My Husband Came Home Today

Content Warning- Contains themes of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse, and mental illness. Please proceed with caution.

My husband came home today.

He stood in the doorway, as clean and polished as the last day I had seen him. He gave me a broad smile that tilted up on the right side where there was a faint, silvery scar. His childhood cat had given it to him, he had told me once. The pine scent of his aftershave, layered with the spice of his cologne, washed over me and sank into my senses. The familiar slant of his rugged jaw, and the ridge of his nose- I knew them as well as I knew my own face. But the man who waited patiently on the front step was not my husband.

"W-who are you?" My question was strained and weak, betraying my shock at his sudden arrival. A fine tremble started in my knees and radiated upwards until I was sure I would crumble to the ground.

"I'm your husband, Betty." His smile grew wider and he held his arms open invitingly. "Aren't you going to let me inside?"

My clammy hand spasmed on the doorknob and I took an uncertain step back. The thing pretending to be Howard squeezed past me, brushing his rough palm against the small of my back and placing a chaste kiss to my cold cheek. It was an old ritual of ours. Every day that Howard came home, he would kiss my cheek and I would let him in.

"What's for breakfast?" Howard asked as he cheerfully removed the tailored jacket he wore and hung it on a nearby coat stand. I woodenly closed the door and tried to swallow around my paralyzed tongue.

"Eggs... and fruit."

I waited for the inevitable explosion, but it never came. My husband couldn't stomach eggs, and didn't care much for fruit. Not Howard just gave a thoughtful hum and strode into the kitchen like he had a thousand times before. I trailed in his wake, my pulse thudding erratically against my sternum like a bird caught in a trap. Like a pet cat strangled by a young child, lashing out for any chance at life.

"I- I can make you something else, if you like."

The thing that wasn't my husband waved my words away and crossed to the kitchen to the coffee maker where I had just put on a full pot. He reached up, opened the cabinet above, and pulled down two cups. In one, he poured regular black coffee and, in the other, he poured cream and three tablespoons of sugar. Just like I liked it.

"Sit, sit."

I had learned long ago to follow Howard's instructions. I sank into my chair, the kitchen suddenly feeling too large and yet suffocating at the same time. The light overhead and the sunlight streaming in from the patio doors was blinding. Sweat beaded across my forehead.

Howard placed the cup of coffee in front of me and sat across the table in his usual chair. Leaning back comfortably, he sipped on his own coffee and trailed his eyes over me. Everywhere his gaze touched itched, as if my skin had grown two sizes too small for my bones. When he looked at me, it was like he looked through me, like he was penetrating through muscle and bone and sinew to look into the gray, pulsing meat of my brain. I wondered what he saw there that made him focus so intently on me. I wondered if he could taste my terror in the same way that Howard used to be able to. I wondered if he liked it.

I couldn't look at him, the thing wearing my husband's body like a cheap suit. My stare roved restlessly around the kitchen, slipping to the patio doors and to the garden outside. There was a patch of dirt there, roughly the size of an adult man, where carefully-planted rose bushes grew. The bushes nor the dirt beneath them had been disturbed. It had been months since I had planted those roses while telling neighbors and distant relatives that my husband had left me for a younger woman.

"You look awfully nervous, darling."

My gaze swung back to Howard. There was a faint darkness glimmering in the depths of his pupils that I had never seen before, and my heart shrank in fear, my stomach churning with sickening adrenaline. My hands curled around the coffee mug in front of me, and I hoped he didn't notice the way they trembled ever so slightly.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, Betty. I would never hurt you. You have nothing to fear from me. I just want to make my wife happy."

The thing that wasn't my husband didn't break his promise. It was too easy to slip into the habits of my role as a wife. When I made a mistake while cooking or cleaning, I waited for a slap that never came. At night, there was no question that the being that had infiltrated my home wasn't Howard. The hands that touched me didn't hurt, the mouth that kissed mine didn't reek of stale liquor and pungent tobacco smoke, and pleasure was lavished upon me like nothing I had ever known.

In time, I forgot to care that the creature wasn't my husband. Sometimes, the hands were closer to talons and the mouth was filled with sharpened teeth, but I had grown spoiled and lazy with attention. I didn't know if the creature was a punishment or a reward, but the importance of the question faded with each passing day. And the moments where the sight of something not quite human lurking in the shadows was enough to jar me from my stupor, I would have the mind to ask him again.

"Who are you?"

He would answer me every time, his voice a soft snarl, "I'm your husband, Betty."

After a while, I stopped asking. It was just that simple. My husband had come home.