away, her shoes covered in carnage. Will looked at her stretching fingers, still hanging frozen in disbelief. ‘You were there that night, too,’ Will said. In his eyes, she wasn’t an innocent to be saved anymore. She was dead weight. He turned away and began to remove his gloves. ‘Maybe fate just didn’t think you were worth it.’
Darla didn’t dare watch after him. Instead, she went to the cupboard under the sink. She retrieved a bucket and a sponge that still smelt like Wednesday’s chicken soup. Cleaning was ordinary. Ordinary was what she could do.
As she wrung out the sponge, Will stepped back into the kitchen. He looked like her husband again. Jeans and her favourite button down. It was pure black, except for the red and white lines around the collar. Their little joke from the beginning. He took his wallet and keys from the counter.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked hastily. It was meant to come out casually and Darla winced at the string of need threaded through the words.
Will hadn’t glanced at her as he walked back out into the hallway. She could hear him putting on his boots. ‘You’re seeing that Indestructabelle,’ Darla whispered. She should have just thought it; at least his hearing couldn’t invade that part of her.
She felt him come closer. Hands on her upper arms, he spun her. Gentle and slow like he used to when they were newlyweds. Before the threat of strength itched in his hands. Darla gazed at his nose. It drifted closer. Without telling it, Darla felt her head tilt backwards.
She flinched as Will’s hand stopped so close to her face, she could feel the heat of his skin. Some instinctual part of her knew it had already paused, but was unable to convince the rest of her body. Her arms had
stayed by her sides, not that there would have been time to hide behind them. Will exhaled. Disappointed. She kept her gaze just over his shoulder.
‘She doesn’t need to flinch,’ Will said. He pushed back and made his way to the front door. ‘Make sure you turn the iron off.’
Darla took a few shallow breaths as the door slammed behind him. Make sure you turn the iron off. In the first month of living together, both of them, on completely separate occasions, had nearly burned the apartment down. Make sure you turn the iron off, had become their goodbye. Their be safe. Make sure you turn the iron off.
Darla felt a roiling in her stomach. She felt a waspish fury, clawing its way up her throat. She clamped her jaw shut. Her breaths tightened. A plume of black smoke danced from her nostrils, waving before her eyes like children who had just performed a mildly impressive trick. She took a gulping breath and forced it back down, afraid of Will returning. That if he saw, just maybe he’d figure it out.
She could still feel it, tumbling, begging.
Darla drained glass after glass of water, praying for the scolding to fade. She knew it didn’t work like that, had known for four years. Whatever smog infested her didn’t rebel, it wasn’t anything more than herself, not anything more than human anger. It cared for her. It knitted her back together. Wished to chase away the purple and blue Will left in his wake. With her guidance, it settled for removing the pain beneath, snug in its secrecy. But like anger, it grew. She glanced over at the scrapbooks, thinking of the smoky, masked figure who’d hidden herself for too long. Endurance, is the key.
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