The Starter Wife by Nina Laurin

Author:Nina Laurin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-07-09T04:00:00+00:00

“Well?” Byron is asking, but he recedes into the background, along with the room, the stove, the crackling fire in the fireplace. All is replaced by a tinny ringing in my ears. I blink, surprised at the grittiness of my eyes. Then I blink again, and everything is restored into order. The steaks hiss alarmingly, begging to be flipped over. I do that, ten seconds too late: The seared side is closer to charred.

Byron sighs, not having gotten an answer to his question, and goes to retrieve one of the wine bottles from the cooler. Absentmindedly, I listen to him huff and puff as he struggles with the cheap corkscrew we just bought.

Without another thought, I pick up the coffee mug with the port in it and drain it in one gulp. It’s so sweet that my teeth echo with a dull pain but it goes down as smooth as grape juice. I refill the mug and take another sip, no longer caring if Byron notices.

He doesn’t. He comes up behind me and hugs me, slipping his hands around my waist. “There, there,” he says. “What does that woman know, anyway? You’re brilliant. Do you want a glass of wine?”

I’m overcome with irrational anger at him. Fiery, searing anger that makes me want to spin around and hit him across the face with the heavy mug I’m holding—just smack it against his jaw, blindly, with all the strength I have. Of course he knew it was going to be a rejection. He never would have married me if he thought I might be threatening to his superiority in any way. No, he gets to play the dejected genius reduced to teaching teenage ingrates, and I’m just his wife, waiting for him with a steak dinner on the table every night. I must never do better than him.

“Yes,” I say. “I’d love a glass of wine.”

It’s that red he likes, way too dark, too bitter, brimming with tannins so strong it’s like biting into an unripe persimmon. But it will do.

“Slow down, honey,” he says when I drain half the glass.

I make myself smile.

We end up eating slightly overdone steak with slightly runny port reduction. He makes sure to praise it far more than it deserves—if it’s a bid to make me feel better, it accomplishes the exact opposite. At least he’s topping off my wineglass without missing a beat, and without unnecessary remarks.

“You should have let me read it,” he’s saying. I have trouble focusing on his words. His face, too, seems to blur around the edges. I’d chalk it up to the wine but the rest of my senses are still sharp as glass. My husband’s image shifts and changes before my eyes like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. He tilts his head, and suddenly, his strong jaw looks misshapen and grotesque, his nose long and pointy, his eyes small and too dark, glinting maliciously from beneath low brow bones. He makes the slightest movement, the light falls

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