Ella spared small glances from the corner of her eye at the man beside her. As always, she found it difficult to read his emotions. His face was placid, not giving away even a hint of what he was feeling inside.

“Adam?”, she tested. Her voice was wobbly and unsteady, a dead giveaway of the hesitance she felt.

Her husband didn’t spare her a glance, his eyes firmly locked on the road in front of them. The car was painfully silent, suffocating her like a heavy blanket stuffed down her throat.

“Adam, if you want to talk about it, I’m here for you”, she tried again. Much quieter she added, “ I’m always here for you”.

Still Adam said nothing, but his hands tightened on the staring wheel and Ella watched as the tiny dial on the speedometer lurched forward, barely staying within the speed limit.

Ella swallowed hard and turned to look outside the window, already feeling defeated. She had been trying so hard to communicate with her husband in the days leading up to today. She poured all of her time- all of her love- into trying to fix the pieces of him that were no longer whole. But like it had been for a while now, she got nothing in return for her generosity. ‘Adam wasn’t always like this’, she thought, trying to reassure her doubts about his feelings for her. ‘He just went through an extremely traumatic incident and he needed time to heal’. But still, that unforgiving voice in her head that always showed up to shatter her illusions of a perfect marriage whispered cruelly in her ear.

‘Don’t lie to yourself, Ella’ it said ‘ his love died out long before the accident’. No, another part of her mind pushed back, there was no sparsity when it came to their love.

“Honey, listen. It wasn’t your fault, I’m sure they know that. Your mother doesn’t blame you for…”

Ellas last attempts at getting through to him cut off as the car swerved harshly towards the side of the road before coming to an abrupt halt along the curb. Adam put the car into park and turned to face her, a myriad of emotions clouding his face.

“Not my fault? NOT MY FAULT?”, he questioned, his voice raising in a way that hinted towards underlying hysteria.

His beautiful brown eyes that were always so soft and warm were now pools of fire, hot and deadly.

“I was the one that chose to drink that night”, he pointed a finger into his chest, creasing the shirt she had ironed this morning, “I was the one that crashed the car. I was the one that killed….”, his voice broke away, unable to say the name of the person he had hurt the most.

His voice dampened in volume and his gaze shifted to stare through the windshield, “I’m the one that killed my baby brother”.

Ella felt her heart shatter at the pain in his voice. It wasn’t his fault, not entirely at least.

Adam and his brother had been driving home from the bar the night of the accident. Adam, who was meant to be their designated driver, ended up having a couple of drinks before they headed out for the night.

The collision with an oncoming truck that followed had been terrible; the pictures of the flattened car and Adams bloodied shirt still haunted her, days later. Adam had luckily escaped with some scratches and a couple of bruised ribs but his brother, who’s 26th birthday they had been celebrating, fared much worse. Gregg had died instantly at the scene of the accident, his neck too fragile to withstand the impact.

She knew Adam didn’t mean to direct his anger at her; his pain just got so bad sometimes that it spilled from his lips on impulse. So when he screamed, when he yelled, and when he shouted, she let him.

‘You can’t let him walk all over you like that’, the tiny voice interjected, ‘you’re just enabling his anger if you let him get mad at you every time you try to help’.

Ella shook her head to dispel that irritating little voice in her head and put a hand on Adams shoulder, parting her lips to comfort him. But before she could utter a word, Adam shook away her touch and swiped a hand across his face. When Ella looked down, she saw that the sleeve of his black dress shirt was wet with tears.

“Let’s just get going. We’ll be late if we stay here too long”, he said, his voice detached once more. Ella looked at the time on the dashboard and nodded in agreement. The funeral would start in about 20 minutes and they were still 15 minutes away from the church.

Adam put the car into drive and eased it back onto the road.

“Hey, Adam?”, she whispered after a while, tiptoeing around the dying embers of his outburst.

“Hmm?”

He glanced at her quickly with a gaze so tender she almost forgot about the fire his eyes had held. Ella knew, without a doubt in her mind, that she had already forgiven him for his earlier harshness.

“Can we stop at the flower shop across the street from the church first? I want to pick up some Daffodils. I remember Gregg saying they were his favourite”.

Adams lips perked into a soft smile that fell from his face almost instantly; the moment of content unable to stay pinned to his rigid walls for long. But just that small flicker of warmth was enough for Ellas heart to melt with adoration.

“Good idea, Ella. I’m sure he’d love that”.