The Banishing Read Free Page B

her. Which Mark will be there waiting for me? The real one, or the other one — the one I don’t know? She felt nervous and tried to fend off the feeling by turning up the radio. A song she didn’t recognize filled the car and the air around her, and she hummed along, trying to force some life—some energy—into her.
    The roads were busy. Rush hour. Melissa followed the trail of cars ahead, moving slowly. By the time she reached home, she felt the beginning of a headache twinge along her scalp. She pulled into the driveway and switched off the radio, staring up at the house. It looked gloomy in the dying light. The house. What Mark had always wanted for them, for their life together. Thinking of those long hours that Mark had put in, the way he would be out of the door first thing in the morning and would sometimes not get back home before she would already be in bed, Melissa wondered whether the house had been worth it at all. They had rented a small flat for the first few years of their relationship. One bedroom, tiny. It was nothing more than one large room plus a bathroom. Melissa had taken to calling it “the box”, but she had liked it, had enjoyed their time there. It had been the space where their relationship had grown from a tiny flower into a full, passionate blossom.
    That flat they had both lived in held wonderful memories for her. The night Mark had gotten down on one knee and proposed to her was the strongest—almost too perfect—one.
    Mark was the first one to suggest moving, though. They hadn’t even discussed it. It wasn’t something Melissa thought was in the cards. Happy at the place they were, content for the first time in years since her parents’ deaths several years before, she admitted to herself—she didn’t want any more upheaval. Anymore change. She had simply wanted to be mellow in the bubble she and Mark had built around themselves, cocooned in a happiness that she never dreamt possible.
    She remembered him coming home from work one night. It was late, and Melissa had already changed into her pajamas when Mark sauntered into the room, a huge grin on his face and a newspaper in his hand. He ran into the lounge and tossed the paper into her lap. “Page fifty,” he had simply said.
    Melissa leafed through the pages until she came to the small ad Mark had circled in blue ink. A house. Two bedrooms. A large garden. Garage.
    “It’s perfect for us,” he had said to her, watching as she read over the estate agent’s description. “Don’t you think we deserve our own home? Our own home, Melissa! Think about it.”
    Thinking back on it now, on the way things had slowly crept toward this bleak reality in which she now lived, Melissa wished she’d said “no” straightaway. Yet even then, before she knew what she knows now, and before she knew Mark would change the way he had, she had felt strong reservations about the move. About the house. There were two main reasons: the first being financial. Melissa’s wages were meager, and although Mark earned a considerable amount as a courier, there were quiet periods. Dry periods, when he could easily go for days without being assigned any jobs. Taking out a mortgage felt like a huge step.
    She remembered Mark’s face when she had expressed her concerns and knew how much the concept of buying their own place must have meant to him. His face dropped, his eyes lost their warm sparkle, and he looked defeated.
    So she had, for his sake more than anything, agreed to take a look at the property the next day.
    Mark was right—it was a beautiful, little home. Nothing spectacular or grand about it, but she didn’t need that, didn’t want that—and more importantly, could not afford that. It was basic, in truth. Two small bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, a large (huge was probably closer to the truth) lounge, and a kitchen that had been newly remodeled. The place had obviously been redecorated by the current owners. The smell of fresh paint