“Miranda! What do you think you are doing?” Jack shouted at her as he exited the bedroom towards her. She could see that he was annoyed and not yet fully awake. He was trying to keep his balance by holding onto the walls in an effort to keep up straight. The light of the dining room was enough to put her in the spotlight, but the rest of the house was quite dark. Jack lifted his arm up and closed one eye to see what the time was on his wristwatch. Miranda just kept quiet as she watched him clutching his head and then waving smoke out of the way.
“It’s 4 o’clock in the morning Miranda! Since when are you smoking again?” He was irritated as he came to a standstill in front of her.
Without saying a word, Miranda inhaled the last part of the cigarette and then flicked it at him.
Jack jumped out of the way to avoid getting burnt by the flying cigarette bud and yelled: “What the hell? Are you crazy?”
Miranda knew that she would have an earful and just sat there, folding both her arms together, switching between legs. She wanted to hear what he had to say and decided to give him more than enough time to say whatever he wanted to say.
“What is going on with you? Have you completely lost it now? Is that any way to treat your husband that has been providing for you for all these years?” he said.
To her, he looked like a monkey in a circus. Jumping around and making silly noises. She did not even hear any of his questions, nor was she planning to answer any of them. Jack picked up the packet of cigarettes that lay next to her on the floor. He looked inside and saw that there were 9 cigarettes inside. Puzzled, he tried to make calculations in his mind of how long she must have been smoking secretly.
“How long have you been smoking?” he asked. “Have you any idea of how ridiculous habit this is? Have you got anything to say for yourself?”
Miranda sat staring at the floor. At some point, she knew that he would break but she first wanted him to reach that point. Until this far, he has only been concerned with the smoking and the cigarettes but he hasn’t yet thought of what it’s all about.
“You are being so childish, Miranda. If this is about the thing with Fischer yesterday, I told you we would talk about it in the morning…” and he rambled on about it still being dark outside and not morning yet. He plumped down on the sofa tiredly, immediately putting his palm on his forehead, reminding her that he just came out of the hospital and that he was in bad state.
Miranda had no compassion for him and the situation he was in. She slowly stood up from her chair, took the packet of cigarettes from his hand and then sat down again. He lifted his head up and asked her what she was doing. She sat back down on the chair, calmly took another cigarette out of the packet and placed it in the corner of her mouth.
“You are not going to light that cigarette!” he scolded at her.
She immediately bent down and picked up the matches from the floor. As she took a match out, he repeatedly told her that she wasn’t going to light it but she lit it anyways. With the flame in front of the cigarette, she turned her head towards him, looked him straight in the eyes, and pulled on the cigarette to light it.
“I can’t believe you just did that!” he said as he furiously stood up to open the door. “Can you at least have the decency to smoke that thing outside?”
She started to laugh. She laughed as if someone had just told her the funniest joke she had ever heard. He looked at her as if she was crazy, not knowing if he should laugh with her and if he should be disgusted. She laughed even more when she realized he was confused about her laughing. He probably thinks that I’ve been playing a prank on him, she thought, laughing even more. The tears rolled down her cheeks as she laughed and it just became funnier and funnier every time she looked at him.
“That’s it! I’m phoning the doctor Miranda. You are clearly out of your mind!” Jack said and proceeded in the direction of their landline telephone in the study room. She stood up quickly, took his cellphone out of her pajama pants’ pocket and continued to laugh as she threw the phone in his direction. He nearly didn’t catch the phone but when she saw that he did, she sat back down on the chair to continue smoking.
“There, use that one!” she sarcastically said to him.
Once again, the look on Jack’s face amused her. She tried to compose herself but with no luck.
He clearly didn’t know what was going on with her and wondered why she would have his phone with her at 4am in the morning. The last thing he remembered was that he put the phone on charge next to his bed. It doesn’t matter anyways he thought, perhaps I should just act like I’m phoning the doctor to give her a little scare.
The phone was switched on, which he found odd, but it was locked. He swiped his finger across the screen to unlock it.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: https://steemit.com/fiction/@bdmomuae/the-mistake-of-jack-chapter-1-fiction
Chapter 2: https://steemit.com/fiction/@bdmomuae/the-mistake-of-jack-chapter-2-fiction
Chapter 3: https://steemit.com/fiction/@bdmomuae/the-mistake-of-jack-chapter-3-fiction
Chapter 4: https://steemit.com/fiction/@bdmomuae/the-mistake-of-jack-chapter-4-fiction
Chapter 5: https://steemit.com/fiction/@bdmomuae/the-mistake-of-jack-chapter-5-fiction
Chapter 6: https://steemit.com/fiction/@bdmomuae/the-mistake-of-jack-chapter-6-fiction
Chapter 7: https://steemit.com/fiction/@bdmomuae/the-mistake-of-jack-chapter-7-fiction
Chapter 8: https://steemit.com/fiction/@bdmomuae/the-mistake-of-jack-chapter-8-fiction
