Main Character Vibes

A happy marriage is when a husband walks on eggshells around his wife

In the suburbs, the horizon is unencumbered by the intrusion of tall buildings and crowding towers. As a result, the sky is imbued with more openness and naturally feels bigger.

The sun rays were gleaming through the crevices of tree branches swaying in the wind of a typical Toronto suburb hazily waking up and groggily greeting yet another Monday. Francis was blearily waking up to the sound of his nagging alarm which he quickly turned off while he groaned in bed with inert agitation. Still fast asleep next to him was his beautiful wife, Marie.

Francis and Marie had been married for ten years. They lived with their two kids in a three-bedroom single-family home in an ordinary Canadian suburb; front lawns, white picket fences, nosy neighbors, and barbeque decks crammed into tight backyards. The neighborhood was a forty-minute commute away from the city's core, not considering the rush hours. Downtown Toronto was where both of them worked.

Francis eagerly shook his wife as she moaned in protest and mumbled through her sleep. "Babe, Marie, get up,"

"Just give me ten more minutes...go get the kids ready," she commanded as she tossed and recoiled her body away from the irritating Francis.

As was their routine, the nagging sound of the alarm was reserved solely for Francis who was a buffer between it and Marie. In complying with Marie's wishes, Francis obsequiously got up.

He stood next to the bed, stretching and yawning while shaking his head as if he was revving up his body to muster enough energy to start the day. All the while, Marie was reclaiming his side of the bed as she lethargically reveled in the warmth of the spacious room on the mattress he left behind.

Francis stood by the bed as he looked on, with admiring eyes at Marie, whose beauty and graceful figure were unscathed by neither the ravaging of time nor the birthing of her two children. Unlike Francis, she was adamant about taking care of herself. Her diet was a meticulous calculation of controlled calories, proteins, greens, and good carbs. And her physique was the product of such restraint.

The faint sounds of the fidgeting kids were slowly getting louder from across the corridor as their tiny footsteps began stomping and plodding the carpeted floor.

"Morning, daddy!" Camille, his five-year-old daughter, energetically yelled out while playfully accentuating each vowel as she came out running from her room in her flower onesie. She hurled herself into her father's arms just as he was coming out of his bedroom. Camille's impact jolted him awake as Francis was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. She was all too eager to inaugurate the mornings through these daybreak collisions with her father.

"Ouch, that'll wake me up, you little devil." She hid her face on his chest in disgrace and began giggling mischievously.

His nine-year-old son, Ryan, came out of his room while rubbing his eyes. "Morning, Dad."

"Morning...Ryan, take your sister and make sure this rascal brushes her teeth," he said looking at Camille with accusatory eyes as her little hands covered her smiling face in shameful guilt.

"Ugh ok, Camille! Come on."

This morning routine never seemed to fail to irritate young Ryan. But parenthood had taught Francis how to masterfully delegate tasks. Besides, Francis had an ulterior motive.

This brief respite, of when his kids were busy getting ready and his wife was still lounging half-asleep in bed, presented the only window of opportunity for him to sneak out of the house for his morning cigarette. Marie had a zero-tolerance policy for cigarettes; both indoors and outdoors, hers was a smoke-free premise.