Downsizing by W. Soliman

voice that already grated on his nerves and wound her
arms round his neck. He pushed her violently away. “After all,
she’s such a great friend to us both that I thought she’d be
delighted. Besides, I knew you’d want her to be at the
wedding.”
    Noah somehow suppressed the urge to throttle
her. “I didn’t think even you could be that cruel,” he said in a
mordant tone.
    “ What do you mean? I
only—”
    Noah placed his hands on Cassie’s shoulders
and shook her hard. “You couldn’t even let her enjoy her moment of
glory, could you? Everything always has to be about
you.”
    She looked up at him, the inevitable tears in
her eyes, her expression calculating. “Noah, don’t, you’re hurting
me.” His hands dropped abruptly from her shoulders. In the same
movement he stepped away from her, spitting expletives as he fought
to control his anger. Never in his life before had he come so close
to hitting a woman. “Don’t be angry with me, darling, I’m sure it
can’t be good for our baby. I only did what I thought you’d want me
to do.”
    “ Maxine has gone, Cassie! Gone.”
Noah shouted the words at her. “And I didn’t even get to say
goodbye,” he added, his voice now unnaturally quiet.
    “ Noah, please!” she wheedled. “I’m
sorry if I upset her. I didn’t understand.”
    “ Oh, you understood all right,
just as I’m starting to understand you.”
    “ What do you mean?” Alarm
flickered across her features.
    “ I don’t think I can live with a
woman who’s so deliberately cruel.” He turned his back to her. “I
don’t think I can go through with this parody of a marriage after
all.”
    She clawed at his arm, tears streaming down
her face. “Darling, don’t say that.”
    He shook her off. The touch of her hand on his
arm made his skin crawl. “I’ve gotta get out of here. I need time
to think.”
    He didn’t hear her hysterical wailing as he
walked away, unaware it was the first time in her life that such a
display hadn’t got her what she wanted.
    * * * *
    Maxine didn’t remember much about her journey
to Cambridge. Someone met her at the station, but she couldn’t
recall afterward if it had been Gwen or Derek. She did remember
being fussed over and bundled into a car and must have provided
answers to the barrage of questions directed toward her. She did it
without being aware of what she said, her mind as empty as her now
existence.
    With detached indifference she waited for the
pain to reassert itself, but nothing of a cataclysmic nature
occurred. It was as though she was living in a tight vacuum that
refused to entertain emotional turbulence. She wondered if she was
having one of those out-of-body experiences that were all the rages
nowadays. Or perhaps the answer was less sophisticated, and she was
simply losing her mind.
    She was greeted boisterously by Derek’s
children, who ran round her in excited circles. Only then did she
pull herself together and rustle up a modicum of enthusiasm for
their benefit. Four-year-old Peter, with his shock of dark curls
and intense, serious eyes was the mirror image of his father.
Nancy, at two-and-a-half, was a delight. She shadowed her elder
brother, wobbling behind him on plump legs and asking an endless
stream of questions that had no place in the vocabulary of a child
her age. Derek himself took after their father’s side of the
family. He was stick-thin, bearded and bespectacled, fiercely
intelligent, and self-assured.
    “ Come on, Max!” Peter slipped his
hand into hers, and if she’d still possessed the ability to feel
any emotion the gesture would have delighted her. He dragged her
toward the bed-sit that was to be her home for the next three
years. “Mummy’s made it all pretty and we helped.”
    “ I’m sure she couldn’t have done
it without you.”
    The bed-sit was smaller than Maxine remembered
and stark in its simplicity. There was a single bed and
cheap-looking wardrobe. An over-stuffed two-seater settee and