Under A Glass Sea

Chapter 5

       Braelynne was cooking dinner while singing to herself. Seth wasn't home from work yet and the house was quiet. She relished this time before Seth arrived when she could escape the noise she had been surrounded by all day and just be at peace. Her hearing aids were off and the only sounds she could hear were the water bubbling on the stove and the sound of her own voice. Whenever Seth came home, the noise came with him. He would immediately go and turn on the TV or the radio, turning the volume up so it echoed through the house. Then he would come and talk to her as if she could understand him over the sound of the radio or TV (sometimes both) while she was also trying to finish dinner. She would have to put her hearing aids in. Braelynne had asked him several times to turn off the TV or radio before he started talking to her but he refused. He didn't like silence, he said. He also had a habit of going into the other room or facing away from her while still trying to talk to her. Braelynne had repeatedly reminded him that she needed to be able to see his lips in order to fully understand him but he kept turning away from her when he was talking. Then he would get upset when she couldn't understand him. 

It frustrated Braelynne that he continued to do that even after she had reminded him about it numerous times. He hated when she would ask him to repeat himself and made fun of her for saying 'what' whenever she didn't understand him. He also tended to whisper to her when they were out with friends or had gone to her parents for dinner. He would sit at the dinner table whispering under his breath about how he didn't like the food or some other complaint he had. She would look at him blankly and remind him she couldn't hear him when he whispered. He would get annoyed at her for not hearing him and she would get frustrated that he was annoyed. She hated being treated like her hearing loss was her fault. Seth acted like she was deliberately trying not to hear him. She put in a lot of effort to listen, trying to understand everything that was being said and filling in the blanks when she didn't hear certain words or even whole sentences. It was mentally exhausting and Seth didn't make it any easier. In fact, he often seemed to go out of his way to make it harder on her. He didn't want to extend himself in order to accommodate her hearing loss. She wished he would bother to show her even the slightest amount of consideration while speaking to her and make an effort to face her while speaking. She wished that he was understanding of the fact that she was hard of hearing. Instead, he punished her for it, deliberately turning his back or turning up the volume of the radio or TV while speaking. He also pushed her not to wear her hearing aids when they were together but without them understanding him would have been impossible. Braelynne was stewing as she dumped the pot of pasta into the colander in the sink. Dinner would be ready soon.

Oh yes, dinner. 

Braelynne enjoyed cooking. She liked experimenting with food and trying new recipes. She especially liked trying recipes from different cultures. She soon learned that Seth was not very adventurous when it came to food. He had his favorite meals and he wanted them all the time until Braelynne was utterly sick of them. He was also very exacting when it came to food. If it wasn't seasoned precisely to his liking, he would refuse to eat it. He would yell at her, complaining that she couldn't make a meal that was edible (even though he happily ate her cooking on other days) and then would dump the food in the trash. He would then mosey to the pantry and eat a pack of cookies and a bag of chips. Braelynne often thought they should get a dog since at least their pet could be the recipient of the meals Seth wouldn't eat. She also wondered how Seth managed to keep his physique when he was eating cookies and chips all the time. But he was as muscular as ever and women still gazed at him longingly when they were out. Braelynne also loved her desserts but she had a tendency to gain weight easily if she wasn't careful. Seth made comments when he saw her eating sweets and warned her not to get fat. He often told her he could never be married to a fat woman. If she gained weight, he would divorce her. He wanted a wife that other men wanted to sleep with and that required her maintaining her curvy figure and not putting on any excess weight.