Ashes (17 page)

Ricky drove home with the images playing in
his mind, a reel of fantasy film he’d painted from the police
reports. The husband comes home, finds dinner on the table as
always, green peas and potatoes, thinly sliced roast beef with
gravy, a cheesecake that the wife must have spent hours making.
They eat, watch an episode of “Law & Order,” then she takes a
shower and goes to bed. Somewhere between the hours on either side
of midnight, the husband makes his nightly trek to share the warmth
and comfort of the marital bed. Only, this time, he carries with
him a seven-inch companion of sharp, stainless steel.

Seventeen times, according to the medical
examiner. One of the rookie reporters had tried to develop a
numerology angle and assign a mystical significance to the number
of stab wounds, but police suspected the man had simply lost count
during the frenzy of blood lust. The first blow must have done the
trick, and if the man had only meant to solve a problem, that
surely would have sufficed. But he was in search of something, an
experience that could only be found amid the silver thrusts, the
squeaking of bedsprings, the soft moans, and the wet dripping of a
final passion.

By the time Ricky pulled into his driveway,
he was moist with sweat. He found himself comparing his and
Maybelle’s house with that of the murderer’s, as shown in the Day
Two coverage. The murderer’s house was in the next county, but it
would have been right at home in Ricky’s neighborhood. Two stories,
white Colonial style, a stable line of shrubbery surrounding the
porch. Shutters framing windows framing curtains that hid the lives
inside. Both houses were ordinary, upper middle class, with no
discernible differences except that one had harbored an
extraordinary secret that festered and then exploded.

Ricky fanned his face dry with the newspaper,
then slipped it under the seat. He wrestled the watermelon out and
carried it up the front steps. He could have driven into the
garage, but his car had leaked a few drops of oil and Maybelle had
complained. He nearly dropped the watermelon as he reached to open
the door. He pictured it lying burst open on the porch, its
shattered skin and pink meat glistening in the afternoon sun.

But he managed to prop it against his knee
and turn the handle, then push his way inside.

Her voice came from the living room.
“Ricky?”

“
Who else?” he said in a
whisper. As if a random attacker would walk through the door, as if
her ordered life was capable of attracting an invader. As if she
deserved any type of victimhood.

“
What’s that,
honey?”

He raised his voice. “Yes, dear. It’s
me.”

“
Did you get everything? You
know how forgetful you are.”

Which is why she gave him the lists. But even
with a list, he had a habit of always forgetting at least one item.
She said it was a deliberate act of passive aggression, that nobody
could be that forgetful. But he was convinced it was an unconscious
lapse, because he did it even when he wrote out the list
himself.

“
I had to—” He didn’t know
what to tell her. A lie came to mind, some elaborate story of
helping someone change a flat tire beside the road, and how the
person had given him a watermelon in gratitude, and Ricky wanted to
put the watermelon in the refrigerator before shopping. But
Maybelle would see through the story. He wondered if the murdering
husband had told such white lies.

“
I had to come back and take
my medicine,” he said, heading down the hall to the kitchen. “You
know how I get.”

Maybelle must have been sitting in her chair,
the one that dominated the living room and was within reach of the
bookcase, the telephone, and the remote control. Her perfect world.
White walls. Knickknacks neatly dusted, potted plants that never
dared shed so much as a leaf. Photographs of her relatives lining
the walls, but not a single member of Ricky’s family.

“
You and your medicine,” she
said. “You were gone an hour.”

He pretended he hadn’t heard her. He put the
watermelon on the counter and opened the refrigerator. He thought
of hiding it in one of the large bottom bins but he wasn’t sure it
would fit. Besides, this was his refrigerator, too. He’d paid for
it, even though Maybelle’s snack foods took up the top two shelves.
In a moment of rebellion, he shoved some of his odd condiments
aside, the horseradish, brown mustard, and marinade sauces that
occupied the bottom shelf. He slid the watermelon into place,
though its girth caused the wire rack above it to tilt slightly and
tumble a few Tupperware containers. He slammed the refrigerator
closed with an air of satisfaction.

He turned and there was Maybelle, filling the
entryway that divided the kitchen and dining room. Her arms were
folded across her chest, wearing the serene smile of one who held
an even temper in the face of endless trials. Ricky found himself
wondering if the murdered wife had possessed such stolid and
insufferable equanimity.

“
What was that?” Maybelle
asked.

Ricky backed against the refrigerator. There
was really no reason to lie, and, besides, it’s not like she
wouldn’t notice the first time she went rummaging for a yogurt.
But, for one hot and blind moment, he resented her ownership of the
refrigerator. Why couldn’t he have a watermelon if he wanted?

“
A watermelon,” he
said.

“
A watermelon? Why didn’t
you get one back in the middle of summer, like everybody
else?”

He couldn’t explain. If she had been in the
grocery store with him, she’d have been impressed by the
watermelon’s vibrancy and vitality. Even though the melon was no
longer connected to its roots, it was earthy and ripe, a perfectly
natural symbol for the last day of summer. But he was afraid if he
opened the door, it would just be an ovate mass of dying fruit.

“
I liked this one,” he
said.

“
Where are my
things?”

“
I—” He looked at the floor,
at the beige ceramic tiles whose seams of grout were
spotless.

“
You forgot. On purpose.
Just like always.”

“
I’m sorry,” he said, and
suddenly his throat was dry and tight, and he thought of the
husband and how he must have slid open the cutlery drawer and
selected something that could speak for him when words were
worthless.

“
Of course, you’re sorry.
You’ve always been sorry. But that never changes anything, does
it?”

“
My medicine—”

“
Have a seat in the living
room, and I’ll bring it to you.”

He went and sat on the sofa, afraid to muss
the throw pillows. The early local news came on the television. A
fire on the other side of the county had left a family homeless.
Then came the obligatory follow-up on the murder.

“
Investigators say they may
have uncovered a motive in last week’s brutal slaying—”

Click. He looked away from the screen and
Maybelle stood there, the remote raised. “Evil, evil, evil,” she
said. “That nasty man. I just don’t know what goes through people’s
minds, do you?”

Ricky wondered. Maybe the husband had a wife
who controlled the television, the radio, the refrigerator, the
garage, and wrote large charity checks to the animal shelter.
Maybelle gave him his pills and a glass of water. He swallowed,
grateful.

“
I read that he was an
accountant,” Ricky said. “Just like me.”

“
Takes all kinds. The poor
woman, you’ve got to feel sorry for her. Closes her eyes to go to
sleep and the next thing you know, the man she trusted and loved
with all her heart—”

“—
is standing over her, the
lights are off but the knife flashes just the same, he’s holding
the handle so tight that his hand is aching, except he can’t feel
it, it’s like he’s got electricity running through his body, he’s
on fire and he’s never felt so powerful, and—”

Maybelle’s laughter interrupted him. “It’s
not a movie, Ricky. A wife-killing slasher isn’t any more special
than a thief who shoots a stranger for ten bucks. When it comes
down to it, they’re all low-down dirty dogs who ought to be locked
up before they hurt somebody else.”

“
Everybody feels sorry for
her,” Ricky said. “But what about the husband? Don’t you think he
probably feels sick inside? She’s gone, but he’s left to live with
the knowledge of what he’s done.”

“
Not for long. I hear the
D.A. is going after the death penalty. She’s up for re-election
next year and has been real strong on domestic
violence.”

“
He’ll probably plead
temporary insanity.”

“
Big surprise,” Maybelle
said. “Only a crazy man would kill his wife.”

“
I don’t know. With a good
lawyer—”

“
They’re always making
excuses. He’ll say his wife made him wear a dress when no one was
looking. That he had to lick her high heels. That she was carrying
on with the pet store supplier. It’s always the woman’s fault. It
makes me sick.”

Ricky looked at the carpet. The stains must
have been tremendous, geysers of blood spraying in different
directions, painting the walls, seeping into the sheets and shag,
soiling the delicate undergarments that the wife no doubt wore to
entice her husband into chronic frustration.

“
Ricky?”

Her voice brought him back from the last reel
of his fantasy film and into the living room.

“
How are you
feeling?”

“
Better,” he said, lying
only a little.

“
Ready to go back to the
grocery store?”

“
Yes.”

“
And not forget anything
this time?”

He nodded.

After shopping, getting all the items on the
list, he sat in the grocery store parking lot and re-read all the
newspapers hidden beneath the seat. He looked at the mug shot and
visualized his own face against the grayish background with the
black lines. He pored over the details he already knew by heart,
then imagined the parts not fleshed out in the news accounts: the
trip up the stairs in the silent house, a man with a mission, no
thought of the act itself or the aftermath. One step, one stroke at
a time. The man had chosen a knife from the kitchen drawer instead
of buying one especially for the job. It had clearly been a crime
of passion, and passion had been missing from Ricky’s life for many
years.

He looked at the paper that held the wife’s
picture. He tried to juxtapose the picture with Maybelle’s. He
failed. He realized he couldn’t summon his own wife’s face.

He drove home and was in the kitchen putting
the things away when Maybelle entered the room.

“
You’ve stacked my cottage
cheese three high,” she said. “You know I only like it with two. I
can’t check the date otherwise.”

“
There’s no room,” he
said.

“
Take out that stupid
watermelon.”

“
But I like them when
they’re cold.”

“
Put it in the bathtub or
something.”

He squeezed the can of mushroom soup he was
holding, wishing he were strong enough to make the metal seams rip
and the cream spurt across the room.

“
I put dinner on the table,”
she said. “Roast beef and potatoes.”

“
Green peas?”

“
No, broccoli.”

“
I wanted green
peas.”

“
How was I to know? You’ll
eat what I served or you can cook your own food.”

“
I guess you didn’t make a
cheesecake.”

“
There’s ice cream in the
freezer.” She laughed. “Or you can eat your watermelon.”

He went to the dinner table. Maybelle had
already eaten, put away her place mat, and polished her end of the
table. Ricky sat and worked the potatoes, then held the steak knife
and studied its serrated edge. He sawed it across the beef and
watched the gray grains writhe beneath the metal.

Maybelle entered the dining room. “How’s your
food?”

“
Yummy.”

“
Am I not a good
wife?”

He made an appreciative mumble around a
mouthful of food.

“
I’m going upstairs,” she
said. “I’m going to have a nice, long bath and then put on
something silly and slinky.”

Ricky nodded.

“
I’ll be in bed, waiting.
And, who knows, you might get lucky.” She smiled. She’d already
brushed her teeth. Her face was perfectly symmetrical, pleasing,
her eyes soft and gentle. He felt a stirring inside him. How could
he ever forget her face? Ricky compared her to the murdered wife
and wondered which of them was prettiest. Which of them would the
press anoint as having suffered a greater tragedy?

“
I’ll be up in a bit,” he
said. “I want to do a little reading.”

“
Just don’t wait too long.
I’m sleepy.”

“
Yes, dear.”

When he was alone, he spat the half-chewed
mouthful of food onto his plate. He carried the plate to the
kitchen and scraped the remains into the garbage disposal. He
wondered if the husband had thought of trying to hide the body, or
if he had been as surprised by his actions as she must have
been.

The watermelon was on the counter. Maybelle
had taken it from the refrigerator.

He went to the utensil drawer and slid it
open. He and Maybelle had no children, and safety wasn’t a concern.
The knives lay in a bright row, arranged according to length. How
had the husband made his decision? Size? Sharpness? Or the balance
of the handle?