The Perfect Wife Went Off-Script

The night my husband came home from another flight smelling of another woman's perfume, one question was taking over social media. "Where have all the homemaker over forty-seven gone? "If life as a homemaker is so wonderful, why doesn't anyone ever speak up about it?" My husband, an international airline captain with over a million followers, signed us up for a livestream. He wanted me to prove that homemaker hadn't vanished. According to him, they were simply loved, protected, and cherished by their husbands. He was certain I'd play along. After all, for 22 years, I'd been the perfect wife. Even when my swollen joints hurt so much I could barely hold a spatula, I still washed his uniforms and made sure dinner was waiting when he got home. Even when he walked through the door carrying another woman's perfume, I would only touch my wedding ring and tell myself the same lie. "He's just having a little fun. In the end, he'll always come back to me." On the day of the livestream, he smiled at the camera and told everyone how happy our marriage was. I was in the kitchen baking, carrying dish after dish to the table. Then the host asked me one simple question. "Would you want your daughter to grow up to be the homemaker as you?" My husband smiled and typed his answer onto the teleprompter for me to read. "Of course." I walked into the frame with the last dish in my hands. I looked straight into the camera. "No," I said. "I wouldn't." Chapter 1 The livestream fell silent for a second before the comments exploded. Nathan didn't lose his temper. He stood up and took my hand, his thumb pressing against my swollen knuckle. Pain shot through my fingers, but he turned to the camera with a gentle smile. "My wife loves our daughter more than anything. "She knows how hard it is to take care of a household and she doesn't want our daughter to go through the same thing. She may seem tough, but she's always had a soft heart." The host quickly jumped in. "So Mrs. Ashford simply doesn't want her daughter to have such a hard life." Nathan brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, his eyes filled with affection. "She's been on her feet all afternoon, and she's exhausted. We'll end the livestream here. I'll take good care of her." The stream ended. The moment the crew walked out, he dropped my hand and wiped the one that had been holding mine. During the drive home, he spent the entire trip dealing with the PR crisis. He didn't look at me until his assistant told him clips from the livestream had gone viral. "Vivian, you're not 20 anymore. "If you're going to throw a tantrum, at least choose the right time and place. One sentence from you, and I had sponsors and the airline calling me. Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused?" I stared at my pale reflection in the car window. Twenty-two years ago, Nathan was a broke college student. He could barely afford a burger, but he always saved the last bite for me. He used to tell me that once he became a pilot, I'd never have to struggle again. Now he was an international airline captain with over a million followers. And my hands had become too deformed to hold a spatula. When we got home, Nathan shrugged off his uniform and tossed it at me. "Take that to the dry cleaner tomorrow." The scent of rose perfume drifted from the collar. I never wore that perfume. Nathan followed my gaze and looked down at his shirt. His expression didn't change in the slightest. "A first-class passenger brushed up against me. "Don't start getting paranoid over a little perfume. You're better than that." Then he pulled a velvet box from his pocket. Inside was a Cartier necklace. "Wear it tomorrow and take a photo with me. "The team will post it. It'll show everyone our marriage is doing just fine." I didn't reach for the necklace. "Is this a gift for me, or damage control for your image?" Nathan's face turned cold. "What's the difference? "The house you live in. The clothes you wear. Which of them didn't come from my public image? "Vivian, you haven't worked a single day in all these years. Is it really that hard to do this one thing for your husband?" Haven't worked a single day. I sold my mother's jewelry to pay for his flight training. When his father spent six years bedridden, I was the one who emptied his bedpan and fed him every meal. I built his first social media account from scratch. I edited every video and stayed up night after night replying to comments. By the time he reached a million followers, I'd become the woman who had "never done a day's work." I picked up the necklace and dropped it into the rubbish bin. "Nathan, I built that image for you." I looked him in the eye. "I'm done playing the part." He stared at me for a moment, then laughed. "Have you spent so many years living off me that you've forgotten what you're actually worth? "That's all right. I'll remind you." Chapter 2 The next day, a junior flight attendant named Amber Hayes showed up at our house. She said she was there to pick up Nathan's spare uniform. Around her neck hung the Cartier necklace I'd thrown into the rubbish bin the night before. When she caught me looking at it, she deliberately ran her fingers over the pendant. "Do you like it too, Mrs. Ashford? "Nathan said this necklace looks better on younger women." I turned to Nathan. He was standing in the doorway to his study. He didn't say a word. Amber wandered into the kitchen and started picking through the ingredients I'd prepared, chatting with a bright smile. "Nathan takes such good care of me on flights. "The last time we hit bad turbulence, I got so scared I started crying. He held my hand the whole time and even buckled my seat belt for me. "He said girls are fragile and meant to be protected." I swept everything she'd touched straight into the rubbish bin. "Are you done?" Amber blinked. "Mrs. Ashford, I think there's been a misunderstanding." "This is my house. Get out." Her eyes welled up instantly. The next second, the cup slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor. Nathan strode over and pulled her behind him. "Vivian, what the hell is wrong with you now?" Amber clung to his sleeve and spoke up for me through her tears. "Nathan, don't blame her. "She's getting older. Of course she's going to feel insecure." I pointed at the necklace around her neck. "How does it feel wearing something that came out of the rubbish?" Amber's face turned pale for a split second. Nathan let out a laugh. "That necklace was always meant for her. "I only borrowed it to calm you down last night. Since you didn't want it, it should go back to its rightful owner." The blow landed square in my chest. Amber lowered her head, but she couldn't hide the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Nathan looked at me, his voice filled with impatience. "If you're smart, you'll be grateful you're still Mrs. Ashford. "You live in this mansion. I give you money every month. Even the other women have to call you Mrs. Ashford. What else do you want? "Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life looking at your face just to prove I've done right by you?" My phone buzzed nonstop. Clips from last night's livestream had climbed to the top of the trending list. My photos and personal information had been dug up and spread all over the internet. "Menopausal lunatic." "Captain Ashford took care of her for over twenty years, and she had the nerve to embarrass him in public." "Old hags like her only drag men down." Someone had even turned the photos from my arthritis treatments into memes, mocking my twisted hands and calling them claws. Nathan glanced at the comments before sending me a statement. It said I suffered from severe depression, that I'd been emotionally unstable during the livestream, and that I sincerely apologized to Nathan and the public. "Sign it. Then post it." I looked up at him. "Those troll accounts. Did you hire them?" He neither confirmed nor denied it. "Public opinion always needs someone to blame. "You sacrifice a little reputation, and it saves my career and this family. That's a fair trade." I deleted the statement. "I'm not signing." Nathan watched me for a few seconds before pulling out his phone. "Fine. "Let's see how long a housewife with no husband to support her can survive." That afternoon, I was checking out at the supermarket when every bank card in my name was declined. Under the impatient stares of the customers behind me, I put every item back onto the shelves, one by one. A message from Nathan popped up. "Sign the statement, and I'll unfreeze your cards." I looked down at the 20 dollars left in my purse. For the first time, I understood what it really meant to be a "traditional wife." Chapter 3 That evening, Nathan brought our daughter, Sienna, home. She was about to start university. In front of her, he opened a box of pecan tarts. "Viv, I still remember how much you love these. "We've been through so much together. Let's put all this behind us and go back to the way things used to be. Be the sweet woman you used to be, okay?" Sienna looked at me with red eyes. "Mom, Dad said you've been accusing him of things lately and even throwing stuff around the house. "People online are attacking you, and Dad stayed up all night trying to protect you. Please... go see a doctor." I didn't touch the pastries. Tucked beneath the box was a receipt. It was from the Claremont Residence, where Amber lived. The timestamp read 7:40 a.m. Two coffees, a sandwich, a strawberry milk, and a box of prenatal vitamins. The pecan tarts weren't proof that he remembered my favorite dessert. They were just something he'd picked up on his way home after spending the night with Amber. I slid the receipt across the table. "Were the prenatal vitamins for me too?" Nathan's expression shifted for a split second before he crumpled the receipt into a ball. "A colleague asked me to pick them up." Then he turned to our daughter with a weary look. "Sienna, do you see what I mean? "She can turn a shopping receipt into proof of an affair. It's not that I don't love her. She's sick." Sienna looked at me. For the first time, I saw fear in her eyes. "Mom, please get help." Those words hurt more than every insult I'd read online. Nathan hadn't brought our daughter home to make peace. Nathan had brought our daughter home to make her doubt me, just like everyone else. Late that night, while Nathan was in the shower, I slipped into his study. Hidden beneath the wastebasket was a pregnancy test. Two lines. Positive. Next to it was a note from Amber. "Captain, the baby and I both miss Daddy. "When are you getting rid of the old woman?" Inside the desk drawer was an emergency admission application for a private psychiatric hospital. Nathan had already filled it out. My name was listed as the patient. Diagnosis: paranoia, violent tendencies, risk of self-harm. Attached was a psychiatric evaluation I'd never undergone, along with an application for emergency spousal guardianship. I finally understood what he was planning. He didn't just want the world to believe I was mentally ill. He wanted to lock me away as both my husband and my legal guardian. Once that happened, no one would believe another word I said. Everything would be dismissed as the ravings of a madwoman. My assets, my daughter, my life. He would control it all. The shower turned off. I quickly photographed every document and sealed the pregnancy test inside a plastic evidence bag. Before leaving the study, I glanced at the livestream control panel mounted on the wall. In the corner of the monitor, a tiny cloud icon blinked. What Nathan didn't know was that I'd been the one who set up the entire system. I switched off the screen and returned to the living room. Nathan walked out, drying his hair with a towel. When he saw me holding the pecan tarts, he smiled with satisfaction. "Come to your senses?" I took a bite. The tart had long since gone cold. "I have." It was finally time to end our marriage. Chapter 4 The next day, Nathan booked out the Grand Summit Hotel for two events in one: our 22nd wedding anniversary and his fan meet-and-greet. The ballroom was packed with reporters, airline executives, sponsors, and hundreds of his fans. Before we left, he helped me into a white gown, fastened pearl earrings on me, and slipped two documents into my hands: an apology statement and a voluntary consent form for psychiatric treatment. "Tonight, I'll tell everyone about your condition. "Then you'll go on stage, admit you lost control during the livestream, apologize to the airline, our sponsors, and Amber, and sign the consent form for inpatient treatment." "And if I refuse?" He rested his hands on my shoulders, his voice gentle. "Every media outlet here has already been told you'll be checking yourself into treatment. "Viv, you have two choices. Walk onto that stage yourself or let the doctors take you there." When we arrived, they locked me inside a backstage dressing room. Four bodyguards stood outside the door. The gala began. Nathan stepped onto the stage in his captain's uniform, his eyes shining with emotion. "Today, I have something painful to share. My wife, Vivian, has been diagnosed with severe paranoid personality disorder." A psychiatric evaluation flashed across the giant screen, complete with fake credentials and forged signatures. "She accused me of cheating, attacked my colleague, and suffered an episode during the livestream. "But she's been my side for 22 years. Even if one day she no longer remembers who I am, I'll stay by her side through every step of her treatment." Thunderous applause filled the hall. The livestream flooded with comments praising him as a devoted husband. Then he looked toward the backstage entrance. "Today, she's agreed to come forward, explain everything herself, and begin treatment with all of you as witnesses." A spotlight lit up the backstage entrance. At the same moment, the bodyguards entered my dressing room with two men in white coats. "Read the statement," one of them said. "Then sign." I didn't even reach for it. "What if I don't?" One of the men opened a medical case. Inside were leather restraints, medication, and several syringes. "If you refuse now," he said calmly, "it only proves your condition is more serious than we believed." The host called my name for the second time. Nathan finally lost his patience and stormed backstage. "Vivian, don't force me to disgrace you publicly." "And who's the one who's being disgraced here?" His expression darkened. "Hold her down." Four bodyguards pinned me to the table, wrenching my swollen fingers behind my back. "This is false imprisonment!" He sneered. "Who would believe a mental patient? The more you resist, the more you prove I'm telling the truth." Sienna walked in crying, holding medication. "Mom, Dad said once you take this, you'll feel calm." "Sienna, have you ever seen me hurt anyone?" She froze. Nathan immediately pulled her to his side. "Your mother knows exactly how to manipulate people. Have you forgotten what she did to Amber?" Tears rolled down Sienna's cheeks as she shook her head. "Mom... I'm sorry. I just want you to get better." One of the bodyguards grabbed my jaw and tried to pour the medicine down my throat. I snapped my head sideways. The liquid splashed across Nathan's uniform. He dropped the act entirely and picked up a syringe. Sienna turned pale. "Dad... I thought she only needed the medicine." "Can't you see she's having another episode?" he snapped. "She'll never make it onto that stage without the injection." He bent close enough for only me to hear. "Once the sedative takes effect, I'll personally walk you out there. All you have to do is press your thumbprint on the consent form, and tonight will be over. After you're admitted, I'll take good care of Sienna." I stopped struggling and looked at him coldly. "Nathan... do you really think the only thing I did for the last 22 years was cook your meals and do your laundry?" His smile froze. I kicked out hard, sending the cup flying off the table. The bodyguards pinned me down again as Nathan raised the syringe toward my arm. Outside, the host called my name for the third time. No one appeared. Confused whispers spread through the ballroom. "Inject her," Nathan ordered. "Then get her on that stage." The needle had just touched my skin when the giant screen suddenly went black. A heartbeat later, Nathan's voice thundered through the speakers. "If you refuse now, it only proves your condition is more serious than we believed. "Once the sedative takes effect, I'll personally walk you out there. All you have to do is press your thumbprint on the consent form, and tonight will be over." The entire ballroom fell silent. Nathan froze, the syringe still clutched in his hand.