Let’s play pretend, darling. Just like we used to, remember? I suppose not. It was back then, remember? Back when you could still look me in the eye and tell me you loved me and really mean it.
Let’s play house. I’ll be the loving wife that I’d always promised I’d always be for you, and you can be the adoring husband that wouldn’t even think of looking away from me; the loving husband who would come home every day right after work ends, who would look at our kids with pride and not a touch of disdain.
You can pretend to be the husband that stays by the side of his loving wife when she’s pregnant, that gives enough of a damn to be there when his wife is in labor. You can pretend to be the husband that wouldn’t dare hit his kids in drunken rages, the husband that wouldn’t make his wife lie to her own mother about how wonderful he is.
You can pretend to be the husband that would look away from the goddamn television long enough to see that his kids have to scrounge for weeks just to afford a fistful of bread, and be the husband that knows that his kids are starving enough to stop spending their last savings on whores that make his wife want to tear her heart out and just wish that it beat a different way, wish that she loved one that was didn’t beat her, beat the kids, got drunk, that she loved one that didn’t make her play pretend every time she wanted to be happy.
No, darling. Maybe it’s best that you keep playing your own pretend games where I’m a wife that doesn’t love you, that deserves to be punished, to be left all on her own, with just her games of pretend.
