“I’ll see myself out. I think we can safely call this wedding night a failure as well,” she sniffed.
I cradled my head in my hands as the door slammed. Blind rage made my fingers wrap around the lamp on the bedside table, and I tossed it into the wall.
“Fuck,” I shouted as it shattered, exploding into pieces. The lust stored in my body whipped into a frenzy of furious rage. My brain blanked as my nerve endings melted under the force of it. It wasn’t enough. I picked up the empty teacup and hurled itagainst the wall. The reddish dregs of liquid dripped down like blood. I froze, looking at it with slowly widening eyes. My chest heaved, and I tried to slow my breathing. But it whistled out, shock stealing my ability to regulate.
What a fool I’d been.
Anita hadn’t given me fertility tea. She’d dosed me with something that’d kept my dick flaccid and ineffectual. No wonder she’d changed her mind about tonight. She knew it wouldn’t lead to anything.
My world became red, red tea, red drips. Fiery flames of rage.
My vision blurred, tinged red as fury choked my intestines. Had The Gardener given it to her? So he could keep her all to himself?
A soft laugh bubbled out of me, turned maniacal. It echoed in the sad, empty bedroom. The way she’d played me tonight had been calculated and cruel. But I couldn’t sift through the apocalyptic rage to linger on the spark of pride.
My wife wasn’t sweet. I’d been double the fool to believe that.
But what was she?
I wouldn’t stop until I found out.
9
Age 16
“Don’t you want to try my shortbread?” I asked my mom, pasting on a sweet smile. She couldn’t hide the flicker of doubt in her eyes.
“Are they the same batch from last week, when you had morning tea with Richard?” she asked, bringing her teacup to her painted lips. Her bangles clattered together on her wrist. Morning light filtered through the plants I’d added to the sitting room. It wasn’t the same as the greenhouse, but the scent soothed me. I needed it. Mom had insisted on me courting some sons from her insipid group. I was sixteen, and she was already trying to marry me off. Richard was one in a long line of thinly veiled courting attempts I’d ruined.
This had been my most rebellious one yet.
“They are,” I confirmed, tilting my head. “But still perfectly delicious.”
I held out the plate to her, and she grimaced, taking it from me with a shake of her head. I shrugged and took a healthy bite, making a noise of approval. Her breath shuddered out of her.
“They’ll be stale by now. Best to dispose of them.”
She rang the little silver bell on the table and told the maid, who appeared to put them in the trash. Her shoulders slumped as the offending plate disappeared.
“I’ll just make more,” I warned her.
She snapped. Her cup clattering in the saucer as she shoved it away. One bony finger shook at me.
“I know what you did to that boy, Anita. I can’t believe I raised a child with such evil in her.”
“You didn’t raise me,” I shot back, putting down my cup and crossing my arms over the flouncy dress she’d forced me into. If Richard had kept his hands to himself, I wouldn’t have felt the need to send him back to his mother, slack-jawed and foaming from the mouth. Mom leaned forward and her chest heaved. The array of biscuits and sweets was the only true source of sweetness in this room. She had to mask her black soul with tailored clothes, layers of make-up, and a smile that fooled everyone but me.
“If your father were here, he would be ashamed of what you have become,” her voice shook with barely constrained rage.
My father.
The wound in my heart tore. It never healed completely. Not even on the one-year anniversary of his disappearance. Every day I ached for his quiet tutelage. The way he would teach me curse words with a twinkle in his eye. I caught my bottom lip between my teeth and bit down until I had the blaring emotions under control. They coursed through my veins like interlopers, making my skin feel taut over my bones.
“How fortuitous that he’s gone then,” I whispered, lifting the tea and pouring another cup. He might be gone, but he hadn’tbeen forgotten. No matter how hard my mom tried to erase his memory. Make it as if he had never existed. Mom was wrong, as she usually was.
He would glow with pride for me. I know it.
I hadn’t seen my husband for two days. That wasn’t unusual with his work. But I knew it was the humiliation I’d dealt him.
