That man

Robert Renalds was ill-fitted for the job. He knows it, she knows it and the world will soon know it. But that has been happening for the past few months. He remembered that he was a kid, he wanted to be a hero. But that passion died after the festival that happened a decade ago. The willful man worked the assembly line with a gusto that didn’t seem to fit with the atmosphere of the factory. But the man wouldn’t stop as he was fighting an internal battle that no one else did but the floor manager could see. But even he didn’t intervene with Robert’s vigorous work ethic. The floor manager knew Robert since he started working at Melon Goods eight years ago, before the day Robert lost his daughter and his wife found comfort in another man’s arms. The old man didn’t have the best opinion of Mrs. Renalds, but he knew better than to voice his opinion as Robert wouldn’t hear it. Understandable as he still loves his distant wife, but he also felt that woman needs to better reward that loyalty, at least more than act like they still sleep in bed when even Robert admits she is only home once a month.

Still, Robert blames himself for everything, their daughter’s death, the dissolution of their marriage, and even the death of their dog which as far as he understood it, it was an accident. Robert’s self-hatred seemed excessive as he never bothered anyone and stayed quietly working. Robert wasn’t overbearing or a rule breaker, he was the helpful quiet guy that existed in the corner. There weren’t complaints from coworkers as he understood it. But that didn’t mean his life was peaceful.

The floor manager wasn’t known for being an unbiased source as he picked favorites within the employees under him, but he wasn’t alone in his assessment of Robert. Despite the man’s quiet nature, he was the improvised repair man, and he was the one who people go for advice. This has led him to have a role in his coworkers’ lives and made he irreplaceable. But they didn’t know where his story, just that his wife was a bitch and his father in law was the owner of the factory.

The employees have debated over the years with the factory workers if Mrs. Renalds was ever happy in her marriage as she felt pressured to get married and settle for a man that she matched on facebook. Her father, the one who pressured her, was unhappy with the man she settled for. The man just hated for mousy his son in law was and was disgusted by his son in law’s lack of ambition. Every answer to the question, “What do you plan on doing in,” was that he was happy to continue what he was doing. Which was continue working on the assembly line.

Ronald’s lack of ambition was rooted in the fact that the man lived a chaotic life, and he found comfort in the structure and environment of the factory gave him the stability he needed. His father-in-law was not sympathetic to this answer as he was a man that hated things he didn’t view as “practical.” And his daughter had inherited that attitude as she would ask him to at least consider a promotion or switch to a job outside the factory. She would tell that she would ask her dad to make him a higher up in her father’s company like he did for her, but Robert would laugh it off and would simply reply that it wouldn’t fit him.

The inside of the factory was odd but then the designer of the building was the eccentric Bert Bryant, a man who started this company with a factory despite not having a product in mind. He was the sort to see the ugly yellow wallpaper everywhere as a wise investment. But there were nigh sayers as the light reflected off the wallpaper in such an awful way. How many men and women would complain to the manager that the wallpaper was making them blind and there was even a case that one of tried to sue. There are clues that the workers have seen that hint that company owner may not be sane. The workers heard announcements from the managers who got that information from the higher ups in the company of various mysterious illnesses cropping in workers who were working late.

The owner wasn’t an elderly man, but he did look like one. The owner was a man who originally name Art Anatolia, but he changed his name to Bert Bryant. He There was even an anonymous article about the various health and safety violations on the bigger blogs out there. The author of the article was one Becca Renalds, Bert Byrant’s daughter and Robert’s wife.

Robert doesn’t know all this; he thinks his father-in-law as a great man that made a wonderful daughter that is too good for him. The woman, in the minds of the staff, was something of a parasite, a young woman that lack any real ambition but always found a way to benefit from tragedy. But to her credit, she was the cause of said tragedies. She was just a vulture that sought them out and reported on them and lavish from the attention she received. Robert would argue that was her acting for the people’s desire for truth and justice, his coworkers would argue that Mrs. Renalds was taking a page from her father’s book, profiting from the misery of others.

That wasn’t to say that Robert was blind to the fact that people that hated her work. Some still blame her for her reporting of the local festival where the Fuentes family were harassed by the public after one Romeo Fuentes found a bomb and called the police to disarm it. She said in her report that a man who had a desire to become a police officer but failed and was known to have self-centered tendencies was not a reliable source and might have lied about what happened that day. The police who failed to disarm the bomb wanted to shift the blame and took Becca’s report and said that she was right and they had evidence that Romeo was the bomber. This led to their home constantly being defaced and broken into, windows being shattered, and the poor man’s shrine to his dead wife being knocked down or destroyed.

This habit of hers led her to meeting Romeo Fuentes, a recent widow man and now single father whose wife work at the same factory as Robert and was demanding compensation for the death of his wife, accusing the factory as the cause of his wife’s illness. The man was grieving, angry at the world, and needed some comfort but men his age had a tough time making friends and being vulnerable, but no problem finding women who take his aggression. Mrs. Renalds needed to not be Mrs. Renalds and just be Becca again and Romeo was quite attractive for a man his age. Robert would argue that he was the one unfaithful one as he was spending more time away from home, but Romeo would say that everything that came out of Becky’s mouth that night was solely about her.

And what was Robert doing on the first night of Becca and Romeo’s steamy affair? Robert was alphabetizing the various files of one Bert Byrant. He told Robert, “I need a man I can trust to fix everything, so the managers know what needs to be done around here for the Summer Season.” Robert looked surprised. He open his mouth and then closed it again. He took a deep breath and asked, “Will I so this alone?”. Bert thought about it and looked at him with exasperation. “Of course you and you will do it through the night.”

Robert would have argued that he didn’t have any experience in file organization and he was a floor worker and being away from there would harm his pay. But the man wanted his father-in-law to finally approve his marriage to Becca. It is something that rankles him since it makes him feel that Becca settled for him. He wants people to understand that Robert Renalds is an important presence in Becca’s life and that she wasn’t going to want for anything while he didn’t have money, looks, or personality, he was loyal and loving and that was enough.

Robert had a personal investment in achieving this task as he works, even going as far as to put his phone in airplane mode. He labored on and on, for hours but that didn’t stop he feeling like it wasn’t fair to tell Becca he was going to be late tonight. He was the sort that always called or messaged someone whenever he learned that was going to cause slight inconveniences in his loved ones’ lives. The man remembers when he was a teenager where he forgot to tell his father, “Goodbye,” as he left for work and the next day, he was dead under a house’s floorboard. He remembered the funeral, he didn’t swear vengeance or sought to improve himself, he just remembered filling a void and sought an escape from the numbness. And so, he developed a habit of being friendly but quiet, to be supportive but never drawing attention to himself. And to be a hard worker so people will always need him and never say anything bad about him. But he didn’t call his wife, she might need him for something. She will always need him, especially with their daughter gone. It may have been years but it is still feels fresh. There are moments where he still voices in their home. It is something that haunts him. Robert hated to be home alone and with his wife’s work constantly taking out of the house, he needed the advice of Bert. Bert was the one he ignored once and his stubbornness cost him. He won’t make that mistake again and be the man Bert says his daughter need, be who Becca needs.

The guilt threatens to swallow Robert, but his worries weren’t unfounded as he killed that thought and he got back to work but that thought had a basis in reality. She was being caress and cared for by another man that wasn’t him. But he still couldn’t be angry at her.

Politely, there was nothing wrong with what she was doing. Logically, it makes sense as she had a problem with her husband’s priorities and she had a willing man to help her with this. The man was so eager that she barely had to say anything to him. The ferocity that the man had was bad. She was going to have a challenging time hiding the bruises from Robert but then again, they haven’t had sex in a while.

Did it make sense to betray the love a man who only had her in his life? No, but he had failed to provide the level of intimacy that he promised her. She never needed Robert, but she wanted him in her life as he was interesting, he was awkward sure, but he was honest and confident, but that change when he met her father, he lost sight of himself, and he lost sight of her. Robert seemed more obsessed with him than he was with her, and when she made it clear that if he left, he was hurting his relationship with her. She used to blame herself from his behavior, she used to blame her father, but she concluded that it was husband that cause the distorted their marriage.

Now, as she lost herself to the pleasure of Romeo’s love, she notices that it has been a long time since she felt Robert’s hold. As Romeo kisses her shoulders, she remembers that Robert didn’t kiss her on her anniversary. And when Romeo undoes his belt, she decides to stop thinking about Robert for the rest of the night.