Michael

She never looks at me at dinner time anymore. Instead, her eyes are cast downwards, half-moon lids shrouding the truth as her fingertips deftly dance across the screen of her phone. Occasionally she puts the phone down and picks up her fork to toy with the half-eaten vegetables swimming in gravy. She does not finish the meal but shifts the food mindlessly around her plate whilst the glass of wine remains untouched beside her.

I know the wine is expensive. The extravagance is a cursory nod to our anniversary, and the cork leaves red stains on the table, smearing the surface like flecks of blood. The liquid in the glass gleams a rich, deep colour that looks almost black in the dim light of the dining room.

My own wine glass is empty and she does not move to pour me any. We sit in suffocating silence as I continue to watch her from across the table.

I do not eat either.

Who can she be texting? A colleague from school where she teaches? A friend? Someone more than a friend?

I cannot ask.

But I know the signs.

The late nights and unexplained absences from home. The expanding wardrobe of new clothes. The unnatural rouge of her lips. The streaks of highlights in her hair where there were grey sprinkles only a few months ago.

Although perhaps it has been longer than a few months? Time loses its value when every day is the same.

Our wedding photo adorns the mantlepiece next to the table, reminding me of happier times. Buoyant smiles, white teeth and youthful optimism. She is radiant in her ivory dress with pearl drops glittering in her ear lobes. My arm is around her waist and I clutch her tightly as though I would never let her go. I know I never meant to. The camera must have caught us off guard as neither of us are looking at the lens. Instead, we’re facing each other. She is laughing, her eyes creasing up at each end and pink lips spread across her face in a wide grin.

The laughter lines have since been permanently carved into her face, and folds of wrinkles anxiously appear on her forehead whenever she raises her eyebrows. Tonight, her head is slightly bowed as she texts on her phone, and I notice that the highlights have not quite succeeded in covering all the grey strands on the top of her head.

But I think she is even more beautiful now than she was on our wedding day. Lines have etched character and wisdom into her face. Her red-rimmed, weary eyes speak of the children she dedicates her life to teaching at school. There are inevitably no photos of children in our dining room – the walls are stark and white.

Only our wedding photo gives any clue to our identities.

I love her.

I hate her.

My hate is a measure of my love. I hate her for forgetting what we had.

We always said we’d never be one of those couples – the ones who sit silently together in coffee shops and restaurants, having exhausted all avenues of conversation and with the light extinguished in their eyes.

That would never be us, we said.

Now we are like ghosts lingering in the night and the yawning void between us seems eternal. I reach out to touch her hair, and I feel a momentary prickling of warmth, not unlike static electricity. She flinches, her hand brushing me away as she might an insect.

She doesn’t even look up from her phone.

A surge of anger pulses through me. It’s not as though I ever demand much attention. But it’s our anniversary! She could at least acknowledge me. Or show some kind of respect for our marriage.

I clench my fist into a ball and in a fit of rage I punch the wedding photo off the mantlepiece. It shatters with the cracking of broken glass and lands face down with an ear-piercing snap. The sudden sound lances through the night breaking the clotted silence.

She puts down the phone and looks up at me.

I finally have her attention.

‘Michael?’ she asks.

Her mouth trembles and her eyes open wide, simmering with questions. I attempt to give her my sternest look. Yet, still she looks right through me, as though I’m not there. Tears glisten in her eyes like glass and her rosy lips contort in anguish.

She snatches the photo up from the floor and examines the damage. The pane is cracked, forging silver fault lines across our once happy, youthful faces. She lays it back face down on the mantlepiece, hiding the broken shards of glass.

I instantly feel invisible again. Our photograph, the only remnant of our marriage has been cast away out of sight. Forgotten.

Without speaking, she starts to clear up the plates. She plugs the green wine bottle with a stopper, despite the fact neither of us have drank a drop. What a waste. But my sighs of dissatisfaction are lost to the wind. The silence clouds over the room again seeping in like a thick invisible fog.

Out of the blue, the phone starts to purr and vibrate on the table. It jiggles from side to side with a life of its own; the metallic tinny ring is jarring and abrasive as it clamours for attention after being neglected for at least a minute. She drops the plates back on the table with a clatter and leaps, cat-like, for the phone.

‘Hello?’ she says putting the phone to her ear.

I hold my breath, and wonder if it could be him? Whoever he is. The one who has taken her from me.

But I hear the familiar sounds of her best friend squeaking down the phone from the other end of the line. The high-pitched cadence is unmistakeable even if I cannot hear the words.

‘Yes, I’m fine’ she says, her voice leaden with tiredness. ‘No, you don’t need to come over. Perhaps tomorrow instead. I just want to be alone tonight.’

She balances the phone between her jaw and shoulder and wipes her eyes with her fists. Alone?

‘No… seriously it’s ok,’ she says. ‘I mean... it’s time I got a grip, right? Moved on? It’s been five years since he… you know...’

She picks up the glass of wine and moves towards the door. ‘It’s just sometimes it still feels like he’s with me. Looking down on me. Watching me… I loved him so much.’

Her voice stumbles and the tears are back. I feel a strange sense of satisfaction at the sight, followed almost immediately by a feeling of guilt for making her cry.

Guilt for not being there for the last five years. Guilt for going away.

How can I blame her for anything?

‘We’d have been married fifteen years today,’ she’s saying as she switches off the light and closes the door, leaving me alone in the darkness. The conversation continues as I hear the light tread of footsteps on the stairs, but I do not follow, wishing to hear no more.

I did not want to leave, and so I have wandered the house for five years now, all the time hoping for small tokens of recognition. She does not always see me, but there was a time when she heard my voice in the morning birdsong or would think of our love whenever she saw a sunset. The scent of my aftershave still permeated our bedsheets and she’d catch the sound of my whispers from the four walls of the home we made together.

So, I linger on, hoping each day she might see me, and for a ghost of a smile in those gentle, sad eyes. Occasionally, on evenings like this one, she realises I am still here, remembering and loving her despite the gulf between us.

Her voice drifts from upstairs, high-pitched and heedless.

‘Yes, it’s going well…’ I’m sure I hear her say. ‘It’s early days yet. And it still feels strange after… after everything. But we’re taking things slow.’

She sees and hears my presence less and less as each day passes. The musk of my aftershave has been eradicated long ago by corporeal, busier scents. My cries melt into the silent sadness of the walls. I tread more gently and soundlessly around the house – a tentative guest now rather than the resident I once was. My whispers are becoming quieter and vanish into the creaking of the staircase or become lost to the sound of the wind rattling the window panes.

I hear a laugh, an alien sound that seems to shudder through the walls and pierce me utterly.

It’s been such a long time since I heard her laugh.

I know it’s only a matter of time before I fade away completely.