Free An Inconvenient Husband by Karen van der Zee

emotion.
"What are you getting at, Blake? What do you want me to say?"
    "I'm not sure.
Something to the effect that our marriage was real to you at the time—no matter
that it ended, no matter what the reason."
    Her stomach churned.
"Real, as opposed to what?"
    "A fake, a game
of pretense." He pushed his hands into his pockets.
    Hot tears filled her
eyes. "How dare you ask that! How could you even think that!" she said huskily, angry at herself for losing her composure.
    He shook his head.
"I couldn't." He turned away from her, moving toward the door. As he
left the room, he glanced at her over his shoulder.
    "I came to tell
you that if you're thirsty, Ramyah put drinks out for us on the veranda."
    He left and she busied
herself putting the clothes away, trying to steady her nerves. It was crazy to
let herself get so affected by him. She'd have to keep her cool and not let
memories get the better of her. Be calm, be in control, she told herself. She
grimaced. Such brave words.
    Having finished with
the clothes she took a deep breath to fortify herself and ventured to the
veranda. Blake was sitting in a chair, drinking from a tall glass, reading a
book. Not a novel, her glimpse told her, but something about global marketing strategies.
    The wide, covered
veranda was like an open room, with comfortable furniture, reading lamps and
tubs of flowering plants. She poured herself some of the juice from the pitcher
on the tray on the table and took a sip. It was deliciously sweet and tangy.
Feeling too restless to sit down, she sauntered over to the veranda railing and
took in the view.
    "It's very
dramatic," she said, gesturing at the panorama of mountains and blue sky.
    "Yes." It
was all he said.
    She contemplated the
forest-covered hills. "Do people live in the jungle here? I mean, like the
Indians in the Amazon?"
    "Yes. They're
called the orang asli, the original people. They're nomadic hunters and
gatherers, but there aren't very many left leading the traditional life."
    She tried to imagine
what it would be like to live in the forest, but couldn't. She leaned her arms
on the wooden railing and surveyed the garden below, discovering to her delight
a neatly laid-out plot with plants and vines to the left. "They have a
vegetable garden!" she said, hearing her voice rise a little with her
enthusiasm. "I'm going to have a look."
    "You can go down
the stairs over there," he suggested, pointing to the far end of the
veranda.
    She skipped down the
creaking steps and followed the path to the vegetable plot, which had been
fenced in, probably to keep destructive forest creatures out. She walked
between the rows, seeing several kinds of lettuce, hot chili peppers, curly
endive, green beans, tomatoes trained on bamboo stakes, and a big patch of strawberries.
Strawberries in the tropics? Amazing!
    To her surprise she
found Blake next to her a few minutes later. "Looks good," he
commented, surveying the neat rows.
    She sighed longingly.
"I'd die for a garden like this. Imagine having all this wonderful, fresh
stuff to cook with!" She moved her hand gently through a clump of basil.
"This smells so great," she said, moving her face closer. "I
love the smell of basil."
    He was watching her
with an odd expression in his eyes.
    She frowned at him.
"What? Did I say something wrong?"
    "No," he
said tersely.
    She bent down near the
strawberries. "Look, there are a lot of ripe ones. Don't they look
beautiful, that bright red amid all that fresh green? A work of art, really.
We'd better pick them and have them for dessert."
    "Just leave
them." There was a sharp edge to his voice and she glanced up, surprised.
His eyes were a dull, metal gray, unreadable. She frowned.
    "Does it matter
if we pick a few?"
    "Leave it to the
gardener. He doesn't like it if people interfere with his work."
    She stared at him.
"Don't be ridiculous."
    He shrugged, his face
stony. "Suit yourself." He marched off, back to the veranda. She
watched him, puzzled. What was the