Cradle Robber

by Staron, Chris

  Then the whispering started. Coworkers chatted about him behind his back like he might snap. They spoke to management about their concern for his mental health and Human Resources hosted an embarrassing intervention that took the better part of his afternoon.

  His receptionist revealed that someone had put together a sadistic money pool, betting on whether or not he’d commit suicide in the next few days. He assured the gossips he’d come to work the next day, but, in secret, he held his doubts.

  Maggie sat on the piano bench and flexed her fingertips in the quiet of the room. Rob stared at the far wall, lost in numbness. Tears pooled at the corners of his eyes. He couldn't stop crying.

  She stood and walked to the stool in the foyer. Maggie picked up his jacket from where he’d thrown it, straightened the folds, and hung it in the closet. A slight bend in her knees, she swayed back and forth like a little girl in trouble with her parents.

  “Is this how it's going to be now?”

  Rob diverted his gaze to his brown leather shoes. The laces drooped and brushed the carpet when he brushed his feet against the carpet.

  Maggie shut the closet door. “It's done. We have to move on.”

  Could he avoid responding? No, that’d make her furious.

  “I don't see how.”

  Maggie folded her arms and cocked her head to the side. “We should get out. Go to dinner, see a movie.”

  His head slumped, chin against chest. “Doesn't seem appropriate.”

  “Appropriate? Rob, we've got to live our lives. I don't want to spend the next month cooped in this house while you pout.” She tapped her foot on the floor and fluffed her hair. Fingers always busy, she shuffled to one of her many bookshelves and straightened her already perfect, dust-free Precious Moments statues of little kids holding blankets and petting dogs. She loved the idea of those kids more than the real thing.

  “You killed our child, Maggie. How am I supposed to get over that?”

  Rob leaned forward, tense. She wouldn’t like his tone, but it empowered him to talk back. So what if she hit him? He deserved it for being a coward. He could have restrained her somehow, exerted some force. There was blood on his hands, too.

  She slinked back into the living room, approaching the piano bench she recently left.

  “Adults accept what is and what isn't, Rob. We weren't ready.”

  “I was ready.”

  The temperature of the air changed. A little blue vein appeared in her forehead and her jaw clenched. She paced the floor and pointed at him with grand gestures.

  “That's the issue, isn't it? You think you were ready, but I would have to stay home to change diapers and put it to bed. I’d wake up every fifteen minutes to feed the thing. You’d work all day while I sat here by myself, so you could have a clean conscience. Well, Rob, not today. Not ever. I'm sorry.”

  She dropped onto the piano bench, lip pushed into a pout, like a spoiled little girl.

  Rob remained motionless. Better to avoid her wrath by sitting still. “You're so selfish.”

  “Listen to you. What's more selfish than judging me for having a life? It's easy for you. You walk into your office and you're given respect. Why? Not because of any talent of your own, Lord knows, but because you're a man.” She clasped her hands on the edge of the piano bench and dug her bare feet into the carpet as her rant escalated.

  “I work myself to the bone and do they notice me? Does anybody give me attention? No. Because of some grand delusion, some inside joke that, since I'm a woman, I must be incompetent. And now you have the nerve to tell me that I don't have the right to say what happens to my body for the next nine months.”

  He sat up in the chair. “You cast your lot when you forced yourself on me.”

  “What? Now sex is against the law?”

  Rob rose to his feet, hands trembling. Cold beads of sweat ran down his back, his head feverish. Saliva gathered, tangling together the words in his mouth. “We have to accept responsibility for our actions.”

  Maggie stood and approached Rob with her arms at her sides, fingers rubbing against each other with a dry flick flick sound. She clenched and unclenched her fists. He'd seen that look in her before, but this was no time to back down. Cowardice didn’t work. Their child died for his lack of courage. They couldn’t go on like this anymore. He loved her, even now as she burned with the fires of an unquenchable rage, he loved her. But their lives had come to a head: either they made drastic changes or ended the charade. No more indecision.

  Flick flick flick. Her nose hovered inches from his, her heated breath collecting against his skin.

  “I took responsibility. You sat there whimpering on the couch while I went down to that doctor's office alone. Do you know how it feels to live with a man who'd let his wife do something like that by herself? And with protestors judging me, shouting at me, getting in my face? Like I'm some sort of criminal. How do you think that made me feel? Do you think I liked being judged by those self-righteous critics? How dare you lecture me.”

  She back-handed him across the face, slicing his flesh with her wedding ring. Blood trickled down his chin, staining the collar of his shirt. He touched his cheek, surprised by the crimson of his own blood. A tremble shook his knees, he fought a wave of nausea and, by some miracle, remained standing.

  He was fighting back.

  “Hit me all you want, Maggie. It's not going to change the truth. We have to live with the fact that we committed murder. You had no right to do that, to spill blood on my hands without so much as a word of consent from me. How can I sleep at night knowing that we put an innocent child to death?”

  She slapped him again with her left and punched with a solid uppercut, catching his jaw with her right. Rob collapsed, barely missing the bookshelf. His head reeled. Panic. His arms and legs jerked, like a pill bug turned on its back. Maggie stared at him as a predator watches its prey, menacing, curious as to its next move, but sure of its own victory.

  Bending down, she looked him in the eyes. “This is about us. Not you. Now is not the time for selfishness, love.”

  She caressed the cheek she'd torn open. “Let me get a bandage for that.” She disappeared down the hallway, headed toward the bathroom.

  “Don't touch me,” he croaked between clenched teeth. Tears surged as he cursed his inability to fight back against her. His forehead burned and the veins in his neck pulsed with fury. “Don't you ever touch me again.”

  Rob pushed his overweight body to his knees, rubbing his jaw. Something clicked in his mouth and a wave of pain swept over him. His body beaded with sweat, as if his very skin cried against her. Pain dizzied his vision, but the real damage happened in his soul. He was responsible for the death of their child. How many times did he have to fall to the ground before he learned to stand up for himself?

  She rushed back into the living room, first aid kit in hand.

  “Quit moving, you're going to ruin the carpet.” Maggie grabbed his face with one hand and applied a bandage with the other. “Let me see.”

  He pushed her away, but she gripped his head with clenched fingers, cracking his neck. Rob resisted, sitting on his knees, but she held his face in her vice-like grip while his body twisted in protest. He reached up, shoved her shoulders, and stood.

  “No, I can't.... I can't take this anymore.”

  Both feet planted on the ground, he stared her down. She would not win, not this time. If it meant walking away from his marriage, he would do it. What kind of man was he? While his friends went on dates, hunted in the woods, and rode motorcycles, he cowered on his couch terrified of the woman that shared his bed. No more. No more.

  She kicked over the piano bench. It crashed to the floor, spilling out songbooks stored under the seat cover. She advanced one inch at a time, sucking air from the room. Deep red streaked her fair skin. Veins rose across her arms as muscles tightened and contracted again and again.

  “You need me, Rob. You think someone else is going to let you push them a
round? You think some other woman is fool enough to put up with your pouting while she goes to the doctor alone? You need me and you know it. You love me.”

  Twelve inches separated them. Her stinking breath struck his face. No, it would not end here.

  He stamped his foot, shaking her beloved glassware on their shelves. “I don't need you. I never needed you. It's the other way around. You need me.”

  At the sound of his aggressive tone, she tilted her head, eyes wide.

  Rob squared his aching jaw. “Without me you've got nobody to boss. You're stuck in a dead end job, afraid of being a mother. Throwing me around makes you feel powerful, but you're really nothing. Nobody has the guts to stand up to you, so you think you can get away with it. You think the world owes you some huge favor, but you're wrong. You're—”

  He turned toward the kitchen, headed for the back door. He’d leave her, this time for good. No man could stay married to this monster.

  A shout from behind. She lunged, jamming her elbow into his lower back. Rob fell hard, hitting his nose on the metal bracket between the carpeted living room and the linoleum of the kitchen. He flipped over, scrambling to his feet, but Maggie was on him in an instant, dealing blows to his face. The predator had her prey.

  # # #

  Wade gasped. The small LCD screen in his hand displayed the horrors in full color. Rob’s screams erupted in the headphones as she threw down punch after punch. She yelled obscenities and shouted nonsense as Rob rocked back and forth, shielding his face from her knuckles. Wade ripped the headphones from his ears and threw them away as Rob's desperate cries deafened him.

  Wade yearned to run to the man's aid, to knock down the door and cast off this hideous creature, but he couldn't. How would he explain the cameras, the microphones? If the police came they’d want to know who he was. They might check his house and find the machine.

  The headphones. Rob’s shouting blasted through the tiny speakers though they lay ten feet away in the grass.

  Wade stood, then sat; indecisive, twitching. There was nobody there to help, nobody to hear. The nearest neighbor lived too far away. They’d never know that something terrible happened. They didn’t hear Rob’s screams like he did. Surrounded by hundreds of people, but completely alone, he jerked the headphones from their jack. He couldn’t take the sound anymore.

  Frustrated, he threw down the video screen and bolted toward the house, his legs pumping. Maggie’s silhouette bobbed against the curtain on the back door as she rained blow after blow upon her husband. He stopped on the back patio.

  “You only think about yourself,” she shouted. “Never about me. Always about you. You're like everybody else, judging me. Why are you judging me?”

  Wade's hand hovered over the doorknob. Through a gap in the curtain he could make out their bodies, taking in the bloody carnage. He couldn't intervene. Too much hung in the balance, too many futures. The machine crippled his ability to step in. His determination to correct the past rendered him powerless to help in the present. If the police investigated the beating, he might inadvertently lead them to the time machine. The horror of this reality cut him like a knife. How could he turn away from such violence and abandon his fellow man?

  Maggie yelped. “You're going to leave me? Fine. Go. I'll hunt down your family, your parents, nieces, nephews, and I will cut them one by one, you hear me? I will cut them down and we'll see how many nightmares you get for bringing that on your kin. Is that what you want? Is it?”

  Rob’s cries were unintelligible, muffled.

  “I will find you. I will find you wherever you go. I know you, Rob. I know you, and there’s nowhere else for you to go. Listen to me. I will find you, and when I do, you will regret your unfaithfulness.”

  She leaned in close. Rob could not get away. She sat on his chest, pinning his arms with her shins, her face inches from his.

  “I love you, Robby. But you keep doing things like this, and I have to remind you where your place is. This isn’t my fault. You brought this on yourself. I love you. This is what's best for us. God hates divorce, Rob. You hear me? Don't you bring the wrath of God on us. Don't you do that.”

  Rob breathed sharp, stuttered spurts. Blood oozed from his face and pooled onto the kitchen’s linoleum floor.

  “I love you,” she said.

  He swallowed hard, saliva and blood. “I love you. Don't hurt my family. I love you. I love you.”

  “I'm not going to hurt anybody. Calm down. It's okay.”

  The beating stopped. Maggie caressed his hair with her free hand. She kissed him on the mouth, petting him like a cat. Wade stepped away from the door and ran across the backyard to where he'd thrown down his gear only moments before. He still heard the sound of her voice as she tried to comfort Rob, the brutal sucking of his gasps, the tearing of paper as she opened packets of gauze for his face.

  Wade’s entire philosophy changed in a few moments. If he would have skipped his research he might have killed an innocent man.

  She’d disappear soon, but her crippling voice would never leave him. Wade ran into the night, determined to set Rob free.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A sonic boom. Light flashed and a quiet evening upended with the power of a localized earthquake. Trees shed their leaves as if fall came early. Entire branches crashed to the ground. Heat from the machine singed grass along the stone path. Crickets stopped their songs. No human eyes witnessed the explosion, nobody felt the shock wave, or called the police. It was a perfectly calm evening, disrupted in a moment.

  White-hot light bathed the valley like a bolt of lightening. One quick burst and it ended. The world changed. In a fraction of a second a life ceased, a marriage dissolved, and a lonely and confused man was set free.

  Wade lay face down on the steering wheel of the unwieldy, hulking machine near the center of the open field. Every muscle in his body hurt, at least, those awake enough to know that something happened. Each extremity tingled back to life. His eyes glazed and attempted to focus on the trees, but found no success in their efforts.

  Five minutes later he lifted his head only to set it back down again. The pain intensified in the upright position. He rolled his head along the wheel and faced forward, willing his body to respond. No sense in staying there, waiting for the police to come.

  Sliding from the chair, his legs hit the ground. This time he did not collapse. The reentry process did improve. Though his muscles ached, he stood on his feet pretty fast, a major improvement over the previous journey.

  Leaning against the machine, he guided himself to the back of the behemoth. A quick kick of his leg and the back brakes released. The machine rolled a foot and stopped again. He guided himself back around the front and commenced pushing, ecstatic at his quick recovery.

  Wade caught sight of the reflectors he'd placed at the start of the driveway to alert him when he reached the cement. He pulled himself onto the chair and jerked the wheel to make the turn toward the garage.

  A cramp jumped up his right leg. Sharp twinges shot through his body forcing him to stop there, bent over the chair. The charlie horse bit into his thigh. He had to wait it out.

  In and out. In and out. Almost there. In and out.

  Ten minutes later the reassuring bump into the garage greeted him and he shouted with relief. His left hand hit a button that started the garage door descending before he cleared the entrance. The hefty door clanged down. Safe inside the house. Wade’s head sank, connecting with the front of the machine, rolling across the radiator. His body folded, limp against the awkward bend of the machine, and he slid to the ground, exhausted. They were one now, inseparable. The thrill of success motivated him more than the agony of his wounds. He’d done it again. He became the god of his own destiny.

  # # #

  Wade took in Traci’s perfume as they stepped out of the shade and into the afternoon sun. They walked together on a dirt path, stirring little dust clouds with each step. Baseball bats cracked in the distance, and crowds
cheered from the other side of the park. Dogs barked and kids screamed as they played with squirt guns. All of these distractions could not pull his attention from her.

  Inches apart, they occasionally brushed hands. Wade gave her more space, and then they worked their way back together as if drawn by gravity.

  So many memories. This was the location of their first date with Tom and Linda. The bench where they sat was only a quarter mile to the east, his new favorite spot. The place radiated with the glow of that moment.

  But it was also Carter’s favorite swimming area, way back when he still existed. Wade could almost hear the little boy splashing around at the base of the man made waterfall. They used to come here together to get Carter away from his dingy house, away from the television set. Dozens of families came there to swim or skip rocks every day. Carter caught his first fish while standing on the bridge.