Page 25 of Brutal Husband

Nero stays in the bathroom for a long time. Exhaustion overwhelms me, and I fall asleep.

The oblivion of sleep is sweet. So are the few moments of confusion upon awakening when I don’t know where I am. Then it all comes rushing back in a great, miserable wave.

My husband is asleep on the sofa in the next room. I can see him without getting out of bed. He’s taken off his wedding clothes and covered himself with a spare blanket, and his beaten face is even more swollen and painful-looking this morning.

Mom was right about Nero, and about me as well. I was too naive, thinking everything would be all right.

Should I leave? If I go home, Mom will crow and laugh, and I’ll feel worse than ever.

I don’t know what to do, so I turn the TV on with the volume low and flick through the channels. A news story catches my eye. A body was discovered in a burning car under a bridge in the early hours of the morning. Just about every bone in the victim’s body was broken, but they were able to identify them.

It’s Paul Shields. He’s been murdered.

8

Rieta

“This is the Eiffel Tower. Well, you know that. Everyone does! But it’s a lot bigger in person than it looks. And this is the Arc de Triomphe. My goodness, the traffic in Paris. Oh, this is the most adorable little bakery where we bought croissants. It’s called abolong—boulang—something like that. Anyway, it’s a bakery.”

I talk quickly as I swipe through the photos on my phone for my mom and sisters, hoping that no one notices that they’re just about all scenery. Nero is in none of the photos. All the pictures of me are selfies in which I’m trying to smile convincingly.

Isabel and Mia seem to believe we had a lovely honeymoon, but I can tell from Mom’s expression that she’s not buying it.

Isabel has an eyelash appointment and says goodbye, and Mia heads upstairs to do her homework. Mom and I are alone.

From across the kitchen table, she gives me an appraising look. “It’s just the two of us, so you don’t have to pretend anymore. Well?”

“Well, what?” I say with a shrug, putting my phone back into my handbag.

“Rieta, you’re married. I’ve been married. We can talk to each other as equals.”

Equals. That’s new. Until a few weeks ago, I was a disobedient daughter to be locked in the basement. I don’t trust Mom, and I don’t want to confide in anyone about my marital problems.

We sit in frosty silence.

“Did Nero do something to make you angry?” she asks.

“He’s angry with me,” I mutter.

Angry is an understatement. He won’t look at me. He won’t even share a bed with me. As soon as we returned from Paris, Nero told me to sleep in the master bedroom and made up a different bed for himself down the hall. It’s utterly confusing and humiliating.

“What did you do?”

It’s not like there’s anyone else in my life who I can talk about this with, and I dearly want to defend myself to someone. “I didn’t do anything wrong. He’s being unreasonable.”

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the whole truth.”

“I never betrayed him or pretended to be someone I wasn’t. I only acted in a way that I thought was making us both happy.”

“Oh, Rieta,” Mom says with a pitying sigh. “You slept with him before the wedding, didn’t you?”

Anger bursts through me, and I say defiantly, “I don’t see what’s so bad about that or why I’m to blame. It takes two people to make something like that happen. He’s acting like I cheated on my husband by having sex with my fiancé.”

“You little fool. Seducing you before the wedding? That was a test, and you failed. He’s thinking that if you slept with him before you were married, who’s to say you won’t sleep with other men? That you haven’t already? You should have told himno and preserved yourself for your wedding night. Men want a fantasy. They need perfection.”

“That’s not what love is!” I exclaim.

“Love? Who said anything about love?” Mom scoffs. “Your marriage was arranged by him and me. I thought I raised you with more sense.”

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