Chapter 3: The Severed Ties
I took the stairs two at a time, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
The master en-suite was thick with a humid, lavender-scented steam. The massive soaking tub was already half-drained, the water swirling sluggishly down the chrome grate. A heavy towel lay discarded on the heated tile, soaked through with gray, soapy water. Sarah had clearly helped Audrey scrub away the caustic bleach and the stench of her humiliation, because Audrey was now sitting on the edge of our king-sized mattress, swallowed up by one of my oversized, worn cotton T-shirts. She was shivering inside a thick terrycloth robe, her wet, dark hair woven into a loose braid that hung heavy over her left shoulder.
She looked so fragile, so heartbreakingly small, that a physical ache bloomed behind my sternum.
Sarah slipped past me into the hallway, moving with the quiet reverence of a ghost, squeezing my forearm once in a silent gesture of solidarity before she disappeared. The heavy bedroom door clicked shut, sealing the two of us inside. And suddenly, it was only me, my wife, and the vast, terrifying chasm that unspoken fear can excavate inside a marriage without either partner fully realizing it until it is too late.
I crossed the carpet and knelt on the floor directly between her knees.
“I am so deeply sorry,” I breathed, the words fracturing the second they left my tongue.
Audrey refused to meet my eyes. She stared intently at her hands, resting in her lap. Her knuckles were inflamed and raw. I noticed a thin, angry red abrasion circling her left wrist where the coarse rag had scraped her skin. As soon as she felt my gaze tracking the injury, she reflexively reached over and tugged the oversized sleeve down to conceal it.
