Etching Our Way (Broken Tracks 1)

His car is in the driveway when I arrive, but it’s at a weird angle, like he was in a rush when he parked. Weird. I walk into the house calling, “I’m home.” My voice echoing off the colorful walls of the hallway.

“Shit!” I hear his voice coming from the kitchen so I place my purse on top of the table in the hallway and walk in that direction. I turn the corner and see a topless Gerry—my husband of the past seven years—bent over the sink, furiously scrubbing at something.

“Gerry? Are you okay?” I ask, making him jump and swirl around, dropping whatever he has in his hands into the sink.

He frowns. “Fine, why do you ask?”

“You look… frazzled.” I step toward him, pointing at the sink. “Anything I can help you with?”

“No, I—I can do it,” he stammers out, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallows.

“Okay, if you’re sure?” He nods and turns back around, scrubbing again at what I see is the white shirt he was wearing when he left for work this morning. “Spill something on your shirt?”

“God, Harmony, can I not have five minutes peace!” he shouts, hands braced on the kitchen counter.

“I…” Deciding it’s not worth the argument, I nod my head even though he can’t see me. “When you calm down, I need to talk to you,” I mumble in shock at his outburst. I was only trying to help.

I watch as his back tenses but with a flick of his head, I realize that’s the only answer I’m going to get from him. I leave him to his bad mood and walk up the stairs to have a much needed soak in the bath to try and gather all of my thoughts. This won’t go down as well as I thought it would, not that I was expecting the talk that I wanted to have with him to go down well, but things need to change—he needs to change, but in this mood, I can see things blowing up.

I’ve been walking on eggshells for I don’t know how long with him. Everything I do seems to be wrong and everything I say gets ignored or ridiculed.

I sigh and turn the taps on the side of the bath, pouring in some lilac bubble bath and watching as the bubbles foam up, bringing with it the smell of lavender. I strip off my clothes and climb into the bath, leaning my head back against my bath pillow and trying to relax as much as I can.

My mind won’t let me relax though, it keeps wandering back to Gerry’s odd behavior. He can’t resent me that much, surely?

A while later as I’m dropping off to sleep, there’s a knock on the bathroom door and I startle before clearing my throat.

“Come in,” I call.

Gerry walks in with his head facing the tiled floor as he shuts the door behind him and walks over to me, sitting on the side of the bath before he finally gets the courage to look up at me. “I’m sorry, Harm.” His blue eyes sparkle and he gives me a small smile.

“I was only trying to help.” I keep my voice soft; I don’t want to say anything that’ll cause him to act the way that he did earlier.

“I know, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I’m not making excuses, but I’ve had a crappy day at work.” He sighs. “How about you get out of the bath and then we can talk?”

He pulls a large towel off the towel warmer and holds it open, waiting for me to get out. I do what he says and pull out the plug, watching as the water starts swirling down the drain.

I catch his eyes scanning my body as I step out of the bath, my gaze focusing on his lip as he sucks it in between his teeth. Now is not the time for that.

I turn around when I get to him, letting him wrap the towel around my body before he spins me so I’m facing him again.

With his arms around my waist, he says, “You go and get dressed and I’ll pour us a glass of wine each,” before kissing me on the forehead and leaving the room.

It hurts to think about how he normally is when he’s being the man I married, not the critical, resentful man he’s become, but I need to get this off my chest before it eats me up inside.

Stepping into our walk-in closet, I pull on a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt before towel drying my hair and braiding it over my shoulder. I grab the damp towel off the floor and trudge back into the steamy bathroom, picking up my clothes from earlier and opening the laundry basket.

Seeing it’s overflowing, I take a deep breath and decide that I should do a load of laundry so I can put this conversation off for a few more minutes. I pick up the basket and carry it downstairs, walking through the kitchen and into the laundry room.

“Babe?”

“Just doing the laundry, be there in a second,” I call back through the house as I place the basket on top of the counter.

I sort our clothes into piles of whites and darks—how can a family of two have so much laundry in so few days?—picking up a few of Gerry’s work shirts and scrunching up my nose as I do. An odd smell lingers on them, but I’d know it a mile off—perfume. It’s not my perfume, but it’s definitely a perfume smell.

I’m about to put it down to him being around a lot of female students when he barrels into the room, ripping the shirts out of my hands. “I’ll do the laundry, you go and sit down. Go and relax.”

I take the shirts out of his hands and open the washing machine. “No, the last time you did a load you turned all the whites gray.” I chuckle but it teeters off as I frown at the sodden shirt in the bottom of the machine. “You really need to treat this before it gets washed if you’ve stained—”