In Sickness and in Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

sipping wine and chatting in muffled tones. Inevitably, whenever he stepped into the room, the talking would abruptly cease.
    “Just wanted to let you know I’m home,” he would tell Adrienne. She’d introduce him to any new members of the group and he would move down the hallway to shower and change, shaking his head over their stifled giggles. Why was it that whenever a bunch of girls got together, they always seemed to giggle?
    The relationship between the couple seemed to be running relatively smoothly. Adrienne did not nag him nearly so much about his late hours and Brian tried not to push it, all the while he doggedly struggled to pay down the debts they had incurred. As the Christmas Holidays approached, the traffic around the shopping malls slowed Brian’s drive home to a crawl and he kept arriving later and later. One evening in mid-December he arrived particularly late. Adrienne and her friends were gathered in the living room. After a brief greeting, Brian went directly to the shower.
    Standing under the steamy pulsating water, he flexed his tense shoulders and kneaded the tired muscles of his back. He thought of his father and smiled. He would never have been able to convince him, a blue-collar factory worker, that sitting behind a desk all day could be so physically exhausting. His old man, no doubt, would have smirked and wondered aloud what kind of a candy-assed son he had raised. Brian’s smile withered. He missed the old man. Dead of a heart attack at only forty-eight. He shook his head. Maybe it was a good thing he’d gotten that insurance policy. If his dad had planned better, perhaps his mother wouldn’t have had it so hard when the old man was suddenly gone.
    When his stiff muscles had finally relaxed, Brian stepped from the shower. With his towel wrapped around his waist, he padded barefoot into the bedroom. Adrienne sat on the bed and silently watched him cross to the chest of drawers and remove a pair of briefs.
    “The girls leave?” he asked.
    She nodded, but said nothing. Brian felt the tension creeping back into his shoulders. As he brushed his hair before the mirror, he glanced repeatedly at Adrienne’s reflection.
    “Sue and David are going on a cruise,” she said, breaking her long silence. “Bermuda. Over the Christmas holidays.”
    “Oh?”
    “And Elaine and Tom are going to Cancun.”
    “They should enjoy it.”
    She sat silently, a brooding expression clouding her face, while Brian proceeded to get into the bed. Suddenly, she turned to face him.
    “Why can’t we go to someplace nice like that?”
    “You know that we can’t afford it, not for a while at least.”
    “That’s what you always say, every time I want to do something. We can’t afford it ,”
    she mocked.
    Brian heaved a deep sigh. It was no use arguing. They’d been down this road before. He reached for the switch of his bedside lamp, clicked it off and slid under the covers. Adrienne flounced off the bed and marched from the room, slamming the door on her way out.
    Brian turned over, crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. So, it was starting all over. Adrienne would continue to put the pressure on until his resistance crumbled. That’s the way it had always happened. But this time he just couldn’t allow that to happen. This time he had to be firm. This time he couldn’t give in. Finally, Brian drifted into a restless sleep. When his alarm sounded, he punched the off button and reached for Adrienne. He snapped fully awake. Her side of the bed was empty. Flipping on the lamp, he looked around the room, remembering their previous discussion. Everything looked the same as it had the evening before. He crossed to the door, quietly opened it and listened. The house was silent. He went down the hall, peered into the kitchen, and then proceeded to the living room. There, curled up in the recliner, was Adrienne sound asleep in front of the muted morning newscast. Brian’s first reaction was