I leapt backwards with a squeal, as several baking pans clattered out of the cabinet and onto the floor. In my right hand, I clutched the muffin pan I had sought; my left hand, and its arm, was curled over my face and head, to protect them from the onslaught of cooking implements.

The swinging door to the kitchen flew open with a crash; I leapt away from it, now, with another squeal. Erik stood in the doorway, looking twice his usual height. His eyes were like flames, ready to devour whatever danger had presented itself.

"What's wrong? Why did you scream?" he demanded of me, as he took measured steps into the kitchen. He moved with the grace of a predatory cat; I shivered.

"N-nothing." The muffin pan was lifted first, and then employed to gesture towards the pans on the floor. That was all the explanation I gave—that was all the explanation he needed.

Some of his tenseness slid out of him, along with an exasperated sigh. He scooped and began picking up the pans that had fallen, and patiently packing them away in the cupboard again.

"..You aren't going to wash those?"

The look he gave me over my shoulder made me regret asking. "Why?" he asked after a moment. "They're clean enough."

I stared. "But..." A moment of hesitation, before convincing myself to continue. "They.. have been on the floor, Erik."

He stood very still for a very long time, before pulling out each pan that had fallen to the floor, and carrying them to the sink.

I bit my lip. I hated to bring it up.. but... "Erik..?"

I heard him take a long breath before answering. "Yes, Christine?"

"They.. Never mind."

His head turned away from the sink, to fasten me with that unwavering gaze. His mask made him seem all the more frightening. "What is it, Christine?"

It was never a good sign when he tagged my name onto the end of every sentence. "Nothing... Really."

"Christine."

I sighed, and moved to the oven, to set my muffin pan down. "It's just.. the pans. They.. were on the floor."

"Yes, and I'm washing them now."

"But you put them up first."

"...And?"

I shrugged one shoulder, and continued meekly, "So.. they touched the other pans."

I winced in preparation for his retaliation, but none came. Silent steps carted him across the kitchen floor, back to the cupboard, where he proceeded to remove each and every pan, and carry them to the sink.

I tried to pretend I could not feel the fury emanating from him, and instead proceeded to make my muffins. I had been craving blueberry muffins, dying for them, and had nearly gotten up the nerve to ask our cook—a very frightening Italian woman, who I avoided at all costs—when she had to take a sick-leave.

Thus, I had announced—much to the trepidation of the other members of our household—that I would bake the muffins myself.

It was common knowledge under our roof that, in general, Christine plus kitchen equals disaster. The few times that I had attempted to use anything more complex than a refrigerator, a microwave, or a toaster-oven, I had set off a fire alarm—or at least caused enough smoke for there to be need of one. That was why I avoided our cook at all costs. In the beginning, she had wanted to teach me to cook. I spoke enough Italian to converse with her, however choppily—one could not have ever considered opera as a career, and not speak Italian. However, the more she had tried to teach me, the worse I had become, until she had grown to hate me.

I was convinced that I would do this properly. It was partly pride that drove me to aim for perfection; it was largely my desire to sate this frenzied longing for blueberry muffins.

Henri had driven out to the store earlier today to pick up all of the items I required. It was not that I was an incompetent grocery shopper—I could shop with the best of them—but Henri was convinced I would not be able to select good blueberries. They—Henri and Erik—had tried to convince me to use muffin-mix, but I refused. I wanted to make them myself. I wanted to prove that I could make muffins by myself—even though I had the sneaking suspicion that I could not.

Henri had humored me; Erik had made a teasing, though somewhat degrading, comment about pregnant women.

It had been six and a half months, and my stomach was beginning to reach the awkward stage. My back and legs ached, and I wanted nothing more than to fling the muffin pan across the kitchen at Erik, and go lie down—I did not, however, because I knew that as soon as I laid down, I would be able to think of nothing but my muffins.

Muffins, muffins, muffins. For weeks, nothing but muffins.

Erik had offered to buy me muffins. I did not want bought muffins. I wanted to make muffins.

I glanced at the recipe card that I had found in our cook's cabinets, and began to measure out the ingredients. Erik finished washing the pans, and came to stand near me, watching intently. I was almost tempted to fling flour on him, but did not; somehow, I was afraid he would not see the humor in the act.

When I had finally placed the first muffin pan in the oven and set the timer, I wandered over to a stool near the island and heaved my body up onto it. Erik migrated over to stand near me, and leaned casually against the island, still watching me with that same intense gaze.

One cold, skeletal hand reached out to wipe a bit of flour from my nose. I almost fancied I could see his eyes crinkling with a smile. That imagining was dashed to the floor and shattered into bits, however, when he asked quietly, "Are you really going to keep it?"

I frowned, hoping desperately that he did not speak of what I thought he did. "Keep what, my love?"

The same hand waved towards my stomach, pointer finger trailing down its center. "That."

"My stomach?" I tried valiantly to laugh off the question. "Of course, not, Angel. It will—"

"I do not jest, Christine."

My mouth shut so quickly that my teeth nicked the tip of my tongue; the metallic taste of blood took momentary precedence over my senses. I considered my words very carefully, before quietly asking, "Well, what do you expect me to do?"

He did not answer my question, instead making another ridiculous inquiry in reply. "And you will raise it? You will... love it?"

I knocked his hand away from my stomach, and rose to check on the muffins. "Erik," I said, my voice strained from the effort of bending over the opened oven, "we don't even know that it will.. look like you. There is no point in fretting over it." I stood with a groan, echoed by the hinges of the shutting oven, and turned to face him again. "Besides, love, I already told—"

"Are you so sure that you want a child of mine?" His voice was rising in volume, as his temper soared to new heights. He was becoming impatient with me; I could see it in the way that he seemed clenched, from head to toe, could see it in the way he refused to make eye contact with me and instead focused his gaze on a spot a little below my collarbone.

"Of course I am!" My voice flew up into the farther reaches of tone, as my own impatience surfaced.

"Are you so sure!" He flew to his feet.

"What would you have me do, Erik?" I demanded of him. "Strangle it at birth? Would you prefer some kind of dramatic mercy-killing?" Irrational thoughts flooded my mind, spurned my pulse into unimagined speeds, and wrapped me in a red haze. My hand flew to the knife-rack, and pulled out one of the larger knives. I thrust it into one of his chilled hands, wrapped his fingers around the hilt, and tried my best to press it against my stomach, though my strength was nothing compared to his.

"Cut it out, Erik!" I screeched. "Do it! If you hate the child so much, cut it out of me, right now! Take it out and cut its head off and throw it out into the garden—better yet, throw the muffins into the garden, and we can eat my unborn child—your unborn child—for dinner! Would that be preferable, Erik? Would it?"

I released his hand, and spun away from him, angrily flinging the oven door open to fish out my muffins; it was time to cook the second batch. My entire body was trembling with rage, and I felt somewhat sick. Erik was one huge entity of insufferable silence, at my left shoulder.

Eventually, the knife clattered to the tile floor. I flinched. "Erik..." I turned my head to look for him, but he was gone.

The car's tires screeched as I took the curve far more quickly than I should have, and for a single moment, I was afraid I would careen off the road and into the woods. I did not, however; the car carried me safely around the arc, and on down the rainy street. It was nearly midnight, and I had barely passed a single car. I wasn't even sure why I was on the road; I did not expect to find him.

Yes, find him—he had disappeared. When I finished my muffins—with only a few burnt, much to my relief—I had gone in search of my husband, hoping to make up for words that I knew deserved no forgiveness. However, a lengthy investigation of the house, made more lengthy by the infuriating handicap that had started this entire argument, had turned up empty. Henri had not seen Erik since before I had begun cooking. I had not seen him nor heard whisper of his presence since he had abandoned me in the kitchen. When I went out to the garage, I discovered one of the cars missing.

Henri had nearly tied me to a chair, to keep me from going out. He wanted to look for himself, wanted me to stay home where I would be safe. My will eventually won out over his, though I am shamed to admit that I used my weight as his employer to sway him. Never before had I made mention of my superiority over him; always, he had been more of a friend and mentor, than an employee.

I swore to myself, then and there, that I would never do it again.

My fingers searched through the inky blackness for the car phone, dialing Erik's without even having to glance at the numbers. I held it only half-heartedly to my ear; it was the hundredth time I'd called, and I did not expect an answer any more than I had one hundred calls earlier.

To my surprise, he answered. That beautiful voice was swathed in angry misery; his pain was nearly the death of me. I had caused that pain. I had said... God in Heaven, why had I said...?

"Erik?"

Only the click of a phone being hung up was my answer.

I threw the car phone down onto the passenger-side floor with disgust. I hated myself for what I had said to him, hated that it had hurt him this much. I also hated having to chase after him to beg forgiveness. My words were not justifiable, but neither were his. He should have been apologizing to me at exactly the same moment that I was apologizing to him; it should not have been such a drastically one-sided effort.

But I had accepted that I would spend the rest of my life doing this, had accepted it the same night I had realized I loved him. I had even been ready to spend my life in the cellars of the opera with him, if he asked me to.

I had never imagined pregnancy would push my patience to such unbearable limits.

I had never imagined he would so stubbornly refuse to believe that I wanted his child as much as I wanted him.

I had never imagined he would ask me, every single night, sometimes with tears, sometimes with a laughter I knew was not genuine, sometimes with anger—with those icy hands clutching and shaking and just barely avoiding pummeling into me.

The car phone rang, pulling me out of a thought process that I never wanted to continue. It could lead only to doubt, and I refused to doubt him. I refused to doubt my love for him. If I doubted, who would stand strong? –Certainly, it would not be Erik to take that role.

I was already groping for the phone, before realizing that it was on the floor. A straight stretch of road sprawled out before me, with no cars in sight. I took a deep breath, and lunged towards the floor, trying my best to keep the steering-wheel still. My fingers encountered the phone with little delay, and I sat up again, happy to see that I had only crossed the center line ever-so-slightly. There were still no cars in sight.

I eased the car back into the correct lane, as I lifted the phone to my ear. "Erik?"

Silence, and then Henri's voice: "Your husband has returned home, Madam." I winced. Was he so angry with me?

"Henri, I wanted to apolo—"

I never got a chance to finish the sentence.

There are a great many stray dogs, near our home. As I had mentioned, we were somewhat removed from the town, and the dogs bred like rabbits out in the countryside. Every night, we would hear them barking in the distance, and there was nearly always one carcass—at least—by the side of the road, where one had been foolish enough to wander into the road.

Each time I saw a carcass, I became teary, and swore to myself never to hit one of them.

It was on this rainy, moonless night that one of them finally stepped out in front of my car, to parade itself onto the asphalt as if worthy of a prize, for daring to tempt me to break my promise.

The phone slipped from my fingers as my foot slammed down onto the breaks. I yanked the steering-wheel; the dog leapt easily away from me, and took off into the night. I vaguely remember being relieved, before the truck collided with my own car.

We would not find out until later that the driver had forgotten to turn on his lights, thus explaining why I had had no idea he was coming.

We would not find out until later that he was asleep, thus explaining why he had made no effort to avoid me.

We would not find out until later that my car rolled far enough into the trees that the police were, at first, not sure where to find it. They had to trek into the woods to discover the black vehicle, on its side and a little on its top, with my body hanging pitifully in the driver's seat.

I don't recall what transpired between the moment of the collision and the moment I woke up in the hospital, except fragments of thought running through my mind.

I'm going to die.

You aren't going to die. You have to live.

I'm going to die.

Erik's child has to live. You can't die.

Live. Live. Live.

Live for Erik. Live for the child.

Live, live, live.

I'm going to die...

You never said you were sorry.

You never said you loved him.

Live, live, live...

I'm going to—

And then, the sweet ecstasy of unconsciousness swept me away.