"ᴵ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ʸᵒᵘ."

"ᵂᵉˡˡ ᴵ ʰᵃᵗᵉ ʸᵒᵘ."

"ᴬˡʷᵃʸˢ ˢᵒ ᵈʳᵃᵐᵃᵗⁱᶜ, ᵃʳᵉⁿ'ᵗ ʸᵒᵘ?"

A pianist and a harpist pluck an old melody Lisa's grandmother composed in the '80s.

It's from a song about a woman who lost her child and wanders the streets crying.

Albert Galbraith slumps in the bay window seat, overlooking the front yard of kids from their neighborhood. They love visiting the Galbraiths because their yards are always full of toys and a pool. The pool's only open on the weekends since that's when their lifeguards are on duty.

His heavy breaths rock his shoulders and bob his head, drawing the hired musicians' attention when he wheezes between each one.

"Mrs. Galbraith," the pianist calls for his wife. The man continues tapping the keys, though his eyes, full of concern, remain on his sixty-year-old boss.

He wants to call her again, but she chastised them before for repeating her name instead of waiting. With this in mind, he takes his inner cheek between his teeth.

Albert's lungs are like raisins from years of asbestos exposure. He was diagnosed with asbestosis six years ago but told he'd only live for five. If not for his wife, it'd have been true.

Lisa descends the curved stairs, both hands adjusting the brooch earrings as her eyes flick between the three in her grand living room.

Her husband lets out a dry cough into his fist, his body trembling like a leaf. She stares at him for a few beats and sighs.

"Al, there's only but so much I can do when you're deliberately being difficult." Her voice is soft but a tad whiny, like a parent speaking to their toddler. It's how she feels, wasting her youth playing caretaker for him.

"I'm not staying in that chair all day while you're off slapping powder and rouge on your face," he tells her without looking back. She continues past him to look for his wheelchair in the kitchen.

"Would you prefer I walk around with bags and dry lips?" Her rhetorical question makes him side-eye her.

"None of that shit makes a difference." She cracks a smile, thinking he's complimenting her for once in ten years. Her happiness is short-lived when he says, "All it does is make you look worse," and the smile leaves as fast as it arrived. "I'll tell you what you can do: drink some water and go to sleep at a reasonable hour."

The musicians watch the married couple bicker like two old people and they share a disturbed glance. It always bothers them how young she is compared to him.

Albert Galbraith met Lisa Anderson when he was hired to replace one of the classroom walls at her community college. She was a twenty-year-old freshman, and he was a forty-five-year-old divorcee.

He pursued her relentlessly, calling the school and offering free services yet using the opportunity to find her. Eventually, he wore her down and they married five months later, much to their families' disapproval.

Lisa searches the dining room, pantry, and the living room bathroom.

"Albert, where'd you put your chair," she asks, standing directly behind him.

He shakes his head and says, "I'm not sitting in it all day."

"That's not my question." He whips his head to look at her standing over him and a sharp pain spreads down his neck. He brings his hands behind his neck, but she beats him to it. Lisa massages along his spine. "And you're not gonna tell me what you will and won't do when I'm the one caring for you."

"You can save your little attitude for those damn kids you let trample over Julia's roses." Lisa's eyes flick onto the window, watching one of the boys sprint toward the street for their soccer ball. "If she were here, she'd teach you to respect me."

"How can she teach me anything about respecting you when she left you?" The pianist strikes an incorrect cord but clears his throat and resumes the melody. He and the harpist side-eye each other. "And didn't she take over half of your assets?"

Albert jerks his shoulders forward, making her hands fall off his neck. She watches him glare at the little kids with their transparent bags of chalk strewn in front of them. They draw in the street, jagged and crooked lines for hopscotch or tic-tac-toe.

"Get them away from my house before I call the police," he says in a low voice. Lisa furrows her eyebrows at the absurdity of his threat.

"The police," she repeats with a weak chuckle. The harpist watches the couple but the pianist keeps his head down. "Al, they're no older than twelve."

"I wouldn't give a damn if they were two years old. Get them the hell away from my house!" She stands there, staring into his dark blue eyes. Lisa knows him to be volatile, aggressive, and spiteful—it was what ran Julia away—but he never ceases to amaze her with the depth of his heartlessness.

"I'm not shoo-ing them away just because you're in a bad mood." He slowly turns his head to her with narrowed eyes. "They don't even approach the door other than to ask for water or to use our bathroom."

"And who's paying the water bill?" Lisa turns on her heels as she rolls her dark blues onto the pianist, whose dark browns lay on her. He quickly averts them to the sheet music displayed before him. "Who has to constantly call a plumber because those damn kids flush toys, chalk, and other junk?"

"They're kids," she reminds him without looking at him.

He starts to yell I don't give a damn, but only an asthmatic cough comes out. Lisa crosses her arms and shuts her eyes, her mind drifting onto the life she once had.

Being with Albert granted her the financial freedom she always dreamed of, but it cost her her youth and the freedom to go wherever whenever. Even a trip to the supermarket raises millions of questions from her jealous, paranoid husband.

She misses her family and her friends, but she mostly misses her ex-boyfriend, Logan. All of his texts were deleted, calls rejected, and voicemails ignored until, eventually, Albert made her buy a new phone and change her number.

She looks at him clutching his chest, where his heart struggles to thump and circulate his unclean blood. His skin hangs off his bony hands like crumpled velvet and sags his face in the same way.

What used to be full, chestnut hair lay the remnant locks of silver surrounding his head, and strands combed over. He was old when she met him, but nothing could've prepared her for what would be fifteen years later.

He coughs and wheezes, his body rocking back and forth as he gives his wife a dark look. Out of breath, he asks, "Are you gonna just stand there -- or get me my oxygen tank?"

"It's attached to your wheelchair. Either tell me where that is or sit here and suffocate." She outstretches one hand to admire her French tips. The geometric tips alternate between black and white. Her eyes glaze onto the large diamond, surrounded by smaller versions, weighing down her finger.

"He had me put it in the hall closet upstairs," the pianist says, and all eyes fall on him.

Lisa claps once and clasps her hands with a smile. She mouths, "Thank you," then rushes up the stairs.

Albert glares at the musician, feeling heat in the pit of his stomach. He balls his shaky hands into fists on his lap, his thin lip twitching at the sight of his employee.

The pianist watches him out of the corner of his eye but doesn't dare look at his boss. The harpist too averts her gaze when the scorn shifts to her.

Lisa lugs the folded wheelchair down the flight of stairs. When her heels land on the main floor, she's placed through the wall of tension, and it doesn't go unnoticed. She watches her husband glaring at the musicians, then them avoiding his gaze.

"Do you mind helping me put him in his wheelchair?" He stops playing the piano and verbally agrees.

Before he can stand from the stool, Mr. Galbraith sternly points his finger at the man and tells him, "Don't you come near me."

"Albert," Lisa says with a weary sigh. The air stumbling out of his lungs resembles the sound of clattering objects or an old mower struggling to crank.

"I'm not sitting in that chair!" He coughs after yelling, bringing his fist in front of his mouth. She watches his cheeks rapidly inflate and deflate, and his face turns red.

Mark and Sarah watch the married couple but give the wife the most attention. They wait for a movement or a response, but she just stands there with her narrowed eyes on her husband.

Unbeknownst to them, she's thinking about whether it's worth it to wrestle him into his chair or whether she loves him enough to give him his oxygen.

Lisa looks at the children laughing and playing in front of their yard, never being afforded that luxury greater than material possessions. She surrounds herself with kids just to experience a moment of motherhood before their parents whisk them away.

He refused to adopt and refused IVF, but was open to surrogacy.

She wasn't.

Lisa wanted to experience pregnancy and childbirth in all its beauty and ugliness. The stretchmarks, epidural, sore breasts from lactation, etc. To her, it's a worthy experience knowing she can hold her baby and watch it grow.

But it never happened. At thirty-five, she's childless because of her infertile husband.

"Mark, please place him in his chair," she calmly says, her eyes lacking the emotions and life they contained when she first descended the stairs.

Albert's eyebrows raise to his hairline, his lip and body trembling as he stares at his wife. He expects her to notice his anger and change her mind like always, but she instead opens his wheelchair and kicks the brakes. His tank is attached to the side by zip ties.

Mark stands and approaches them with his hands clasped behind his back. Like a child, Albert yells, "Get your hands off," knowing Mark's hands haven't yet moved.

Sarah's eyes widen and her teeth gnash. She's never witnessed a grown man throw a tantrum, and she desperately wants to finish the song so she can be on her way.

Her blue-black hair sways with each movement of her body as her fingers delicately strum the large strings.

Lisa and Mark share a look, telepathically discussing their plan to force him into the seat. When she nods, he returns his eyes to Albert, and she does the same.

Mark leans in and wraps his arms under Albert's, then grips his wrist in the other hand, sealing his boss in a bear hug. The lanky musician waddles with the frail man against his chest. Albert tries to push the sturdy shoulders before him, coughing and wheezing in his face with no care or respect.

Lisa grips the handles, and Mark sets him in the chair. When Albert attempts to stand, Mark takes the elderly man's shoulders and nudges them back.

As the ladies watch on, the two men go back and forth like a parent fighting with their toddler to stay in their car seat, and Mark wishes there was a way to strap him in.

"Albert!" The heaviness in her stern voice makes her husband stop resisting. She's never raised her voice before, and even the musicians are too stunned to move. Her mouth is scrunched and her eyebrows are drawn in as her eyes warn him to behave, then they relax when they land on Mark. "Thank you. You may continue with Sarah."

"No!" The trio looks at the patriarch, whose tone barely overpowers his wife's, and he divides his attention between the harpist and pianist. "You two get the hell out of my house! You're both fired!"

Mark and Sarah watch Lisa for her objection, but when she pinches her nose bridge with her eyes shut, they glance at each other. The two pack their few belongings—tools to tune and clean the instruments and water bottles—and then exit the estate.

He's huffing and puffing, his fists shaking with his quivering head. If he had his strength, he'd beat Lisa like he did Julia for emasculating him.

"Take me to the master bathroom." Lisa stares at him over her ring, her blood beginning to boil. Her heart thumps and thumps, faster and faster.

"How do you expect me to wheel you upstairs?" Albert jumps out of the chair and stands on his socks-covered feet. With a straight posture, he walks around her and steps toward the flight of stairs. She shakes her head at him and drops her arm.

Lisa walks close behind him with one hand raised to his back in case he loses his footing. They continue through the well-lit hall of coffee tables, doors, and bottom-mounted lights beside each bedroom door.

Her heels click against the wood flooring, like on the marble floors below. The constant clicking and clacking only adds to his growing rage that doesn't simmer when she opens the master bedroom door.

Lisa walks behind Albert into the spacious, carpeted room. He wheezes and trudges toward the king-sized bed, then sits at the foot of the bed on the thick comforter.

"Run me a shower," he says, and she walks toward the bathroom. He stares at his reflection in the mirror above the dresser she passed by, and the corners of his mouth curl downward. He raises his shaking hands to his head, his fingertips sliding through the thin strands he combed over.

He hardly looks at himself in the many mirrors and windows. The reminder of who he's become fuels his bitterness. As the years go by, his wife's youthful appearance never withers, but the man he once was is hidden within the shell of someone deserving of a nursing home. 

He knows he makes her life difficult and bleak. It's intentional. He believes that if he continues, she'll be too worn out to cheat or plan on divorcing him.

He uses her nursing degree as an excuse, claiming it'll look good on her resume. He thinks she bought the excuse and is fully committed to him, but in reality, the second he's buried, she plans to find Logan and rekindle the flame Albert extinguished.

The water rains down on the tiled floor and walls inside the walk-in shower. There's one showerhead directly above with one on either side of it.

Usually, he prefers to soak in an Epsom bath, but for once he wants to stand under the water and inhale the steam.

Lisa returns to him with a towel over her shoulder. She lifts his sweater vest and tosses it behind him, then unbutton his shirt and discards it the same way.

She drops to her haunches and as her hands travel to his zipper, her eyes linger on his protruding stomach which contrasts with his malnourished limbs.

He wheezes with his mouth closed, his stomach sucking in on each inhale.

He coughs into his left fist, then waves the index on that hand at the door. She lowers his zipper, and he says, "Go get my oxygen tank."

"Take me to the bathroom. Run my shower. Grab my oxygen tank," she repeats all of his commands, dropping her arm at her side. "Can you ask me for these favors as your wife instead of like I'm the help?"

The couple stare each other down, neither willing to budge so easily.

"Go get my oxygen tank." His tone doesn't change, as if her comment doesn't faze him. It doesn't. It instead falls on deaf ears and she raises an eyebrow when she realizes.

"I'm not getting you anything until you speak to me correctly." She stands to her height and turns her head to the bathroom door. Before she can walk away, he yanks her wrist in his hand.

Lisa watches Albert's fingers wrap around her flesh like a belt or a snake, constricting with the strength of a younger man.

"I've given you enough grace for today. Go get my tank." Each word is said with a verbal jab. His tone and menacing stare warn her not to push him, and when her gaze softens, he loosens his grip.

Lisa swallows her pride and steps out of the room. While she's away, Albert drops his capris to his ankles and steps out of them.

He pushes himself to his feet, wobbling like a child taking their first steps, and walks toward the bathroom in his boxers.

He huffs and coughs, his lungs rattling with little air. He passes the clawfoot tub across from the shower that can easily fit five people. When he reaches the translucent sliding door, his chest tightens.

Albert takes his chest in his hands, his fingers curling as his nails dig into his skin. His eyes widen and they swing onto the closed toilet. He trudges toward it and sits on the lid, his lips tingling with pins and needles.

His hands quiver and his throat closes in. He looks at the door, waiting for Lisa to return and every second feels like an eternity.

He wants to scream, but can only muster her name so low she wouldn't hear him if she were in the room. He calls for her over and over, feeling like a bookshelf toppled over on him.

"Sorry I took so long," she wearily says, her eyes on the heavy tank cradled in her arms. "I had to find a pair of scissors to cut the zip ties."

He wants to rush to her and kiss her, relieved to see her with his medication. The opaque tube dangles across her shoulder to keep it from touching the floor.

She walks to him and sets the tank against the wall, then lifts the tube off her shoulder. With the nose part held in her hands, she looks into his eyes.

Lisa cracks a smile, an idea coming to mind.

"You know, if I wanted to, I could keep your oxygen from you." His brows raise. "You're the most evilest man I've ever loved and for once, I understand why some women do away with their husbands."

He coughs into his fist, his throat burning. With watering eyes and through a suppressed bout of coughs, he says, "You're playing with fire, Lisa."

"Maybe, but I think this is the smartest way to kill you." Albert's nostrils flare and his big eyes flick from one of hers to the other. "Think about it: you're as stubborn as a mule. Even our employees have seen you refuse to cooperate and stay in your chair." She takes a step back and her lips curve into a smirk. "All I gotta do is hide it from you, you'll die, and no one will know what really happened."

"Lisa," he mumbles, his face turning red. He reaches his hand out to touch hers but she backs away further until the tank falls on its side.

His torso sways back and forth, and hot tears trickle down his face.

"Just die, Al," she whines, tears forming on her lashes. Her small lips tremble and she shakes her head at his disposition. "If you truly loved me, you'd die."

He wants to scream her name and tell her to give him his oxygen, but his lungs feel like they're in fists. They no longer pull in air and can no longer inflate or deflate upon his command.

The walls of his throat close in quicker and quicker, his periphery growing darker and darker.

He lifts his hand again and his pinky twitches. She becomes nothing more than a silhouette standing over him.

Albert's eyes roll back and his body plunges forward. He crashes onto the tiled floor with a boom, knocking his front tooth loose.

Lisa drops to her haunches and her eyes drag across him. His back lifts and falls in his pointless attempt to gather oxygen.

"I suppose killing you would be too quick, too easy, and too perfect for you. Death would be too perfect for you." Lisa purses her lips and gulps. She shakes her head and turns his to the side. She adjusts the tube over his ears, laying his head on one side, and then the other. "I'll let you live, but let me tell you this: if you ever put your hands on me again, I'll have you carted off to the morgue before the day is through."

She watches his face fade to its peaches and cream complexion. Slowly, his dark blues reopen and land on her heels.

Lisa hoists him with a guttural grunt and sets him on the toilet. He slumps against the wall, his mouth partly open.

She crosses her arms under her breasts and smirks, soaking in the power she holds over him.

"I love you, Al," she sincerely tells him.

"I hate you." She blinks back, genuinely surprised. "I hate you more than words can express." He sits up and venom pools in his gaze. If he could, he'd lunge at her. "Nothing will satisfy me more than seeing you dead, you ungrateful, psychotic, bitch!"

"So dramatic, aren't you." Four words, simple and monotonous. Yet, it makes his heart skip a beat. Lisa leans forward and plants her hands on her knees, her face inches from his. "How's about you kill me then, hm?"

Goosebumps line his arms and legs, lifting his body hair like a strong breeze swept across his skin. Her minty breath and cold tone freeze him in place.

He married her when she was too young to know better — a perfect pick for a man lusting after innocence and craving control — but here he sits in his bathroom at her mercy.

He knows she's right. If she kills him, none would be the wiser. He's seen her cry her way out of a ticket and it only now dawns on him how calculated and manipulative she can be when necessary.

Though she can, Lisa won't kill him today. Instead, she'll let this moment teach him who truly holds all the cards.