"You can't keep making these calls, we really don't have the money for it." Manna begged to her husband Duke as she sat on the edge of her bed.
The man scoffed at her to himself and tossed his vest onto the coat rack by the doorway and shuffled his way toward his bed, ignoring his scolding. Why was he always like this? He didn't seem to understand the budget was tight. He threw money away at the bar every night, long-distance at that, running up the neighboors' phone bill with no way to repay them, and buying so much alcohol right along with it.
She continued, now with a more annoyed voice, "And not to mention you just have to buy a couple drinks when you go, too!"
A mere sound of a grunt was the most she could get out of the old man as he tossed his clothes onto the floor and collapsed into the bed opposite her. He angrily threw the blanket over himself as a declaration of ending the squabble.
Manna looked at her hands and then over to Aja's bed, and eventually got into her bed alongside Duke. Couldn't he at least respond to her pleas? It wouldn't help the situation to fight any longer, though.
She wrapped her arm over his body and drew a light circle on his chest with her index finger as an apology. There was no use making him any more angry with her. Under her half embrace she could feel him become a little less tense.
She fell asleep.