Married for just a year, yet every night her husband slept in his mother’s room
Married for just a year, yet every night her husband slept in his mother’s room.
Ethan sat on the edge of his mother’s bed, his back to the door—a posture that might have seemed innocent on any other night. But everything about this scene felt wrong. Mrs. Turner, usually frail and exhausted from insomnia, was sitting upright and alert. Her eyes were wide, almost feverish, and her voice poured out in rapid, urgent bursts Grace had never heard before.
Ethan nodded occasionally, his responses low and hollow. The tension in the room was thick enough to choke on. Grace stood in the hallway, heart pounding, trying to catch bits of their conversation, but the storm outside swallowed every word.
Then she noticed Mrs. Turner’s hands. They clutched a gold pocket watch—an heirloom Grace had seen only once. Its surface glinted with each swing, back and forth… back and forth. And with every pass of the watch, Ethan seemed to slip deeper, his expression flattening, his voice dulling into something mechanical.
Was this a ritual? A coping mechanism? Or something far more disturbing?
Suddenly, Mrs. Turner’s voice cut through the storm like a blade.
“He must stay.”
And Ethan echoed, in a monotone that didn’t sound like him at all:
“I must stay.”
The watch swung again, and Mrs. Turner’s eyes gleamed with a frightening intensity. Grace’s breath caught in her throat.
This wasn’t about comfort. This wasn’t about grief or insomnia. Mrs. Turner needed Ethan—not merely as a son, but as something she had bound to herself with guilt, history, and a control Grace was only beginning to understand.
The truth crashed over her like icy water.
She wasn’t just competing with a mother-in-law. She was competing with a past Ethan had never escaped—one he may not even be aware had trapped him.
Shaking, Grace slipped back to their bedroom, her mind spiraling. Was she destined to forever stand outside Ethan’s world? Or could she pull him out of the shadows and back into their marriage?