Her Silent Shadow: A Gripping Psychological Suspense Collection

by Edwin Dasso

  It started the evening of the fourth day. I had been watching a war movie on Netflix, something about a team of policemen in Iraq, fighting ISIS. I had been watching it over three days and was on the last thirty minutes when I heard the burble of exhausts as Clara pulled into the drive. We didn’t watch movies like this together. She preferred more girly fare, romantic comedies usually, so I had to snatch whatever time I could to watch what I wanted alone.

  I stood, flicked off the television, and plumped up the cushions on the sofa. Collecting my water glass and the empty packet of potato chips, I walked into the kitchen, disposed of the rubbish, then rinsed the glass and set it to drain just as the front door opened.

  “Hi, honey,” I called out, casting a quick eye around the kitchen to make sure everything was in place before walking out.

  Clara dropped her keys into the bowl by the door, kicked off her heels, and gave me a smile. She looked tired.

  “Busy day?”

  “Yes, non-stop.” She sighed and gave me a peck on the cheek before brushing past and dropping her handbag on a chair. I could see her eyes roaming around the living room, but I knew I was okay. I had vacuumed and dusted earlier in the day, and everything was in its place. Clara liked a tidy house.

  I turned and walked back toward the kitchen, ready to start preparing dinner, when I heard her speak again. It wasn’t so much what she said, more the tone and what it would portend.

  “Were you watching TV?”

  I flinched, and my jaw tensed, then I willed myself to relax. I continued into the kitchen, confident I was okay. I called out over my shoulder, “Yes, I finished work early, so I was just finishing that war film I told you about.”

  “How many times have I told you about the cushions?”

  “What?” A feeling of dread ran through my body. “What’s wrong with the cushions?” I walked back out into the dining area and looked across to the living room where Clara was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at me. I glanced toward the sofa, not sure what she was angry about. It looked perfectly alright to me.

  She turned, picked up the cushion on the right, and turned it over before thumping it back down.

  “Don’t you even listen to me? You know how much I hate the cushions being the wrong way around.”

  Fuck! I took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry.” So stupid. It was just a cushion, but I needed to stop the complaint before it became something else. “I didn’t realize it was like that.”

  “Didn’t realize?”

  I could hear the tone changing. To most people, it would sound the same, an angry complaint, but I could recognize the signs, the subtle variations in tone, intonation. This would not end well.

  “You never realize. You don’t respect anything I say. I’m working hard all day while you sit around at home watching TV, and you can’t even keep the house tidy.”

  Despite my better judgment, I had to respond, had to defend myself. It was just a fucking cushion! And sit at home all day doing nothing? That was unfair!

  “The house is tidy!” I snapped back. “I cleaned, dusted, and vacuumed.” My voice was rising, and I could feel energy running through my body—not a good energy. “And I’m not sitting at home doing nothing. Besides cleaning, I’m trying to run a business.”

  “Ha,” she scoffed. “Yeah, big business owner. We can see how good you are at that.”

  That hurt. I was doing my best. It just hadn’t taken off yet. The lack of success didn’t mean I wasn’t trying. I had to fight back. She was being mean. She couldn’t talk to me like this. I kept the house clean, I cooked for her, and I ran a business.

  “Why is it that you always use that against me? You’re the one who encouraged me to go out on my own. I’m doing my best.”

  She wasn’t beautiful anymore. It was the same face, but now it was ugly. Those lips I loved to kiss curled in an angry sneer, and her eyes bored holes in me with the intensity of laser beams.

  “Doing your best? Watching TV?”

  “Hey, I just...”

  “Do you think I have time to watch TV? I’m working hard all day because you can’t provide for me. What have you done in this life? Think about it. What kind of life have you given me?”

  I’d heard it all before—many times—but it still hurt. Her words cut deep. I felt like I wasn’t a success, but I did work hard. I wanted to provide for her, so she wouldn’t have to work. I kept the house the way she wanted it kept—clean, tidy, everything in its place. I did the laundry, made sure the cupboards were full, and cooked. Unfortunately, it never seemed to be enough. What more did she want from me?

  Despite knowing there was never an argument I could win, I refused to back down. I don’t know why. The sensible thing to do was to keep quiet, let her rant die out, but I couldn’t. She was wrong, and it was unfair. Everything wasn’t my fault. It couldn’t be... could it? Was I that bad a husband?

  My hands were shaking, and I clenched my fingers into fists, trying to find an outlet for the anger and frustration that consumed me.

  “Why is it you focus on the only thing I haven’t done? You don’t see all the things I have done. It’s a fucking cushion! So, it’s the wrong way around. Is that so important?”

  “It’s important to me!”

  “More important than having a happy relationship?”

  “If you can’t do something as simple as keeping a cushion the right way up, it shows how little you value our relationship. How little you value me. It just shows how useless you are. No wonder your business isn’t succeeding.”

  I balled my right hand into a fist and looked around for something to hit, some way to vent off the rage born from frustration. She was in no danger. She was on the other side of the living room—until now, our screaming match carried out at a distance—but still, she scoffed,

  “Go on, then, hit me. Show what kind of man you are.”

  She stormed off into the bedroom before I could answer. I turned and pounded the countertop with the ball of my fist. My eyes filled with tears, and my bottom lip quivered. What kind of life was this? A grown man reduced to tears in his own home. Bitch!

  Catching sight of the plate of chicken breasts I had kept out to defrost, I picked it up and threw it into the sink, then walked out of the house.

  7

  I would have to go back… eventually. I had nowhere else to go. My parents lived in another city, and besides, I was a forty-five-year-old man. I wasn’t running to my parents. I would sort out my own mess.

  I had friends nearby, but I wouldn’t go to them, either. They were mutual friends of ours, and despite how she treated me, I didn’t want them to think of her as a bad person—she wasn’t. It was just that for some reason, she hated me, not all the time, but enough to make my life miserable.

  I should have paid more attention to the cushion. I thought the house was perfect, that nothing would trigger her. But no matter how hard I tried, she would somehow find the only thing I missed or hadn’t done to her satisfaction. It was exhausting. As I walked the streets—I had forgotten my car keys, so I had to walk—the all-consuming rage ebbed away, leaving a hollowness that soon filled with self-pity.

  Was I really so bad? Tears welled in my eyes again, not from anger but an intense sadness that filled my chest and constricted my throat. I pulled up the hood of my hoodie and shoved my fists into the pockets, embarrassed at the tears, hoping no-one would see me, a grown man, walking the streets and crying.

  It was so exhausting, so stressful, this constant rollercoaster of emotions. Yesterday, hell, even this morning, she had been happy. We’d shared jokes, she’d kissed me goodbye, and I’d had a wonderful day, looking forward to her coming home and having dinner together.

  The Clara, who loved her cushion a certain way, was a monster. A monster who somehow knew where to plunge the dagger to inflict the maximum pain. Most of what she said wasn’t even logical but contained just enough truth to make me doubt myself. I still fought back, but i
t was pointless. I should keep quiet, but I vainly tried to hold on to whatever dignity I had left, to state my position, and argue my side of things, but it never worked.

  I shook my head.

  “Shit. Fucking bitch.” An elderly lady walking past flinched and gave me a frightened look. I hadn’t realized I had spoken aloud. I shrugged it off. The old lady didn’t know who I was, and hopefully, I would never see her again.

  Looking left and right, I jogged across the road. I had no idea where I was going, but anything was better than staying at home. She would wander around the house, muttering under her breath for hours. Whenever she did that, the only words I could make out would be words like ‘bastard’ and ‘useless fucker.’ Words I didn’t want to hear.

  Then, once the muttering stopped, she would ignore me, and we would be stuck—two adults who supposedly loved each other, ignoring each other in the same house.

  Being there would also present the difficult decision about dinner. Did I make something we could both eat? She would refuse to eat it, of course, but if I made something just for myself, that would be used against me, if not immediately, then in another later argument. She would say I’m selfish, that I only thought about myself. Either way, I couldn’t win. It was easier to avoid the decision completely and not be there.

  My stomach growled. Along with the car keys, I had left my wallet at home. It would be another hungry night but I could manage without food. I would need to sleep somewhere, but right now, I would stay out as long as I could. She took hours to cool down, and I wouldn’t rush back and grovel, begging for forgiveness.

  The anger started rising again.

  Forgiveness for what?

  I had done nothing wrong.

  8

  I found a bench on the edge of a park and sat down. The seat was damp, but I didn’t care. The sun had set, but the streetlamps bathed the broad expanse of grass before me in an amber glow.

  A couple was walking their dogs, a pair of Labradors who ran back and forth chasing each other across the dew-covered grass. Further away, two boys kicked a rugby ball back and forth, but otherwise, the park was empty. Most normal people were at home, having dinner with their families or watching TV.

  Feeling the chill of the evening breeze hitting my neck, I pulled the hoodie further over my head. I stretched my legs out in front of me, crossing them at the ankle, my hands still thrust in the pockets of the hoodie.

  I took a long deep breath of cool fresh air as I stared out across the open space and felt the frustration ebb away. I was still angry, but it was a cold anger, one that made me think rather than react impulsively.

  The murderous thoughts had been lingering for a while, but not since the beginning of the relationship’s decline. Then, it had only been thoughts of what I could do to fix things. She always told me it was my fault we had fought in the first place. As things went on and I began to realize I couldn’t possibly be the one solely to blame, I stopped thinking about how to fix things and started to contemplate how to end the constant blame and recrimination. Leaving her was the obvious solution. At first, when the thought came, it filled me with remorse. How could I give up on the life we had built together, the memories we shared? We were good together. Everyone told us so. We were the model couple... at least in public. No-one knew what went on behind our closed doors.

  Still, I entertained the thought, planned the next step. The plans fought with the remorse, only for the remorse to win, then the remorse would dissipate when we made up. How could I have been so silly? Life was good, we were good.

  Then we fought again.

  As time went on and the fights became more frequent, the plans became more detailed, more concrete. I fantasized about how life would be without her, what I would do, where I would go, even something as mundane as what movies I would watch. I started remembering old girlfriends, wondering what they were doing now, imagining how life would have been if I had spent it with them and not Clara.

  However, that’s all it remained—a half-baked idea, a stupid fantasy never to be realized.

  Things escalated after she hit me.

  9

  After she hit me, everything changed.

  Well, she didn’t really hit me, more of... I think I need to explain.

  We’d had five blissful days, no fighting, no disagreements, just like old times. That evening, though, I should have been more alert, kept an eye out for the signs, but the happiness of the previous few days had lulled me into a false sense of security. I let my guard down.

  Now, looking back, I can’t understand how it started. In fact, I never knew... that is, I never understood how it got so out of hand.

  We were both in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner. I had cooked spaghetti bolognese, her favorite. There was no wine, though. It was a work night, and Clara didn’t drink on work nights. She didn’t like me to drink either, even though I worked from home. Alcohol was only for the weekend.

  The meal had gone well. I had used fresh herbs and managed to get some quality beef mince from the butcher, tender and juicy. I was quite proud of how the meal had turned out.

  I remember I was rinsing the plates before loading the dishwasher when we disagreed about something. I should have agreed with her, but stupidly, thought I could argue my point. I was concentrating on the dishes, so I didn’t notice the warning signs, and when I actually paid attention to her voice, it was too late.

  The Kraken had been released, and there was no putting it back.

  She erupted, an endless stream of complaints and insults pouring forth from her mouth. I bit my tongue, kept my mouth shut, realizing my mistake, hoping she would calm down. I finished the plates and picked up the carving knife, weighing it in my hand for a moment, my reflection in the side of the polished steel blade holding a strange attraction. I tried to ignore the actual words I was hearing, each one a poisoned arrow specially chosen for maximum harm, and held the blade under the tap, rinsing it clean. She stopped talking, and despite all my best instincts, I opened my mouth. She was wrong; I had to say something.

  “But... that’s not what I was saying, not what I meant,” I countered weakly, but it was enough to set her off again. I looked away from her and stared at the water streaming from the tap, then closed my eyes and shook my head.

  “Don’t you dare shake your head at me!”

  The next thing I knew, I was falling sideways. I opened my eyes but was too late to regain my balance. Reaching out with my left hand, I grabbed the edge of the sink, but my hand slipped on the wet surface. My body turned, my back hitting the corner of the countertop, and I slid to the ground, knocking over the trash can. I ended up sprawled on the floor as she stormed out of the kitchen.

  It all happened so quickly, I was shocked, unable to piece together how things had become so heated. A myriad of emotions flooded my body—indignation, humiliation, then self-pity. There was a weight in my chest, and my throat contracted, so it was hard for me to breathe. Tears welled in my eyes as a dialogue ran through my head.

  I’m a grown man, sitting with my ass in a trash can, crying.

  I didn’t... no, I couldn’t move. So, I sat there, wondering if she would realize what she’d done, if she would feel any regret, and rush back to apologize and ask for forgiveness.

  She didn’t come.

  It was a while before I realized I still held the carving knife in my hand.

  10

  That night, I slept in the spare room. She didn’t make me; it was my choice. I couldn’t bring myself to lie next to her in the same bed. Besides, she had to come to me and apologize for what she had done.

  Deep down, I knew she wouldn’t—she never did—because it was always my fault. But one could hope.

  I slept surprisingly well, perhaps better than I would have in my own bed, only waking when I heard her moving around in the kitchen.

  I didn’t get up though, just lay there with my eyes closed, listening to her moving around, still hoping. She made no effort to
keep the noise down—she was in fact, louder than usual—but I kept up the pretense of sleep, waiting for her to come to me. Then the front door slammed, and the windows rattled with the rumble of the Audi’s engine.

  I still didn’t get up. What was the point now? I stared at the ceiling, wondering again if it had actually been my fault, what I could have said and done differently. I didn’t know if I was just stupid or my memory didn’t work, but I still couldn’t see why things had gone the way they had. I had difficulty keeping up with arguments in real-time, let alone the next day.

  Was she right? Was I really a useless, intellectually inferior husband? Tears welled up again, and I clenched my fist and pounded it against the mattress until the feeling went away. No! She was wrong. I was good at my job. I was a good person. People liked me. Even she liked me... some of the time.

  I sat up, exhaled loudly, and rubbed my face.

  Shit.

  My life was shit.

  My marriage was shit.

  I was shit.

  I stared blindly across the spare room at the net curtains covering the window, racked with doubt.

  It can’t be all my fault, surely?

  Again?

  Before, things were okay, life was good. I was confident, waking each morning, eager to see what the day would hold. I wasn’t... scared. Scared. Yes, that was it! The realization somehow made me feel better. I was scared. She scared me.

  Every morning, I woke with a feeling of apprehension, and during the day, when she was around, I walked on eggshells, wary of setting her off with something I did or said. Was this how I was supposed to spend the rest of my life?

  “No fricken way!” I announced to the empty room. I stood, suddenly feeling better. It was time to make a change.