Chapter One.

“Honey, I am home!” His voice echos around the large house, making it seem like he had just made a declaration that he was home multiple times instead of once.

Natalia sighs, before she wears a pleasant smile on her lips. She contemplates going outside to welcome him home, but as she dries her hands off, she hears the soft thuds of his Salvatore Ferragamos as they hit the ground and she immediately knows that he is approaching the kitchen area.

“In here, my love!” Natalia exclaims and turns around to lock eyes with the stormy gray eyes of her husband, Noah. Making sure that her hands are completely dry, she goes towards him and leans in to give him a hug.

“Welcome home, honey.” She sighs as she gives him a look full of heartwarming emotion.

“How was your day today? You got here late too, too much work kept you there, huh?”

Noah chuckles as he places a light, feathery kiss on his wife’s forehead and holds her in his arms in a gentle embrace.

Then he looks further from her head, and sees it, and his entire demeanour changes. Immediately, he grabs his wife by the shoulders and holds her at arm’s length with a look of displeasure on his face.

Natalie had felt it. When Noah had come home, she had hoped that he would not make a fuss about anything, and so she had made sure everything was spanking clean and there was not an object in an improper position, or a piece of furniture sitting at the wrong angle.

But then again, she had also felt the switch up after he had placed his lips on her forehead. It was noticeable in the way he had held himself, in such a rigid posture, making him seem brittle in that moment, and in the way his arms had stiffened around her waist and back.

But what was it that was wrong this time? She had wondered. Did I miss another spot today too?

Natalie tilts her head a bit to look at her husband’s eyes, trying to read the emotion in them.

“What’s wrong, Noah? Is everything alright?”

Noah keeps quiet and nods his head steadily for a few minutes before he lets out a sarcastic laugh.

“Yes, everything is absolutely fine, just wonderful! I just had a stressful day at work, and then I had to come home to meet the woman that I had put in this house still in the process of making dinner.”

Natalia turns to human ice after he had said all of that. She had been a bit ill since that morning, but then she took some pain relievers she had found in the house, and had gone to sleep not long after.

Normally, she had always kept to the time, and they had lunch together at six in the evening. If Noah was not home at that time, then she would cover his meal, but leave it still served on the table. They had always lived like that for the past few years.

But she had been ill, and that made her to get some sleep, and that in turn made her to get up late. But in her defence, she still got up to make dinner the moment she got up. It was just unfortunate that Noah had come in only about ten to fifteen minutes afterwards.

Natalie looks up at Noah, unsure of what to say to ease the current situation up.

“Would you speak? And lower your eyes when you are at fault, this is the last time I would repeat that to you.” He says like an instructor dishing out orders.

Natalie lowers her eyes and begins to speak, her tone apologetic.

“I am sorry. I got ill earlier and then I took some pain relievers and I don’t know how, but then I fell asleep. I started cooking dinner as soon as I could though.”

Then in a smaller voice, Natalia adds.

“I am very sorry, Noah.”

Noah shakes his head in a most gentle manner. “Of course. But you did not have to let this happen.” He says as he raises his head higher than it was already raised.

“You are sorry, you were ill, you did this, you are just making stupid excuses, Natalia. A real woman would not allow this to happen. A real woman would be able to manage a home without any fuss, and it would not matter if she was ill or not.” He spits out harshly.

“What do you always moan about? Kids? You want children, do you not?” He says, bending his head and holding her chin to face him. His eyes meets Natalia’s, but almost immediately, they go back to the ground, making Noah swell with a bit of pride.

She kept to that command this time. He thinks.

“You cannot manage a home with only you in it, and occasionally, me, but you want to have children? How do you think that you would be able to handle that?” He roars and Natalia flinches with a whimper.

“I am sorry.” Natalie says, inching further away from Noah as he, in turn, makes his way even closer to her.

“And that cannot change anything, can it?” He asks with a cruel smile. “I cannot come back home to peace and quiet. It’s always you, you disobedient wife. It either you never know what to do, or you never know how to do things properly.” Noah shakes his head as he says so.

“I thought you could be the perfect woman. The model wife. I am only trying to shape you into a better home keeper, but here you are, you ungrateful woman...” Noah continues to speak and Natalia is frightened by his tone of voice.

Once he started using that tone of voice, she always knew what would soon follow.

Natalia stands up with her head holding up straight, but her eyes still on the ground.

I would speak for myself. She decides in a quick burst of bravery.

“Noah, I was ill! If I left the rest to start cooking or anything else, then there was every possibility that I would have passed out and you would have come home to an unconscious, or even a dead wife!” She says, raising her voice slightly to attain her point.

Natalia finally raises her eyes to look up at Noah, and if she had known what was going to happen, then she would have decided to keep her eyes down instead.

THWACK!

The sound of the slap tears the air in the passage connecting the main kitchen to the living room, and the slap stuns Natalia for a few seconds and more as her head remains in the same position that the direction of the force of the slap had pushed it in moments ago.

When she finally regains her senses and then raises her head to look at her husband with a hand on her cheek and stinging eyes filled with slowly dropping tears, she is met with a violent stare.

With a red face, Noah says. “Then I would have been proud that my so called wife had died while doing her duties, instead of shying away from them like the coward you are.”

Noah stuns Natalia again, only with his words this time.

“Noah,” She begins once more with tears in her voice as Noah turns his back to walk away.

“why do you do this to me? The house was very clean, wasn’t it? And I made sure to polish the furniture again, and I even dusted the frames and did everything else that you had asked me to do. I was even almost done with the dinner when you arrived, and before you would have gone up to take a shower and dress up, it would have been served. So why—” She does not say anything else as the tears threatens to choke her.

Then she falls to the ground in a sobbing mess.

Noah merely looks at and over her, with less attention than he would give a housefly. Only that, he would give a housefly a lot of attention, alright.

Insects were not allowed in his house, or near him, and if the odd thing happened— if an insect got into his home, both Natalia and the insect would get it hot, and hard.

And not in the good way.

But this time, it is as if he cannot see Natalia, as he just walks over her to go up to his room, and then he stops briefly at the kitchen entrance with a small, smug smile on his face.

“I did say that you were an incompetent wife after all. Look at the dinner that you had worked hard to prepare. Better hurry before the house goes up on flames, because if it does, and you die,” He turns around to face her almost still form on the ground, her eyes looking up at him and her shoulders quaking.

“then that would mean that you died out of neglect for your duties, you selfish, careless woman, and that all your nagging and moaning eventually turned out to be in vain.” He says with eyes that seemed to glint in the sharp bright light, and he heads up the stairs.

It took Natalia about a minute for the information that she had been given to sink in.

Her eyes started to widen in realisation as she noticed what must have happened. Before the whole arguing episode started, she was in the kitchen, cooking, and not only did her husband successfully down her spirits, but he also did succeed in ruining the dinner that she had left to cook.

Natalia does not doubt the possibility of Noah making sure that the argument would happen as soon as he got displeased so that this would eventually turn out to be the end outcome.

Natalie slowly stands up, holding on to the large pillar by her side, and using it to support her now weak body. Using objects and walls, she walks to the kitchen and sees smoke everywhere.

But why did the smoke alarm not start? She wonders as she looks around before making her way to the fire and turned it off, dumping the pans into the sink before washing her face into it.

Darn the rules, Noah is not here to scold me anyway. She thinks as she washes her face off and takes a seat in one of the chairs, trying to remember why and how she got into this situation.

Noah used to be such a loving, sweet guy when we were still in the university. She sighs and places her hands over her head with her elbows propped up on the table.

So, what exactly changed? How did he become so mean?

Not that he was not sweet at times, he did get her gifts and nice wears, and sometimes he would say the sweetest things to her on occasion.

Natalia suddenly stands up as she feels a migraine coming, and die to that, she decides to wash the dishes as quickly as she could before making her way to the bedroom she shared with Noah.

As she opens the door, she expects to be hit with more scoldings or maybe even the soft sighs that a sleeping person would emanate.

She did not get any, as she opened the door and was greeted with absolute silence. She could not see Noah on the bed, or in the bathroom, so she decides to check the other rooms.

She eventually finds Noah sleeping in one of the many guest rooms and then she makes her way to the room they shared, sad, but at the same time, pleased that she would sleep alone.

A few hours later, with a wet pillow and tear lines streaming down her cheeks, Natalia would be found fast asleep.