Two years into our marriage, I realized I didn’t want to live with my husband anymore. I didn’t know how this thought came to me, how long I had bared with it or how long this loathing would remain in me; however, with every second I spent with him, in utter distress, I realized, I didn’t want our marriage to happen at all.

The prime reason why I didn’t want it was because he loved ships more than anything else on earth. He owned a shipping company, therefore it wasn’t any surprising. What climbed up my nerves, however was how much of time and money and everything he committed in to it to get his business running. At one point he didn’t even remember how old our daughter was, but clearly as crystal he could remember the date of one ship’s making. I figured, he’d pick a ship over anything else in his life. Because he loved his job a lot more than he should. And so I wanted him to sail and disappear far away from my life in one of the ships he loved.

He and I got married through an arranged marriage set up by our parents therefore we hardly even had the time to have this period of bliss and fall in love. He and I were never in love, anyway, because neither he nor I could bring ourselves to ever utter the three words ‘I love you’ to each other; even when we tried, it never felt right. I was a journalist in the beginning, so writing had always been my thing. I didn’t know whether it’s out of common courtesy that the wife stops working once married, but six months into marriage, one day somewhere in that summer he confronted me regarding this. We were in the kitchen at that time, I was cooking dinner and he was talking about ships, as always over the phone. Ships were pretty much all that he and I had to discuss except for several mundane family matters, or he’d ask me about my wellbeing once in a while. On this particular day, once his conversation was done he put away his phone and came to me while I was cutting carrots for the stew. He leaned over the counter, spectacles lowered to his nose. His brows were covered with his hair fallen messily on his forehead, a grave glint was there in his eyes. True, we were never in love; but several months of knowing him I could read every single action of him like an open book. Maybe he was always too transparent, or maybe I could very well see people through. That moment I read it that he needed to ask something serious. I stopped my doing and settled to turn to him, wishing this conversation would have nothing to do with ships.

Luckily, it didn’t.

All that he wanted was for me to stop working, and in a thoughtful tone (Which he used basically to talk about those ships of his) he pointed out to me all the reasons why.

1. He wasn’t talking about ships on the phone, apparently, but to a friend of his who had told him that my life was in danger. And he did not want it to be in danger.
2. He wanted me to stop covering the story of the series of homicides of which the murderer was on lose, because it’s what which put my life on the line. And because this case had governmental involvement; so if it went on, no one could guarantee where I would end up. He said he was worried.
3. Because he’s upset that I follow after cases that I should not cover and he did not want to have people chasing him or me and step out of the house fearing to get hammered the next minute.
4. He wanted me to spend an ordinary life
5. And the final, he wanted a child.

The first four reasons got me really really upset, because I loved what I was doing, and we had been married for only six months and I had been doing this for almost three years. I didn’t want him setting rules on my life, because we were just married and we weren’t in love and he had absolutely no right to do it. I knew what was coming on my way, I had received a few death threats by then which I simply ignored because I knew that they were never to happen, I believed it that I could take well care of myself. I wanted to throw a tantrum at him then; my life was ordinary as it seemed and I had no ships of misery to worry about. In fact it was him who was frustrated all the time, calling here and there giving orders and saving sailors from Somalian pirates; and all that I had were several never-happening threats of slaughter. I didn’t throw a tantrum then though, because at the end of the list, he stated what he and I both always wanted. A child.

In fact, it was never any hard for us for, despite being in love, we had our family life going very well and I didn’t at all mind to be the mother of his child. The reason why I agreed to marry him on the first place was that he was such a beautiful man, he was the epitome of perfection and I was willing to give anything to wake up every morning to see such a pleasantly beautiful sight. He didn’t have too much of everything, he was perfect as he was. He spoke very less (even about ships) and was silent in person, he was the last to throw an angry tantrum while I was the first to do so, and he was lovely and caring. I didn’t love him, nonetheless, but he seemed pretty compatible with me to spend the rest of my life with. Of course, I didn’t see the ship-issue coming at that moment, because he didn’t even own the company then even though he was the heir to it. The nightmare of it started a month before our marriage when the entire company was handed over to his expertise.

Two days after he asked me to stop working, I was still following after the case, and that was when I realized how precious his words were.  It was then that I got seriously hammered, just like he said, and luckily survived death. It was somewhere in the spring that someone random came and began to utterly beat my car with rocks and batons and broken chairs, with minor injuries I was admitted to hospital that day, and the strangest thing happened. He abandoned all his ships and came to see me, and even when I expected him to blast me about not listening to him, he didn’t. All he did was checking on my wounds and holding my hand thinking I was shocked (Which I wasn’t) and sitting by my side without saying a word. This was what which shocked me, thus I stopped working since.

Eight months into our marriage, I got pregnant with our first child. This was a terrible time for me, to be frank, because although I was pregnant, he couldn’t stop going about with ships. He was usually late to come home and left really early, disliked phone calls and would call only if he felt like it. This was his usual routine which I didn’t mind for I wasn’t a big fan of lovers’ calls either; but during these days when I really needed him by his side, he just wasn’t. I was weary and tired so I didn’t stay up for him to come home, and at some point I couldn’t even wake up early enough to send him off so this caused us to barely see each other a day. There were moments where I craved for something crazy, and to let him know of this I had to contact him through his secretary because he wouldn’t pick up his phone. Whatever I wanted would get to me late at night or in the morning next day when I craved for it no more. Maybe this was what which caused for everything to go backwards the first place. Maybe I was too tired of managing my state all alone. Three months in pregnancy we lost our first child in a natural abortion. I never knew what happened though, I couldn’t even guess; and when I asked my husband the truth, he only laid a hand on my shoulder and said everything was fine. I didn’t ask him afterwards though, because he probably knew nothing either. I wasn’t a ship anyway that he would never know.

We had to go through hell afterwards, because I felt so empty and wrenched after losing our child, and I was the one who suffered the most. He didn’t speak much about what happened, nothing at all; whenever I started the conversation he would cut in and rant about ships. Ships initially became the most hateful thing of all for me. Even still, all through this, he and I both soughed after a child. We didn’t love each other, nevertheless we tried, because we knew that it would bring at least an ounce of happiness into our lives.

Two years after all the trying times I finally bore our second child. This time around, it was different. With heavy eyes bags under his eyes, he still happened to hang around me all the time. At times I mocked him, asking what would happen to the ships without him to which he would retort only with a light chuckle; and what got on my nerves the most was that no matter how much I mock him, laugh at him and bother him like a child, he would never say a word but respond with a smile.

He had such a beautiful smile, truly. And I wanted our child to inherit that, so I tried to make him smile more often.

By the time our daughter was born, my husband had to leave country for a business matter which frustrated me even more. No matter what, I wanted him to see our first child, because it was for her that we went through hell and he knew it very well, but he wasn’t there. So I refused to answer his calls. I never knew what was going over there where he was either; nothing except for the fact that it had something to do with ships, so I wasn’t bothered to find out. He returned a week later then, with a weary face and a week without shaving; he refused to hold our child. I didn’t even question him why, instead I stayed silent and didn’t let him lay a finger on her. When he almost started out ranting about ships, I lost my patience. I knew that he was going to tell me why he left; but that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I threw a tantrum so he would never forget. I told him to sail away to somewhere far where we can’t even feel each other’s’ presence and live with his ships all he wanted. I wanted to cry that night, but I didn’t. Because something made me feel extremely remorseful.

The next morning he wasn’t sleeping beside me but was in his study and refused to come out until late. He went straight off to work then. I cleaned his room later that day, and found roles of tissue thrown about in his personal rest room. They were drenched in blood. At the first sight of it, I was too shocked to even wonder what on earth could have happened here throughout the hours he spent locked inside this room. I didn’t remember any sound of breaking glass or falling furniture, nothing, there was no explanation as to how the blood, so much of blood could have come here; I checked the mirror to see if he had done anything insane, but no. Nothing could explain it to me but I was certain, without a doubt that he had, somehow, hurt himself. I couldn’t figure out how on earth and why; but the guilt of what I did to him the night before killed me inside, because I was unaware, unaware of all that he could have gone through. I didn’t love him, I knew I didn’t, but the pain was so much that I held our daughter in my hands and cried.

Later that evening though, when I asked him how all the blood got there, his simple reply was that his hand got wounded by mistake. His right wrist was bandaged with a thick piece of Band-Aid, the quality of it showed that it obviously wasn’t any professional doing. His face was weary and tired as always, had shaved for the betterment, nevertheless he didn’t seem anything like the person who left a month ago, it was as though wherever he went had held back my real husband and sent a rather weary one instead. I tried to see how the wound was, once he came down fresh after a shower but he never granted my wish, shaking away the whole ordeal with a smile. In the end, he said he was finally ready to hold our child.

The moment he took her into his hands, I couldn’t stop the tears in my eyes. It was truly beautiful, the union between the father and the child. She was only two weeks old, of course she couldn’t understand anything but the way she comfortably cradled in his warmth was so surreal, how her tiny head rested against his chest and how her fingers curled around his was an unconditional reverie in my eyes. Laying in his arms, I could swear that she smiled the slightest, no matter how delusional it may sound; and that was, just as I wished, the exact resemblance of the smile that her father constantly had.

I didn’t know what really got into me that night, because I too, curled into his warmth in bed and asked him to kiss me goodnight.

Sometimes I wished I was a ship that he loved too, because I wanted him to love me. Although we were put into marriage against my will, at some points I truly thought we could have really worked it out.

Sorry about the crappy chapter; this was initially a one shot but my imagination went as far as to exceed six thousand words that I decided to make it a three shot. I hope you'd enjoy!