The Picture on the Wall

A Story by C. Banae

An estranged married couple finally get on the same page after the husband's discovery.

Something was terribly wrong here. There, looking around in the new two thousand dollar refrigerator, was a half-naked man-child with angry scratches down his back with satin sheets wrapped around his waist. He stood there, searching for something while Michael Landon tried to feel literally anything.

“Le, where’s your beer?” the stranger called out as he turned out. His eyes went wide when he found Michael staring at him. With only a slight hint of resentment, Michael noticed that not a single grey hair was present in this boy’s mess of brown hair. He stammered pathetically for a few seconds, and Michael just pointed towards the door. The boy nodded before rushing out, clinging to the sheet for dear life, the one Michael slept with each night, and leaving the refrigerator door wide open.

At that precise moment, Mr. Landon had a decision to make. He could either walk to his bedroom where his wife would be, probably sprawled out naked on their bed, waiting for her paramour to come back to her, refreshed and ready for another round. Or he could just collapse on the only slightly dirty kitchen floor and wait for something to happen. The latter seemed less confrontational, so he lowered himself down, giving no regards to the pristineness of his usually crisp business attire, and studied the picture on the wall.

It was them at their wedding, only six years ago. Somehow though, that time span felt like an eternity ago. Hadley looked stunning in her hand-me-down gown and sparkling smile. This was before she and Michael both climbed the ranks in their prospective careers. Her wardrobe now consists of Burberry, Chanel, and any other luxury brand one could think of. Hadley wouldn’t be caught dead in front of her social circle wearing that type of dress now, but still, Michael thought that she was the most beautiful girl in the entire world. In the frame, he stood next to her in a blue suit, holding onto her as if someone was going to tear them apart. They looked so much in love, and Michael couldn’t help but wander when that faded away.

He was only on the ground for a minute or so before Hadley started calling for Peter, he looked more like an Alex to Michael, to come do some very, very inappropriate things to her. When he never came, Hadley came out to the kitchen in a matching burgundy lingerie set. It was the one Michael had gotten her for the first Valentine’s Day that they spent together as a married couple. She closed the refrigerator door, and instead of being faced with Peter, there was Michael on the floor.

The second Hadley saw her husband, his face void of emotion, she knew that she was royally screwed. The only thing she could do was to hunker down on the floor and begin kissing a*s.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Hadley began with a shaky voice, her arms crossed in front of her breasts.

“Don’t be,” Michael said, a small smile gracing his face. “You know all those nights the past few weeks I’ve been working late?”

Hadley nodded, although a bit hesitantly. The only reason she knew her husband’s schedule was to know when dear Peter could come over.

“I was actually f*****g one of the Human Resource girls.”

The broken couple really looked at each other for the first time in months and laughed. They laughed until they couldn’t breathe, and then they laughed some more because if they stopped, they didn’t know what would happen next.

“I did love you,” they said together, finally on the same page at last.

“Some things just weren’t meant to last,” Michael said while staring at the picture on the wall.