A Variable Darkness: 13 Tales

by John McIlveen

  “Are you getting sentimental?” Chet teased.

  Anna sat up to face him directly. “No, I’m getting desperate. What kind of life can I have if this continues? I have no future in this situation. Believe it or not, I want a future. Sex isn’t all I’m good for.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “Oh, screw you!” Anna jumped up and stormed into the bedroom.

  “I was joking!” Chet called, rising to follow her, a sense of panic rising. So here is where it ends…and where my nightmare begins.

  Anna returned wearing her robe. “Well I’m not joking. I have dreams, too. Someday I want a house and some children … to be a mother.”

  Chet sat on the sofa, distressed. Marilyn’s inability to bear children had always left a void in her, but not him. He had no desire to play catch with a son or buy stuffed animals or dresses for a daughter, and Anna’s desire for the same shouldn’t have surprised him. He should have seen that coming. Chet felt vulnerable and disoriented and could only see disaster looming. His career, his reputation, his marriage, all doomed.

  “I love you, Chet, but I feel trapped. It scares me a lot.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have you ever heard of divorce?” Anna asked, as if addressing a child. “Why do you continue living with her if you don’t love her, or do you love her and I’m just a convenient diversion?”

  Love? There was the rub. Chet wasn’t sure he’d ever felt love. He looked at Anna and contemplated what he felt. Lust? Definitely. Possessiveness, jealousy? Sure. But love? If Anna or Marilyn both disappeared from his life, would he be heartbroken? He figured he’d feel a void he’d want to refill…

  “Tell me so I can resume life with at least an inkling of hope,” she appealed.

  He nearly reminded her that she had been the aggressor. She was the one who’d advanced him with no reservations about his marital status at that time.

  He kept quiet, but pondered. Divorce frightened him; it would be so messy. He would lose at least half of everything he’d ever worked for … his house and his savings, which at this point were respectably strong.

  To lose Marilyn without losing his shirt was improbable. Marilyn was not the ‘Win-some-lose-some’ type. Though she was not scholarly, she was far from dim. She had a strategic mind that usually recognized an advantage.

  “I’ve contemplated divorce already. I lie awake at night striving to find an easier solution,” he admitted. “I could lose virtually everything.”

  “Everything?” Anna said and turned away from him. “I guess that settles it.”

  “Wait!” He had to think. If he let Anna go, Marilyn would surely find out and he’d lose Anna, Marilyn, his job, and a huge portion of his life’s work. If he stayed with Anna, he’d lose just about everything except Anna.

  Was four months with a woman he still didn’t really know worth surrendering eleven-plus years of his life?

  He stood, naked, feeling vulnerable. “We’ve been together, what, four months? I think it’s still a little early to be making life-long commitments.”

  “It’s not just the commitment. It’s knowing that you go home to her every night and probably still making love to her. I want you to come home to me.” She clutched his arms and turned him toward her, her eyes pleading with him to understand. “How would you feel if I went home to someone every night?”

  Jealous, possessive, cheated, he thought. “Okay, okay,” he said, “just give me a little time to figure how I’m going to go about it, all right?”

  She gave him a little time—very little, in fact.

  The following Wednesday Anna approached Chet with an exemplary solution. One Chet didn’t favor, nevertheless, one he could not disregard.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “What?” Chet choked out. The room dipped as he groped for his chair.

  “You heard me.”

  “How?”

  “Really?” Anna snapped.

  “I mean, I thought you were on the pill.”

  “I am … I was, but they never professed to be one-hundred percent effective, only ninety-nine.” Tears welled and she crossed her arms protectively over her abdomen. “And no, I won’t abort.”

  Christ what a nightmare! How had he let it happen? What a hole he had dug for himself. He was damned either way.

  “If I have a child growing in you, I’m going to take responsibility for it,” Chet said, surprising himself and not sure if he meant it.

  “You’re not going to dump me?”

  At that moment Chet understood how callow Anna truly was; a woman, yes, but preserving an adolescent edge. “No,” he said, deflated and defeated, yet feeling inanely paternal to Anna. “Go back to work and we’ll talk about it later, at your place. Okay?”

  “I guess so,” she said, still wary.

  “But we have to keep this quiet,” he told her, leading her to the office door.

  “I don’t like it.”

  “At least for now,” Chet said, and closed the door. Oblivious to Anna’s victorious smile, he returned to his desk.

  What a mess! If there had been any chance of breaking up with Marilyn quickly and efficiently, it was gone. Not only was he having an affair with his secretary, he had knocked her up, too. He wondered if she was truly pregnant.

  He returned to the door and opened it. “How do you know?” he asked Anna.

  “E.P.T. Very dark lines. Doctor tomorrow.”

  He closed the door again.

  Holy shit, what a mess. Lawyers. Courts. Lose at least half of everything. There were difficult days coming, he knew.

  He sat forward in his chair and placed his forehead on his desktop. Yess’m Mr. Farner, you fucked up big-time. Gonna be some strange times a-commin. And fathering a child was out of the question.

  Knowing Marilyn and her disposition, there would be no way of escaping it, short of murder. Chet laughed in spite of everything. Murder, he reflected, and you call her extreme?

  Chet arrived at Anna’s apartment promptly at four-thirty to discuss their predicament. That evening they dined, made love, and schemed the murder of Marilyn Farner.

  It evolved quite innocently—actually as a joke.

  They retired to the living room, sated with food and liquor, as well as each other. Anna reclined against the ottoman with Chet’s head resting on her lap. Chet, on his fifth (maybe sixth or seventh) drink, griped about starting anew after so many years. He emphasized the financial relapse that would evolve.

  “One hell of a way for you to start a life,” the whiskey-propelled words fell from his mouth. “Wish we could just get rid of her, make her disappear.”

  “And how would we do that, a blender?” Anna quipped.

  “Be too messy…too much blood,” Chet chuckled.

  “Bad Karma. How about a good garroting?”

  “Nope … still a body. Too much evidence.” Chet rolled over and knelt, savoring the numbness of his body. “We can’t kill her, she’d haunt me. Showing up at night looking for her bingo inky dab thingy.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Need another?” Chet pointed to Anna’s empty glass.

  “Sure.”

  Chet quickly returned with drinks in hand, splashing some as he struggled to sit. “We could push her down a mine shaft.”

  “Sure, FedEx her to Pennsylvania. Maybe Loretta Lynn will sing her eulogy.”

  “Nah, copper mines. There’s about a dozen of ’em behind my house,” Chet slurred.

  “Really? Copper mines?”

  “Bell Hill. No copper left in any of them now, not enough to matter, at least.”

  Bell Hill, once a rich source of copper, remained pocked with evidence of its former wealth more than 130 years later. Vegetation-choked mineshafts burrowed into the hill at astounding angles, purging the Earth to even more riveting depths.

  “They just left the shafts there? They didn’t cover them or fill them?”

  “Take a lot of filler,” Chet snorted. “Ther
e are ‘keep out’ and ‘danger’ signs.”

  They sat quietly for a few minutes, sipping their drinks until Chet broke the silence.

  “Talk about the perfect alibi,” he noted.

  “What?”

  “The Mine Trail,” he explained. “We take walks through the trail. It’s one of the few things we both enjoy. Our friends know we do. Shit, stuff a couple of drinks in her. Take her to the top and flip-bing-boom! Nobody knows any different.” Though influenced by the liquor, he would swear it was a near-perfect plot.

  “Take me there,” Anna blurted, bright-eyed and animated.

  “When?”

  “Now!”

  “But it’s right behind my house.”

  “There must be other ways,” Anna persisted. “Anyway, she’s at tennis.”

  Chet thought it through. “I guess we can park on the old mining road.”

  “I’ll get my coat.”

  While not as dependable as the Lexus, Anna’s Subaru had four-wheel drive. Chet maneuvered the protesting car through the dilapidated access road until the furrows and holes became too brutal to permit passage. They exited the vehicle and leaned on it until the vertigo of drunkenness waned.

  A delicate breeze whispered through the trees, making the shroud of leafy branches sway lazily overhead. A soft smattering of moonlight dappled the uneven ground, beckoning them onward, guiding them.

  Chet held Anna’s hand as he led her gingerly through the familiar but unpredictable path that weaved its way up Bell Hill.

  “Watch your step,” he warned her, the thought of twisted or broken ankles flashing through his mind. He was in no condition to carry an injured woman—let alone himself—back down through the barrage of pits and gullies.

  About fifteen minutes into their climb, Chet stopped and stared into the darkness. “Right here,” he said.

  “What?”

  He moved forward, Anna sticking close to his side. “I think this is the deepest shaft.”

  Anna peered into the shadows of the knoll before them. At the base of the mound, she could barely discern the mouth of the cave, an oblong chasm of utter darkness, hardly seven feet long by five feet high.

  “People used to climb down there?” she asked with wonder.

  “Someone had to.” Chet picked up a baseball-sized rock and lobbed it through the opening. “Listen.”

  The rock vanished down the shaft emitting resounding, hollow cracks. They listened until the sound was no longer distinguishable, but still aware that it had yet to reach bottom.

  “This is where you wanted to push her?” Anna asked.

  Chet looked at her. She seemed ghost-like in the satiny glow of the moon. “I didn’t say that.”

  He returned his expressionless gaze to the mine.

  “Could you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, then turned to her. “Could you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Now … yes. It would make everything so much easier for us.”

  Chet pulled a pint of whiskey from his coat pocket, uncapped it, and took a long pull. He passed it to Anna, who did the same.

  “Maybe I could,” she said. “If I hid behind that brush.” She pointed to a spot not far behind them. “You could throw another rock down and while you’re both listening, I could come from behind.”

  “Maybe, but what if one of us backs out?”

  Chet looked at the sky. It was what he and Marilyn had always considered a perfect night for a walk, mild with a soothing breeze. Chet chose another rock and tossed it through the mouth of the cave Marilyn had titled the ‘Hell Hole.’ They both listened.

  “Chet, Anna?” someone said from behind them. They both turned as Marilyn walked up to where they stood, looking confused and uneasy.

  “Wow! I was hoping you’d show up,” Anna said, girlish and animated. “Please don’t mind, but after Chet told me all about the infamous ‘Mine Trail,’ and how you two walk up here all the time, I made him promise to show me how to get here. I want to surprise my boyfriend and bring him here.”

  “Oh,” Marilyn said, her eyes volleying between the two of them.

  “No tennish tonight?” Chet asked Marilyn, thinking Anna was the smoothest character ever.

  Marilyn eyed Chet. “Are you drunk?”

  Anna lunged and thrusted with all of her strength. The sickening impact as skull hit stone reverberated from the shaft followed by sliding, sounding like a heavy linen bag plummeting down a laundry chute.

  They listened until the sound faded.

  “Dead?” Anna asked nervously.

  “No question about it.”

  “I didn’t think I could do it.”

  “You were perfect.”

  Anna stared into the dark maw of the narrow cave, contemplating. “We won’t be caught, will we?”

  “Not if we keep quiet. We better not stick around. I’ve got a missing husband to report,” Marilyn said.

  “You think he was drunk enough to cover your story?”

  “They’ll never reach him. As far as they’ll know, he went for a walk and never returned.”

  “Still…”

  “It’s all ledge here. No footprints…nothing. We’ll be fine,” Marilyn said. She wrapped her arms around Anna and kissed her fervently.

  Anna sighed. “I hope so. I don’t think I could have done it again.”

  “What?”

  “The sex. His dick in my mouth. Acting as if I enjoyed it. Pretending to be a lush. That was hard enough, but four months waiting for that positive E.P.T. result was torture.”

  “You did say you came pretty hard.”

  “That first time, yeah. I admit there was something really arousing about the whole plan. It just took so long. I just pretended it was your tongue.”

  They started down the path. “I can’t believe he bought the bit about me being pregnant,” Anna said.

  “But you are pregnant.”

  “Yes,” Anna rubbed the slight bulge of her belly. “You know, you’re weren’t entirely right about him being good for nothing.”

  A PERSPECTIVE

  A knock awakens me. This isn’t unusual, since sleep is now what I do most.

  “Grandmother, may I come in?” my granddaughter’s sweet voice asks from beyond the chamber door.

  “Yes, my dear. Come in,” I say, and watch as the door swings slowly open.

  She slips through the seam of light that shines from the hall and approaches my bed. Her face is beautiful, angelic, framed by a defiant wreath of golden curls that escape from beneath her nightcap. She lifts the hem of her nightgown and moves wraithlike from the cherry wood floor to the thick pile of the carpeting.

  “Grandmother?” she asks in her hummingbird voice, her eyes instantly brimming with tears. “Is it true what they say—that you are dying?”

  “Yes, sweetie,” I answer. “But please don’t lament for me, dear, I’ve had a long and wonderful life with many beautiful children and grandchildren. This part of my journey is nearing its end.”

  Seven-year-old children may not understand the mechanics of death, but they do know its finality. I rub my hand over her lovely velveteen cheek and brush away her tears, amazed that my wizened, parchment-wrapped shell once had flesh as hearty and vital as her own.

  “May I stay here with you for a while?” she asks. Her demeanor is stoic, yet I can sense distress in her question.

  “Of course, my dear…always. Are your father and uncle still fighting?”

  “Yes Grandmother,” she says. She sits beside me on the thick down mattress. Her honeysuckle eyes grow distant in thought, and again I pray that both of my sons be prudent in their actions and words in her presence.

  After a long and profound silence my granddaughter says, “Grandmother?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “They are so angry. They throw things and say such hateful and terrible words to each other.”

  “Sadly, sweetheart, yes,” I agree, disheartened that she must wi
tness such dissension.

  “Why? I don’t understand,” she says. “It’s just a silly crown.”

  YANKEE SWAP

  “Leaving already?”

  Damn it! Kat cursed inwardly, cringing as if pincers had claimed the back of her neck.

  Randy Oberlein was the personification of “insufferable.” The son of affluent socialites, he was born with a silver spoon inserted so far up his ass he could stir his pancreas. It meant nothing to him that Kat was engaged and very much in love. And pregnant, she mentally added, although it didn’t show yet.

  As assistant division manager, Randy was her superior, which put her in an undesirable position as a subordinate. She was a Purchasing Manager, a station she had been proud of…until she’d actually started the job.

  Randy wanted her—had for months—and as far as he was concerned, she was his right…his entitlement. Evidently, “no” was a word he was not accustomed to and which he had difficulty acknowledging. She had considered reporting him, but he was as sly as he was arrogant and the best offense she could present was a he said/she said scenario she feared would cost her her job. Her lack of action or reaction only seemed to encourage him.

  Randy was the primary reason she had dreaded attending the holiday party, but she’d felt obligated to show up. That it was held in the Doubletree Suites ballroom had made her even more apprehensive. The smug bastard surely had a room reserved and expected her to throw herself upon the mercy of his unhinged whims.

  Unfortunately, Kat’s fiancé, Vernon, was in Singapore doing whatever it was field engineers did, otherwise he would have been there for her and for their baby. Kat could envision him with his rugged gunslinger’s confidence and overprotective daddy-swagger, planting a size-eleven boot against Randy’s forehead. She calmed herself but didn’t look at the greasy bastard, instead focusing on the memory of Vernon’s glowing smile when she’d showed him the two thick pink lines on the pregnancy test. His eyes shone as he joked about trading in the Harley for a mini-van and designer diaper bag. He had posed like a fashion model and asked her if she’d still find him irresistibly sexy with a papoose strapped to his chest.