never even spared me a glance. Even when he mounted the stairs I grabbed him by the wrist and he tossed away my arm, sending me crashing down the staircase.

“Violet,” he screamed, picking my head from the ground.

“I’m sorry he said, rubbing my throbbing head that echoed the hammers of each rough landing. He placed me against his chest still caressing my skull when a gasp left my mouth.

The red liquid streamed out from my thigh and although painless they dragged out bouts of cascading bitter tears as I buried my face in him.

He saw them too. His eyes couldn’t bare the sight as he looked up to the ceilings. It was five weeks old when it melted away in the flow of a river of blood.