COMING ALIVE

Serena turned over in bed. She had been doing that for a while.

No matter how much she tried, she just couldn’t sleep. She looked longingly at the figure snoring slightly beside her, then she looked away again. How could he sleep with no care when she was on fire here?

She wanted to resent him sometimes, but then she couldn’t because he was her love. They had known each other forever, and he had kept his promise and married her. They have a house of their own that was a joint gift from their parents, and he was an ideal husband.

All she had to do was learn to be an ideal wife, which she seemed to be finding difficulties with. An ideal wife didn’t work when her husband and family told her that was the right thing to do, but Serena had found that difficult to accept.

What on earth had she slaved through school for? She had felt betrayed too that Mathew had waited till after their wedding to tell her that he did not want his wife to work; he wanted her to be a full housewife like his mother. Just like her mother.

Serena could still remember how unhappy she had been, and she had fought him then with bitter words. Words she still couldn’t believe were uttered by her. The way Mathew's eyes had widened then also indicated that he was shocked too.

She calmed down immediately after she saw that look. After all, she didn’t want to shock her husband. She wanted to be a good wife just like her mother was.

Mathew had heaved a sigh when he saw that her tirade was over. Then he touched her shoulder gently.

“I don't want to fight with you, Serena. I know you are still upset right now, but you will soon find out that it is for the best. We are not lacking anything, are we? My job as a marketer is going fine. The salary is good, and I might even get promoted very soon. We have this house, and we do not have to spend much on food or anything. What else do you need to work for when I can take good care of the family? You just need to take care of the house and the children we will have soon. That is not too much to ask, is it?”

He had asked in the reasonable tone that had been one of the things she loved about him. She had felt secure in his maturity when most of their mates in school had been so immature. 

Mathew had been so stable and reliable, that she never had to worry about a cheating partner like most of her friends.

Her roommate-turned-best friend had gone through different heartbreaks. Amara fell in and out of love so frequently that Serena had lost count.

It had always been the guy’s fault. Nope, never Amara’s.

She would swear off love, promise herself never to fall in love ever again, and damn all guys to hell and back while eating her signature ice cream.

All the angst would be forgotten in a snap when next she saw another guy, and she was singing “I am in love” all over their dorm.

Serena had never had to deal with all of those dramas with Mathew. He was the ideal boyfriend any girl could ask for, any girl but Amara, who had always called him a zero-spice, to say the least.

But when next she got jilted, she would be the first person to point him out as a good model for boyfriends.

Serena felt she was lucky to have such a mature boyfriend, but she soon realised that mature might not be what she wanted after all, at least not such constant maturity as Mathew's.

Now he could stand in front of her to tell her that she shouldn’t work? He thought she was just upset? She wanted to scream at him, yell, and throw things.

She wanted to ask him just how he would feel if he was asked to drop all his qualifications and dreams just so he could be a househusband.

She knew what his answer would be, of course. He would look at her like she had lost her mind. That had never been heard of in Chevsko.

So she calmed herself and recited the mantras that came more easily to her these days. The “A good wife shouldn’t” mantra. This time it was “a good wife shouldn’t raise her voice at her husband.”

“Mathew,” she had started as calmly as she could manage with her surprising temper, “I went to school to study just as you did. I want to have a career. I didn’t work so hard for almost five years to be a certified nurse just so I could come home and be a housewife. I can be a housewife and still do my practice. I want to be able to practice. I want to be able to help people. I am good at this and…”

Mathew raised his hand at this point “And you would help when we have our kids, which will be soon if you agree to be reasonable and stay at home to raise our family. You will have enough nursing to do. I won’t have to come back home to an empty house while our children would be left with a babysitter just because you wanted to practise!” he said with a snap in his tone.

Serena couldn’t keep it in again, so she asked, “Would you do the same?”

He looked at her incomprehensibly. “Would I do what same?”

Serena knew she should stop, yet she voiced it anyway, “Can you leave your job and be a stay-at-home husband while I go out to work? Since you are so concerned about the children that we do not have yet. Would you do that?” She asked him with her hands on her waist as her anger unravelled. 

He looked at her just as she had expected “Are you crazy? That is unheard of. I am the husband, and I am supposed to work for the family, and your work as the wife should be to take care of the house and our kids. My father…”

“With due respect, I do not want to hear about your father right now, nor do I want to know how he is that patriarch of the family. What a backward way of thinking. Fuck you!”

There! she said it.

She was shocked at her raised voice and the word she thought she would never utter to him.

A hysterical giggle wanted to erupt in her throat when she saw the way his jaw dropped in reaction too.

The sensible voice in her head told her she had gone too far this time.

Yet she repeated it anyway.

“Yes, fuck you! You…you stupid man,” she said before she stormed out of their flat in anger.