The Mist

“Sit down and eat your dinner,” Esmée ordered her younger son.

“But what about Dad?” Ricky said, pouting as he sat back down on his chair.

Esmée wrinkled her nose as she watched Mathew pace outside, deep in quiet conversation on his phone. Another late call from work. He was getting those a lot lately, sometimes well into the night, increasingly on weekends. Did he think her a fool? She seethed as he gave a great, booming laugh.

He hadn’t laughed that way with her for years.

And right in front of their children.

There was a creak and a scrape as Ricky stood up on the chair again, the chair wobbling beneath him. “Dad!” he called.

“I said sit down!” Esmée snarled, yanking down on his arm.

His arse hit the seat hard. He jerked his arm away with a start, knocking over his glass. It shattered on the floor.

“Goddamnit, Ricky!” Esmée cried. “What is the matter with you? Why don’t you ever listen!”

Her son’s blue eyes were shining with tears.

“Go to your room, I don’t want to look at you.”

He slid off his seat, bursting into sobs as he fled. The door slammed shut behind him.

Her ten-year-old, Joshua, watched it all mutely and without expression, his face pale against his black hair as he poked at his potato with his fork. Esmée dropped her head into her hands. Joshua was getting used to all the fighting now, and he shouldn’t be.

“What the hell’s going on?” Mathew said, closing the door behind him.

Esmée looked up, and rage like she’d never felt before coursed through her body. Slowly, she rose from her seat.

It was the worst fight they’d ever had. They shouted and cursed and screamed like they didn’t have children or neighbors who might be listening. Accusations flew like the dishes and glasses and cutlery she threw across the room.

By the end, bits of glass and ceramic littered the floor, Joshua had disappeared, white as a ghost, into his room, and there was the crash of the front door slamming shut as Mathew left, no doubt to join his mistress.

Esmée’s anger drained away, leaving a chasm of emptiness. Her ears rang in a silence too deep. Her angry tears dried into a crust on her cheeks. Was this it? Thirty-two and it was already over? They were supposed to grow old together.

Numbly, she took up her broom and began to sweep up the mess, then remembered her children. She put the broom aside and quietly opened Ricky’s door. Her boy was a quivering ball under his blankets. As for Joshua, he was apparently asleep, though he was far too still and breathing too quietly.

It was much later that night, after consoling herself with a bottle of wine, that she stripped off and stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror.

She touched the bags under her eyes, the lines around her mouth, the stretch marks over her drooping breasts. There were rolls in her tummy. Her mousy brown hair sat tangled and limp on her shoulders. Her brown eyes were dim.

She’d been young and beautiful once. When she’d first married Mathew. Before she’d had children. She didn’t recognize herself anymore. No wonder Mathew had sought someone else.

She spat at her reflection.

It was close to two in the morning when she finally curled up in bed. It was late enough that the sound of traffic had quieted to almost nothing, its absence filled with the sounds of frogs and crickets.

Mathew hadn’t returned.

She rolled over in bed. She rolled over again and again but sleep evaded her, her mind tangled, her heart fraught, thinking of her boys, thinking of her future—without Mathew.

Giving up, she sat up with a sigh.

After checking on her sons, she stepped outside. Needing to get out. To get away from the fight still echoing through the hall. From all that was Mathew and herself and their crumbling marriage.

Their house might have been small, but they had a large backyard that backed onto bushland. Her neighbors’ homes were dark. She was alone in her pain, and she’d better get used to it.

There was a swingset, sandpit, toys and bikes and scooters lying all over the ground—evidence they were happy once. The tire swing Mathew had hung from the eucalypt tree only six months ago beckoned to her.

It was a misty night. Strange for summer. She had never seen anything like it. The mist was thick and swirled around her as she swung, the ropes creaking in the quiet. Smoky tendrils tugged at her nightie, brushed through her hair, filled her lungs. It grew hot, to the point of sweating. Soon the moon vanished, then the trees, the house, and then she was truly alone.

She stopped swinging.

She stood up, about to rush back in the direction of her home, when a voice rose up out of the mist.

Esmée jumped and spun around. “Who’s there?”

No response. Her hair blew back as a strong wind whipped around her. She struggled to pull down her nightie as it flung up over her waist.

And then she saw something.

Esmée froze, heart racing. A form had taken shape amid the mist—a man.

“Mathew?” she croaked stupidly, hopefully.

Or the mist itself.

This was no man.

The hairs on the back of Esmée’s neck stood up; her heart was racing. She clutched at her chest.

“Who—who are you?” she stammered.

Then she shook herself. This was stupid! He must be a man!

“Stay back!” she cried.