Marshall Lee woke up to find himself completely and utterly alone. This much wasn't exactly what one might brand as unusual, as Fiona was often up and moving considerably earlier than him. What was unusual, was the fact that he hadn't woke up in his own house. The bits and pieces of sunlight that he could discern were all chopped up and mismatched by the blinds that censored them, and they shone in on his tired face in all the wrong ways. He squinted, lest he blind himself. His body ached and he was suffering major headache vibes, compliments of his killer hangover.
His late-night partner had long since split, and left him with...Marshall hung his stomach over the mattress and rifled through his pockets...too damn little. There was no way this shit could pass as grocery money. What kind of whore cost that much? Marshall began to stand up, but the moment he did so he felt a searing pain raid the lower portion of his body.
That kind of whore.
How many drinks had it taken him to find himself in bed with another man? Marshall hoped a lot. Because this could not be happening again. Wasting all your shopping money on booze was one thing. Cheating on your wife with high priced hookers was another entirely.
He winced of soreness as he redressed himself. Marshall didn't bother checking the time, he knew it was Late For Your Fucking Job 'o Clock simply by the rays that splashed so brightly across his face.
He wondered how he ever managed his job in the first place, what with all the excess hours he spent either blacked out, hung over, or fighting with his wife. But he was a hard worker, when he did bother showing up. At least, in his opinion. He put things where they went and he smiled when he had to. If only the same could be said of his personal life.
When he finally made the awkward walk home Fiona was at the door, strawberry face and firecracker eyes. She stood still as a statue, with both arms crossed in front of her. She had been waiting. Of course, she had been waiting. She was always waiting, nothing Marshall had ever done for his wife was good enough for her, and the very idea of pleasing her left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"Where the hell were you? I thought you said you got off early."
Marshall winced at the very mention of such a word. Early. Had he made the mistake of sharing his schedule? He didn't remember doing so, but it was hard to remember much of anything with his majorly throbbing head ache. How much did he drink last night? It surely took more than a bottle or two of cheap booze to cause him this kind of physical and emotional agony.
Upon realizing she would not be receiving an answer anytime soon, she sighed and tried again. Fiona looked so pretty in the morning, what with her monstrous Rapunzel hair all thrown in her face and the imprint of sleeplessness painted across her cheeks. Only Marshall wasn't thinking of that, he was thinking more of the ringing in his ears and how long it would take her to shift out of the way even for a second, and let him back into the house that he had paid for.
"Well, at the least you must've gotten groceries."
Marshall wearily ran his eyes about himself. Not a single brown bag in sight, not one plastic or paper bundled up in the crevices of his crossed arms. And he still did not know what to say. "I...I've..." Fiona groaned as she recognized her worries as the realities of this situation. She could smell the dead fruit pushing past his lips and seeping outwards every time he opened his mouth to speak. It made her want to scream and it made her want to cry. But she opened the door fully now, letting her good for nothing husband drift back onward into her life.
His daughter was at the breakfast table already, chowing down on whatever it was that she liked to eat. She was dressed all ridiculously, and if her mother kept this up, she'd surely wind up getting bullied. Little girls can't be left to only dress as they please.
"Papa! Are you here to take me to school today?!" Simonina squirmed excitedly in her seat. Her lengthy brown braids slid about with the motion. Her hair would soon grow in darker, as it was a trait of his and not of her mother's.
"Of course," He replied, willing to hop onto anything that got him out of working for the day. Seeing his boss would of course make Marshall's puke-ish state even more puke-ish.
Fiona glared at him, with such a look he had not seen from her in a long time. She wouldn't dare bring up the drunkenness in front of daddy's little girl, but over her dead body would ever let her daughter into a vehicle with a man who had been drinking.
"Papa would love to," she said softly, "but he is feeling much too sick today," she was gathering up the breakfast dishes as she spoke; always busy, always bustling, always eager to prove how much of a superior parent she was, "Perhaps sometime next week?"
"Nonsense," Lee slurred, swiping his hand in the direction of the counter top, the countertop littered with the glittering figment which was car keys, "I'm feeling fine, only your mama doesn't want me to spend time with you."
Simonina gasped at the very concept, as she was still quite obviously very young and socially inept in regards to her father's drunkenness. "Is this true," she said, "Is this true?" Fiona didn't answer, they were going to be late soon so it was up and away and into the car and Marshall was left reaching his hand outward for some car keys that were no longer there.