Colors and Hues
The burnt orange hues served as the last reminder of the sun, the rest of the sky being taken over by the blues. The muffled sound of a violin reached her from where she stood near the windows. Her son was composing some sort of morbid waltz. She was glad the screeching had stopped; the first year of him learning the instrument had been hard on everyone’s ears, especially her husband’s.
She frowned at her reflection as she thought of her husband. He didn’t like the bright orange colored kurta she was wearing right now. Come to think of it, he rarely liked it when she wore anything in shades of red, yellow, or orange. He was more of a blue, green man, and he never made his distaste of her attire a secret. The orange kurta had been a gift from an old friend who’d come back from India, inviting her for an opportunity to travel the east, only to find her married, with a child on the way. It had been years since they’d seen each other, and sometimes she wondered the worst that could have happened if she had just taken that chance.
There was regret in her friend’s eyes, her long lashes fluttering every so often in an impossible to describe way, and she would’ve gone, said yes, if not for the society they lived in. They were from completely different worlds, and had she run off with a woman…
She shut the train of thought, as the car pulled into the driveway. Perhaps, once she would have smiled in excitement at him being here, but things just weren’t the same anymore. She could barely remember the last time she’d waited for him in anticipation, let alone happy at having him home.
Whoever said you can learn to love a person clearly knew nothing about having to live in a loveless marriage. Besides, it wasn’t even completely about love. There were some needs that should’ve been met, but were clearly not. Mostly because the man wasn’t the least bit concerned about them, he just liked making money. Those needs went unmet, resulting in resentment and frustration. Good lord, the frustration almost ate her up sometimes. With a sigh, she replaced her frown with an easy not-too-forceful-on-the-face smile which she’d perfected over the years.
Dinner was a quiet affair for her. Father and son mostly talked some gibberish about the latest technology. It wasn’t that she was ignorant, just uninterested. She chose to focus intently on the food on her plate. A wave of sadness rippled through her. Her son had his friends at school and her husband had his colleagues, but she had nobody to speak to. The dining experience was over in the blink of an eye. She decided to use the dishwasher and went upstairs hoping to find her husband.
Through the slight opening of the door, she could see him settling into his desk, preparing for what seemed like a long night of work. Not bothering to reach out, she went towards the room they shared. He wouldn’t come to sleep beside her tonight and like so many other nights, she was left alone.
She tried sleeping but the feat proved to be almost impossible. Some odd emotion swept over her and she sighed, understanding it as the need he had never bothered fulfilling. Less ashamed of herself than usual, she traced the curvature of her own body, taking the time to do what he wouldn’t. As her fingers worked herself into a quiet frenzy, she pressed her face to the side to muffle the little sound that escaped her mouth.
What escaped next was an ocean’s worth of tears.
