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She knew when I’d be gone and she could come over, let herself into my house and help herself to the gun.
That night, after she’s asleep, I search what I can of the house looking for Jake’s gun. I don’t find it. She’s in the shower the next day when I search her bedroom.
I still hear the water running when I take her car keys from the hook on the wall and go quickly out to the garage.
I open the garage door. I unlock the car and sink into the driver’s seat. I rummage around in the glove box and the center console first, and then I slide my hand under the seats, as far as I can reach. I move quickly, not knowing how much time I have until my mother gets out of the shower and comes looking for me.
From inside the car, I pop the trunk. I leave the car and go around to the back end to search the trunk, which is mostly empty other than a few odds and ends, like an ice scraper and jumper cables.
I lift the trunk’s floor panel to reveal the spare tire. I shudder when I see it, falling back from the car.
A second later, my breakfast comes back up. It’s spontaneous. There is little warning. I throw my hands to my mouth to try and stop the flow, but end up bending at the waist and vomiting onto the garage floor, because there, in the spare tire well, is the gun.
I force myself to stand upright. I go back to the car. I reach for the gun. I turn it over in my hands, pointing it up toward my own face.
This isn’t the first time in my life that I’ve ever held a gun, but it is the first time I’ve found myself looking down the barrel of a gun.
I wonder if this is what Jake saw before he died.
I think how somewhere inside that barrel is a cartridge and the firing pin, which is held back by spring tension. All it would take is for the trigger to be pressed, for the firing pin to release. For gunpowder to ignite. For the cartridge to expand, releasing the bullet, spinning it straight toward my face.
What would that have felt like for Jake, I wonder, when the bullet tore through his face?
In the distance, a door creaks open. My range of vision slowly expands. My mother has come outside. I look up just as she lets go of the storm door and it slams closed. I watch as she walks down the small concrete walkway, watching me, her hair still wet, her head cocked and curious as I stand behind her open trunk in the open garage.
“It’s getting cool, Nina,” she calls out, pulling her cardigan tighter around her body, “and you don’t have your jacket on, honey. Why don’t you come inside and we’ll make some hot cocoa to warm us both up.”
I hold the gun in my shaking hand. I reveal it to her. My mother looks unshaken, unmoved, as if she isn’t surprised that I’ve found the gun.
My voice quivers. “What did you do, Mom?”
My mother looks around to make sure her neighbors aren’t witness to this, and then she says, “Come inside, Nina, and we’ll talk about it.”
I still taste vomit in my mouth as I follow her down the walkway and back into the house. I leave the trunk open and my vomit on the garage floor. I carry the gun with me.
In the kitchen, I watch, my stomach curdling, while my mother fills the kettle with water and puts it on the stove, lighting the burner. She reaches into the cabinet for two mugs. With her back to me, she says, “He was cheating on you, honey.” She goes to the pantry and pulls out the Swiss Miss and a bag of marshmallows as if a mug of hot cocoa will make this all better.
I stand on the opposite side of the kitchen from her, staring at her from behind, watching her lithe movements.
I mutter, “I know.” I feel physically ill. I go to the sink. I turn the water to cold. I let it run, and then I gather a handful of cold water and splash it on my face. I rinse my mouth out, spitting water into the sink. My mother turns around to see what I’m doing. “How did you know?” I ask, standing upright, my face wet.
She hands me a towel. “A mother always knows these things. I did you a favor, Nina. You’re better off without him.”
“What exactly did you do?”
“I followed him to the woods. It wasn’t the first time I followed him. I needed to know what he was up to, for your sake. Someone had to hold him accountable for his actions. That afternoon, I watched what happened between him and that woman. After she went running away, I told him to get up. I pointed the gun at him and I told him to walk, deeper into the woods and that’s where I killed him. You remember how your father cheated on me, Nina? He took everything from us when he left. You know that, don’t you? You remember that?” I nod, the bile rising up inside of me so that I think I might be sick again. I hunch over the sink as she says, “I couldn’t afford the house after that. We had to move here to this little house that I hate, and even then I worried all the time that I wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage and the bank would foreclose on our home. I thought all the time that we’d lose it, that we’d become homeless. Your father should have paid child support, but he never did. He should have paid alimony. I had to work the night shift. I had to take extra shifts whenever I could, to make ends meet. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to you.”
I push myself upright, aghast. I wipe at my mouth with the back of a hand. My mother reaches out for my arms. I bristle, and then back away from her, going for my phone. “Don’t touch me,” I say.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” she asks as I snatch my phone from the countertop.
“I have to call the police. I have to tell them what you did.”
She looks saddened, hurt. “You wouldn’t really do that, would you? I’m your mother, Nina.”
“Wouldn’t I?” I ask. “You killed my husband, Mom.”
“I was doing you a favor, Nina. You’re far better off without Jake. Think about it,” she says. “You have that big house all to yourself and soon you’ll have the money from Jake’s life insurance policy. You won’t want for anything, ever. And besides, Nina honey, that woman was having an affair with your husband. Aren’t you mad? Aren’t you angry? Don’t you think she deserves to be punished for what she did? If it wasn’t for her, none of this would have happened.”
