AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The spread is really something, I’ll give her that. “George!” she says, glancing up, a distant look in her eyes. “Good, you’re up.”
She motions around the kitchen as a slow smile spreads across her face. “I’ve made breakfast. You must be starving.”
I wish there were a manual, something to tell me how I’m supposed to handle this situation. Being with her, like this, is akin to a confrontation with a wild animal. “Eve,” I say softly. “We have to talk.”
Her whole body tenses. She reaches for a knife. My eyes flit toward the cottage. It’s possible that this is going to go further south and that I am going to need Liam. Perhaps it’s time for him to see what my wife is really like. Sure, I could call the police, but the odds of that turning out well are not in Eve’s favor. In her current state, she’s unpredictable, and the last thing I need is her getting shot.
What I need is to get her medicated. Then I can assess how to go about getting her the help she needs. “Let’s sit.” I point to the table. “You’re right, I am hungry.”
She looks at me like I’m a stranger standing in her kitchen. “What happened to your face?”
“You tell me.”
Her lips part and she starts to speak before she stops herself. “How should I know?”
Pulling out a chair, I slowly ease myself down into it. Eve places a plate in front of me. I consider how I’m going to get a sedative in her.
She takes the seat across from me and folds her hands, laying them on the table. Then she cocks her head. “You’re bleeding, George.”
I touch the tips of my fingers to my temple and pull them away, swiping the blood onto my napkin. “Yes.”
She shakes her head and then stares down at her plate. “What a mess.”
Picking through my eggs with my fork, I shuffle food around my plate. I’m not hungry. My head spins, making things come in and out of focus. The smell alone causes my stomach to turn. It threatens to empty at any second. The nausea hits in waves, but the pain is consistent. I need to think. I need to buy myself some time. I need to talk her into submission. In this condition, I won’t be able to subdue her if she flies off the handle.
Eve jars me when she reaches out and slaps my good hand. “What are you doing?” she hisses. “We have to say our prayers first.”
I drop the fork. In as many years as I’ve known my wife, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her say grace. Although, I suppose this is as good a time as any.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
How close to fire can you get without getting burned? That has become the question of my life. Liam’s girl is back to stay, or so it appears, and Eve has been properly sedated. After breakfast she said she was exhausted and wanted to take a nap. I suppose this is to be expected when you’ve stayed up all night trying to kill your husband.
Once she was out cold, I shook her awake. Not fully awake, just so that she was coherent enough to lift her head while I held a glass of water to her lips. I placed a Haloperidol tab on her tongue and told her to swallow, aware that she’d be too eager to return to sleep to fight me on it.
Afterward, I went back to the kitchen and taped up my wrist. It’s probably not broken—hopefully it’s just a bad sprain—but in any case, the good news is, bones heal. I took several painkillers and then rinsed the dishes. I tidied up a bit, and then I watched the footage from last night, needing to determine how Eve had gotten out. Had I really forgotten to lock the door? Or had she suddenly become Houdini?
On the screen, I see myself come into focus. It’s not the best system; I purchased it years ago. It’s a baby monitor with a camera, black and white, paltry compared to what you can find on the market today. Nevertheless, I can’t help but notice how old I look, how my age shows in my movement and in my body language. Hadn’t I just run a marathon last year? Or was that two years ago now?
Time is a blur. A year ago, or last night, the only thing that’s clear is the fact that my memory is failing me. On camera it becomes evident that I hadn’t locked the door after I’d kissed Eve goodnight. Had I been drunk, tired, or just plain hopeful?
Anything’s possible.
Whatever the case, I was distracted. It’s excruciating, and as of late, irritating, to have a wife that’s out of service. Being a long-term caretaker is not exactly what I had planned for my life.
I love Eve, obviously, and I understand what it means to make a vow to someone. But to live out that vow year after year, day after day, is proving to be another story entirely.
On an average day, by the time it comes to an end, even with Joni’s help, there’s not a lot left in me to put toward anything else. With work, and with managing the estate, and her care, not to mention all the little nuances of life, it’s evident something has to give. Eve used to say this about mothering when the children were little, and sometimes I feel like maybe this is a form of payback. Only my wife is not a child. She’s sick, and deteriorating rapidly.
You expect this sort of thing to occur naturally in life, growing old with a spouse. What no one tells you is how fast it actually happens. Even so, I’m not yet sixty, and on days where Eve’s illness really gets to me, where her absence feels huge, or her presence unbearable, I can’t help but think about what I’m missing out on. A normal life, whatever the hell that is.
Outside, across the yard, movement near the cottage catches my eye. Liam and the girl are cuddled up on the porch swing. It reminds me of Eve and I in years past. It reminds me of the reason I hung that swing in the first place. The countless evenings we spent in it and the few times we managed to take in a sunrise.
Liam sits upright, while she lies across his lap, her head resting in the crook of his arm. Another problem for me to fix. I glance at the clock. It reminds me, injured or not, I have to get some work in. A shower would do me good; I’ll clean myself up as best I can. With any luck, I’ll be able to locate some form of adhesive or glue around here to take the place of staples.
But my mind isn’t focused on that. Not the way it should be. The girl reaches up and caresses Liam’s face. On one hand, I’m glad she’s back. Liam is more focused with her around. But her presence, while it has a positive effect on the writing front, also leaves me with one gigantic problem: how do I keep what happened between us under wraps, at least for the next couple of weeks? Until I can finish this manuscript and free myself of Liam. I weigh my options wondering what it’s going to cost me to keep this mistake from him and from my wife just long enough for me to make it go away.
The most obvious answer would be to go straight to the source. Which is what I’d originally planned to do. But like I said, time has a way of marching on. As the saying goes, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. There’s also the fact that we’ve only seen each other from afar since Liam introduced us at the party. It’s not that I haven’t meant to find out what she wants and what she’s up to; why she hasn’t said anything, whether to me or to Liam, or to my wife, is a mystery in and of itself. It’s not typical behavior, and generally where there’s smoke there’s fire. Is she afraid of Liam? And if so, what does she know?
