The garden of dead thoughts

by Natasha A. Salnikova

  “Well. He is charming with other people. I mean, most of the time. He thinks that everything I do is wrong. No matter how hard I try.”

  “How did you provoke the reaction of his stomach yesterday?”

  “He said that if I had given him food before we went to see you then he wouldn’t have eaten so fast, but I actually did offer him food and he said he wasn’t hungry.”

  “That sounds very strange,” Mason said. His voice sounded the way Margo heard him the first time only with a note of concern and sympathy.

  “I’ve heard stranger things,” Margo said bitterly. She was a great actress and often asked herself, why she didn’t try this profession? With her beauty and talent, she would succeed. She was young, maybe it would be worth a try. She read that actors who earned a lot of money worked just as hard. They got up early, went to bed late, sometimes did some terrible things to their bodies, such as diets to gain or lose weight or some crazy hours in the gym to prepare themselves for a role. Did Margo want to make sacrifices? Then there was this clowning, pretending to be someone you’re not in front of an audience, making them look at you and judge whether you met their expectations or not.

  “I would have never guessed,” Mason said. “Michael seems to be such an intelligent, kind man. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. Maybe because there is no one else. My parents died a long time ago. I have no brothers or sisters. My first husband also died. I was looking for protection, a refuge. I don’t blame him ... What’s wrong with me? I don’t know you at all.”

  “Poor child,” Mason said.

  “Sometimes just a conversation helps, you know?”

  “Absolutely. I understand you. I’m always open to talk.”

  Finally Mason nibbled the bait. It was the phrase she was waiting for.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Of course! I’m home all the time, alone. Except for the time when I go to the doctor. It’s my age, you know? You can come over any time. I just don’t want to upset your husband. I hope he won’t be angry.”

  “He’s always angry,” Margo answered.

  “It’s so sad. I would have never guessed. I’m sorry you are in such an unpleasant position. People often disappoint us.”

  “Unfortunately. You are a very kind man, Mason. I can’t believe we met in such strange circumstances.”

  “Yes. Margaret, I’m really sorry, but I have to go now. I have a doctor’s appointment. Please, call me any time.”

  “Ok, I’ll call.”

  Margo hung up and went to the kitchen to celebrate a great day.

  CHAPTER 22

  Margo thought about it and decided she couldn’t take another risk and try to physically get rid of Michael right now. Especially after Daisy’s disappearance. That idiot had nothing better to do than disappear when Margo had so many plans. She still thought Tristan had helped her to vanish, but he was afraid to admit it even to his lover in spite of the fact that he did it for her, so he could be with her. That was the reality but Margo didn’t care about it. If somebody took care of Tristan now, if they removed him from her path, it would be great. She had no idea if he left forever or planned to return. Maybe he would keep coming until she changed her decision and took him back in her arms. The poor boy didn’t understand that his time had passed. She had taken everything she could from him and now he had lost his value. If she no longer had need of someone, that was the end of the story.

  Margo spent the day shopping after talking to Mason, but returned home in a bad mood. It was so bad that she could hurt someone if that someone got in her way. The reason was her bank account. She checked it and realized that if she continued to spend with the same enthusiasm as always, the balance in her account would fall to zero. Accounts had one strange trait: if you didn’t add money there, they would disappear. Margo didn’t have a source for replenishing her account at the moment, which meant she had to take drastic measures as soon as possible. Michael’s recent pittance was nothing. She knew that people made mistakes when they were forced into desperate positions and she didn’t want to become such a person. She hoped her intuition, savvy, and intelligence wouldn’t let her down. She was the queen of this chess game, wasn’t she?

  “What’s going on with the insurance?” Margo asked as she drank her chamomile tea. It was already dusk outside when Michael returned home.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked without turning. He examined the contents of the almost empty refrigerator. Margo was wondering what he intended to find there, since no one had gone to the store since Daisy’s last working day. Including him. She hoped he didn’t expect her to become a cozy, little housewife who would start making pancakes for him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  Michael looked at the empty shelves for a few seconds then closed the door, and turned to his wife.

  “Shall we order pizza?” he asked.

  “You didn’t answer my question.” Margo put her cup on the table.

  “What question?” Michael, it seemed, sincerely didn’t understand what Margo had in mind. His gaze was unfocused.

  Margo cleared her throat.

  “I asked about the insurance policy on your house.”

  Michael scratched his head.

  “It was my house. What’s the difference?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Margo’s calmness broke to smithereens. She knew exactly what she would say, what he would say, but she didn’t expect this answer.

  “What’s the difference? I don’t work and I have to pay expenses for this house. You live here.”

  “I’m your husband. We decided to live in this house.”

  Margo, probably for the first time in many years, didn’t find an answer immediately. She wanted to stand up and slap Michael across his face, she wanted to smash him with her fists, but it went against her plans. Plus, she suddenly realized that she didn’t know how he would react.

  “I didn’t understand your answer,” Margo said.

  “I’ve never said I’d pay for the house or anything,” Michael replied.

  Margo understood that the state of anger she had experienced before was really just child’s play. She was ready to give up her choice not to touch Michael and throw him off the stairs or drown him in the pool right now. The pool sounded quite attractive. He could get drunk and fall asleep on the mattress. The main thing was to get him drunk and drag him to the terrace. Her mind began to work fast, but not exactly in the direction in which it was intended.

  “I’ll order pizza,” Michael said, heading for the kitchen door.

  “What’s wrong with you? You are crazy!” Margo shouted. “Our conversation isn’t over!”

  Michael didn’t respond and Margo wanted to follow him, but then stopped, took a deep breath and decided that this option wasn’t for her. She was too smart for that.

  “Michael,” she called. “If that is the direction you’re going, we’ll have to talk about… making changes. You might not like them.”

  He didn’t answer. Margo heard his voice from the next room. He was really ordering pizza. He didn’t care about her words.

  Margo sat down in the chair and drank her cold tea. She needed to think. She could start arguing with him, but where would it bring her? His behavior was strange and unexpected. She needed to think it over carefully. Maybe he was drunk?

  Michael stopped talking, so Margo went closer to the door, and stopped when she heard his voice again. His voice was quiet. Margo cautiously moved farther, leaned against the wall, and listened.

  “Yes,” Michael said. Then he paused and again agreed with something. His last words before Margo ran back and pretended she hadn’t moved, were a promise to go somewhere.

  Michael returned to the kitchen, with his phone held tightly in his hand, and looked at Margo. It seemed that he didn’t see her. His gaze was on her, but at the
same time somewhere else, as if he was looking through her. She just noticed that his shirt was wrinkled and his hair was sticking out in all directions. She didn’t notice this before because she was focused on more important things.

  “Has something happened?” she asked. She wasn’t really worried whether anything had happened, so the question sounded more like a challenge, instead of sounding like she was concerned about him.

  “I have great news!” Michael said. “One of my clients just called and said that he wants to do business!”

  “That’s great,” Margo said, but she didn’t care. It was too late.

  “I’m sorry I acted a little weird. I’ve just had a bad day. One of my clients died.”

  “Oh.”

  “He was a very good client, but he was old and sick. Tomorrow I’m going to meet this new client. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. It’s going to be awesome!”

  “Yes, it is,” Margo said. “I’m happy for you.”

  “Yes, I’m happy for us! I was so nervous today!” Michael went to Margo and kissed her on the lips. It happened so abruptly and unexpectedly that she recoiled.

  “I’m glad it changed,” she said, thinking that her husband was a complete idiot and she hated him. It wasn’t a good situation and she had to do something about it.

  “The meeting is in Orlando. I might have to stay there for the night, depends on how it goes. Are you happy?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Gosh, it was a bad day. I’m so glad it ended like this.”

  “There’s your pizza,” Margo said when the doorbell rang.

  “Let’s celebrate a future deal!” Michael shouted from the hallway. “Do we have wine, dear? If you want, we can go to a restaurant!”

  “I’m too lazy to change,” she answered, opening the wine cabinet. Mason had a whole room only for wine. He probably had hundreds of bottles and most of it was collectible, which could be sold. Margo pulled out one of the bottles and read the label. California. She would buy French wine in the future, like normal people.

  Michael entered the kitchen.

  “Daisy bought some shit,” Margo said. “Not what I wanted.”

  “You’ll buy exactly what you want now,” Michael said happily as he took a piece of pizza out of the box and began to eat.

  Margo wanted to say something nasty, but decided to do it after his return even though she felt sick just looking at him. What she intended to say depended on the outcome of his meeting. Maybe the deal was really good, since he was so excited. She would have to play along. For now.

  “Would you open it?” she asked, smiling despite her nausea, and handed him the bottle.

  CHAPTER 23

  The next day, Michael left early in the morning. He was giddy with happiness. Margo was also happy about his departure, because she had plans of her own. She hoped that Tristan wouldn’t appear again and disrupt them. As soon as the clock showed ten, Margo called Mason and he invited her to his house. Margo pretended to think about it before agreeing.

  “I’m so upset right now,” she said. “Michael and I had a fight before he left. He yelled at me that I’m not doing anything, that he is the only one who works. That’s not true. I work forty hours a week.”

  “You need to stop working,” Mason said, “then he’ll notice the difference.”

  “Oh, Mason,” Margo said. “I don’t remember when I have felt so calm and relaxed.”

  “We are all different people,” he replied.

  “It’s true, it’s true,” Margo agreed.

  A little later, she started picking a dress for her date. She wanted to wear something that could be easily taken off, so the old man with his crooked fingers wouldn’t have to do unnecessary work. She had one dress like that. It had a zipper from the very bottom to the very top. One movement of a hand and the dress was on the floor. Margo didn’t find the dress in her closet and went to the laundry room where she hadn’t been for a while. Her cleaning lady was washing everything that could be washed in the machine, and Daisy took particularly delicate and expensive items to a dry cleaner. Today, however, Margo had no choice and she turned over one of the baskets without even opening it, twitching her face in disgust. Inside were only Michael’s things. A pile of underwear, a pair of sports pants and t-shirts, trousers, a pair of shirts. Margo was wearing slippers and kicked the dirty laundry toward the washing machine, so that the cleaning lady would take care of them later. She hated Michael even more today. The more she thought about him, the more she hated him. He lived in her house, ate food from her refrigerator, and slipped his dirty clothes to her cleaning lady. Margo didn’t even know about that, assuming he washed his stuff himself. Maybe he did wash his stuff, but she was never interested and it didn’t matter at this point.

  A crumpled piece of paper slipped out of the pants pocket and onto the floor. Margo wanted to push it under the dirty clothes, but then picked it up with two fingers and, with two fingers, unfolded it. She was surprised to find an insurance application. A life insurance application. Margo scanned the document to the end and saw that it hadn’t yet been signed. Actually it was signed, but the signature was crossed out and since the paper was creased, Margo surmised that Michael had started the application, made a mistake, crumpled it, stuffed it in his pocket, and filled out another one.

  Only the signature on the application, although it was crossed out, was still visible and seemed very familiar. Too familiar. The signature was too similar to her signature.

  Margo shook her head in disbelief, returned to the beginning of the document where the information was filled out and read the name of the applicant. Her eyes widened in shock. Her jaw seemed to go numb.

  “What?” Margo said, moving her lips with difficulty.” What is this?”

  There was her name on the application, all her information. It was her and no one else, certainly not Michael, who signed the life insurance application for two million dollars. The recipient of this amount, in the event of her death, should be none other than Michael Buckler.

  Margo looked at the dirty pants nested next to the washing machine. At that moment, her heart was beating faster than before throwing Charles into the abyss. Although, in fact, at that moment she was perfectly calm. Now she thought her mind was failing her. What she read couldn’t be true simply because it couldn’t be.

  She turned the paper over, read all the filled in spaces again with special care, but there was no mistake. It was not the insurance policy itself, only the application and he, apparently, forgot this paper in his pocket. Only facts remained facts. Michael did apply for the life insurance, as she had asked, but not in his name. He would be the one to receive money. She would lie in a grave, mourned by his crocodile tears.

  “It can’t be,” Margo whispered. “It can’t be.”

  Margo’s first impulse was to call Michael and demand an explanation. She even took the phone and found his number. But then she turned off the phone, went to the kitchen to get wine, and with a glass of the cold drink she sat down on the terrace, pondering over the event.

  So Michael decided to insure her life and he made himself the beneficiary in the event of her death. How had it occurred to him? When and how was he going to get paid? Did he presume that she would die before him? That couldn’t happen, because—well—it just couldn’t happen. He must die before her, leaving her with money. She was the queen of manipulations, bold decisions and sham, and not he. How come she turned out to be a pawn in his game? Margo couldn’t believe it no matter how hard she tried. She couldn’t believe it even after she had read the same lines hundreds of times. She just couldn’t believe it.

  If this was true ... First she needed to make sure that it was true, that it wasn’t a joke. Could this be a joke? Who did he try to humor with it? Who did he play?

  “He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with yet.”

  Margo left the half empty glass on the table near the pool and returned to the house. She put the paper neatly on the b
ed and opened the closet to check on Michael’s things. There were hangers with a T-shirt and one jacket. Margo checked the jacket pockets, but didn’t find anything. She gave Michael the nightstand on his side of the bed in her bedroom, where he put his watch and his phone at night. He used the drawers to hide whatever he needed to hide from her view.

  On the top of the bedside table there was nothing, but a lamp and the booklet with the phone number of the pizzeria. Margo pulled out the first drawer and found one sock in there. There was nothing in the second one.

  “What else? Where to look?”

  Margo sat down on the bed, realizing that she didn’t know anything about the man she wanted to kill in order to get money from him. She learned everything about Charles before marrying him. She dined with his children and even with his ex-wife. She went to parties with his business colleagues. She knew almost nothing about Michael. He had some cat that died during the fire and he had a crazy ex-girlfriend, who could have set up that fire. He told her that he didn’t communicate with his family and lost his friends after his wife had passed away. Margo didn’t check the facts of his work in more detail, didn’t check his marriage story, nothing. She wasn’t interested, because she was too self-assured and didn’t doubt the stupidity of her future husband. Everything worked out perfectly with Charles (except his last will), but it gave her a bold confidence that she could make no mistakes and everything was under control. All she could think about was how to get rid of him so that the police wouldn’t hang her. There were no other thoughts or ideas in her head. Certainly, there was no idea about Michael playing against her. This simply couldn’t have occurred to her. What was it? Karma?

  “There’s no karma,” Margo said.

  She looked at the crumpled document with the crossed out signature that looked like hers. The name of the insurance company, address and telephone number were written at the top.

  She returned to the living room, sat on the couch, and dialed the phone number indicated on the document.