by Martha Carr
Sam arrived. He has boyish good looks, and though he hasn't married or introduced me to anyone special in years, he was so excited to be an uncle for the first time. "Where is John?" Sam said with a frantic look in his eyes. He looked like a frightened horse, the way their eyes grow wild.
"I don't know." I started sobbing so hard I could feel my wails bouncing across the walls. Sam did what he does best and crawled into bed with me. He held me and started mocking me.
"Did you eat some mayonnaise? What’s with the sobbing?" Then he mocked me, "wah wah," and he made a crybaby face like he used to do when I was really little.
I couldn't help but laugh, even while my belly started to tighten down hard again. "I wish John was here."
"He is gonna be a great dad. You picked a keeper. But either way, I'm here, and even though I am not, ever gonna watch what is going down there..." He stuttered on the word, practically gagging it out. "I'll hang with you, sister."
The pain started rolling fast now, and soon our laughing turned into steady concentration. I was quiet and melancholy, but ready. My focus on John was slowly fading to my focus on her. I tried to envision her slipping out like a wet bar of soap.
Finally, I took a mini break, my contractions lulling for a moment. It was about an hour after Sam had arrived, I left John this message. "Hello, baby. Holy crap, it hurts. Where are you? Sam is holding my hand, but I need you. It hurts. They want me to push soon." It’s then when you can hear my voice cracking with sadness. It did hurt. Not just the baby pains, but that he was missing inexplicably. It was time to push.
I did. The second time I pushed, I called him again, frantic. The fear was so loud the words were almost missing. "I'm pushing. You have to come." Then just a strange, strangled sound that I made, as my body forced me to push.
Sam took my phone and set it on the counter and kissed my forehead. "No more calls till after. I got you." He held my hand. I pushed even harder; my body was hot like fire. The pain was all I was. I was pain.
I remember listening to each of these messages. One at a time, wondering what John felt when he heard them finally, six hours later. We know how this ends. I don't want to relive that. The pushing was so beautiful and fun, and I was so excited to meet her. I was so excited to meet her, I was pushing so hard...
The last and final message I gave him, my voice sounds so small. I’m in shock, no emotion as if I too was a frozen carcass with no air in my lungs. “She’s dead." And a long pause where I am breathing long ragged breaths. Then I say, "She's dead." And the click of me hanging up the phone.
And the whole time, he was banging that whore.
***
The thing that gets me is up until that moment; I was really happy. I was truly very happy.
I remember all these perfect little snippets. I remember shopping for the crib together, and John had read all the safety ratings. He was putting so much effort into making sure our child would have the best life possible. The way his eyes lit up after he built it. He said, "Look, I'm a dad now!" John has the most beautiful smile.
I even remember making love that night. He was adorable, soft, and careful as he didn't want to hurt the baby. It was the sweetest lovemaking we had done in years. Not that we weren't passionate; it's just that tender wasn't our style. Usually, we were frantic.
But not that night; he was gentle and careful. Every kiss seemed like a deliberate decision to love me.
It's why I felt so blindsided. Because when things are going particularly well, the last thing you expect is your husband to cheat. It seems like that's the sort of thing that should happen when things are going awful, when you have a horrible suspicion in the back of your head. When you're angry when you're fighting.
But we had none of that. It was just out of the blue. The same as our baby's death, I'm sure. My death will feel the same to him too. Out of the blue. Unexpected. One moment the world is fine, and the next, everything is horrible.
I wish I could be around to see it.
***
The first domino will either be me missing or me dead. I don't know which; it depends on if they find my body right away or not.
I haven't decided exactly how I'm going to die, but it's going have to be incredibly incriminating, the kind of thing that no one would assume was a suicide.
Should he cut the brake line to my car?
Okay, let’s play this out:
I do research. I find out how to cut brake lines. I leave that research on his computer. Clever, I know. Browser history, print a diagram, that sort of thing. Then I cut the brake lines and make sure that his fingerprints are on the tools I use. Leave the tools on the diagram – in an obvious place, but not so obvious that he finds it. Leak brake fluid in the garage. I get in the car, I drive somewhere, somewhere regular, somewhere planned. Preferably a treacherous road, the kind of road that if I don't have brakes, I will certainly die. Take a turn too fast, I go headlong straight into a wall. It better kill me on impact, but if it doesn't – no worries. Dying slowly is what I am prepared to do.
Flaws in the plan:
What if they never figure out that the brakes were cut? Then they never investigate. Nobody finds the diagram. The tools, the brake fluid... all my efforts wasted. They just assume I am a lousy driver – that, in fact, was the cause of my death. Then I die, but he never goes to prison. He gets my life insurance policy and makes 1.5 million. Fail.
***
How to die effectively, to point to finger in his direction. That's the tricky part. For instance, if it's too obvious, that might work against me.
Let's play this out:
I shoot myself in the head. Maybe I wrote a note or make a video, saying my husband John murdered me. I remember to do clever little things like put his fingerprints on the gun. Of course, I do the standard stuff, make sure he doesn't have an alibi, etc. etc. The bullet kills me, and I bleed out. Sure, I'm dead, but...
Flaws in the plan:
It should be obvious by now that no one would buy my story. Why would John take a video of me accusing him of being a murderer? When would he give me time to write a note? And the obvious signs of suicide – gun residue on my hand, blood splatter all wrong, my hand still limply holding the gun, – all of those things. I would be the amateur, then, and everyone would know I tried to frame my husband. They would just chalk it up to me having gone crazy. Even if I devastated him by my loss, he'd get the 1.5 million, and I'd have shamed my family and hurt my parents and my brother for nothing.
That's why it's got to be the exact right balance. Clues and the death must align so there is no mistake. John killed me. This will become the truth.
***
An altercation gone too far. That's what it should look like; it should look like we were just...
I guess it doesn't matter. Having sex, fighting. Who cares? But it went too far. That's what it has to look like. And then he has to cover it up badly.
If we play this one out, it works every time:
I am dead. Bludgeoned, dropped down stairs, neck broken, back broken, strangled in a fit. It is irrelevant. Whichever method killed me, it just has to be unplanned, like throwing me down the stairs. Then he has to cover it up. The blood dumped all through the house needs to be wiped up and bleached but in a sloppy, amateur manner. My blood must sit in his car, with bits of dirt for where he took me. He needs to forget and leave the GPS on his phone so that they can track his movements. He has to botch it, the hiding of me. Weigh me down in the lake or bury me in the woods. Whatever it is, the evidence must be in his car, on his hands, in the house, at my office; it's everywhere. Then they have to find me. I have to have wounds consistent with the story. They must be bad enough that the blood loss makes sense. My body must be grievously wounded. There would be trigger points to knock over dominos, like... maybe the neighbor would have heard my screams. Maybe there is a note on my desk at work mentioning how John has been so angry with me. Layers of evidence, nuanced and perfect, to get the investigation lubric
ated.
Then they would have plenty of evidence that he did it by accident, then he botched the cleanup.
Flaws in the plan: they never find me. So they never search our house, they never find the blood. Or even if they search, they can't prosecute him. No body, no crime. He wins 1.5 million dollars from the insurance. I cringe when I think of that number. He can't walk away from this, not like that, not with a huge pile of money.
So I just have to make it impossible not to find me. I must stick out like a sore thumb. My body must be a beacon of death.
Now I just must decide what kind of accident we had, and how dumb he can be cleaning it up.
***
Death doesn't scare me. It's something I think about all day and all night. I hope it will just feel blank. Winking out into the nothingness. I like to think that is where she is now. Just blank.
In a way, I already feel dead. I feel like I'm completely out of touch with any of my feelings. The only one that is clear is my need to go blank. Revenge is nice, sure. If that's what this is. Is it? Am I out for revenge?
The thought curls dreamily around me like smoke. I don't hate him, so maybe it's not... Do revenge and hate go hand in hand?
Sam told me he thinks I have postpartum depression because I lie around and I don't care.
He is right; I don't care. He could feed me a mayonnaise sandwich, and I'd just eat it up because it will taste just as sandy and dead as the rest of the world. It feels like I'm sitting in my rocking chair, with thick, viscous fluid around me. Perhaps it's mayonnaise?
It's the mayonnaise of life. Everything is like wading through that slimy egg paste.
No wonder I don't care about living. Who wants to live in a world of mayo?
***
I am lying in the bathtub with bubbles foamed around my breasts. My body still looks foreign and broken. Stretch marks are still red and angry, slitting all the way up and down my stomach as though a bear has clawed me.
My breasts hurt. They are swollen and painful; the milk arrived. The useless food for my baby.
I slowly slide underneath the hot water and wish I could drown. Drowning seems like one of the easier ways to go. All I would have to do is tie some weights to my ankles and go out far enough that it was too hard to get back. Drowned in the lake... We have a nice lake nearby. When I die, I'd like to die somewhere beautiful so that I can taint it with my pain. People will say, "This is a beautiful lake" and the inevitable reply will be "Remember that lady got killed in here?"
You might be wondering why I don't just divorce him and leave and kill myself. I mean, if death is the biggest part of this that I want. The water is thick above my face as I imagine drowning in that lake, as I am looking through the water to the ceiling where there are tiny little white popcorn flecks.
I could do that. There's no reason to take John down with me. I'm sure that's what any rational human would do. Maybe I could just divorce him.
The hot water slowly trickles into my ears and my eyes. I blink under the water. My lungs are starting to burn from the desire for air. But I don't care. I find it hard to care about anything these days.
Divorce, if we play this one out, here's what happens:
I have no career. I have to move in with Sam, go back to school, something like that. It embarrasses my mother and father, who have never had a divorce, and always said that their children could stick it out through thick and thin as they had. It makes my stomach turn to think about getting a divorce.
Flaws in the plan: besides that, I have no career. I've been a housewife this entire time. But then it's like John wins twice. I'm gone, he gets all this stuff and all his money back. And I'm... even more alone, but now I'm broke too. Stupid. I embarrass my family.
My lungs finally demand with such intensity that I lift my face out of the water and breathe in. The air feels cold compared to the hot liquid in the tub. I pull my head back down. If I could drown right now, I would be done with it. But it's harder than you think to kill yourself.
I should know, because two days after they buried her, I tried. It was unsuccessful, as evidenced by my existence.
If I play out the idea, that I should kill myself:
I'm dead. I shot myself, hung myself, poisoned myself. Whichever. I'm dead. John has to find me. He is mortified; that breaks his pretty little heart... Up until he receives the check for life insurance. An extra one and a half million dollars sure puts the grin back on his face, and then he and his slutty secretary can go to Hawaii, or anywhere else they want to go.
The flaw in this plan should be pretty freaking obvious. I don't want him to profit from my death. Not even a tiny bit. I don't want him to win.
I do want to die.
***
Every time I get dressed, I remember her.
Not just because of the claw marks up and down my stomach and my breasts still leaking with her food. But because I can't wear my clothes. I still am stuck in fat maternity clothing. It's hard to live like this.
I spend my time constantly in a bathtub, or unconscious, or drunk. I have to be honest; I'm drunk a lot. They call it postpartum depression. I wonder...
Does every postpartum woman think about murder and suicide? Do some of them just sleep? Or if you have a tiny baby suckling on your breast, even the miserable world is better? I wonder that. If he cheated, but she had lived... would I feel this empty? Or would I be determined to work it out? I know this, I would live. It wouldn't be her fault, and she would drive me to change diapers. and staring at her tiny eyes and perfect eyelashes. Maybe I could heal.
I don't think I'm gonna do it. I just think I'm going to think about it. Why wouldn't I think about it? While our child died inside my belly, he was fucking his secretary. I have no sympathy for him. The pain I feel is so big and so great that I am surprised you haven't felt it cracked the world in half. I can hardly bear the weight of it.
It’s like my insides are crawling out of my chest. I feel like an alien. I look down, and I can see my skin glow with the heat of hate and brokenness. I can see with every drop of godforsaken milk trickling down my shirt that I hate. I am the sun. Even staring at me will burn out your eyeballs, because I am on fire inside me.
Sam called me today. He asked me if I was okay, and I lied. As he talked and he said that he wanted to have lunch, I could feel my fist balling up tightly. I said “sure, let's have lunch.”
When I hung up, it was all I could do to keep from screaming. My baby is dead. We can't have lunch! I don't eat; I don't sleep. I don't live. I am dead too.
I am dead too.
I will be dead too.
***
Sometimes when I'm sitting on the couch, I think I'm in the tub. Because... Everything feels like it's underwater. Like the room is filled with mayonnaise. The air feels thick and warm, and sometimes I think I'm suffocating. Sometimes I wish I was suffocating.
All the time I wish I was suffocating.
I have this terrible feeling that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and have no milk. All I will have left are the marks on my body. The permanent scars of growing a child that was never to be.
I am going to frame my husband. I don't want to live, and I don't want him to profit from my demise. So the only way I can balance things in my favor is to punish him for his terrible crime. Not just the crime of screwing his secretary, but the crime of missing his baby.
That is the crime for which he will go to prison. Even though the documents will say it is my death on his hands, but we all know it is his child.
That tiny little voice inside my head says that this is unfair, but when you are a ball of hate, you don't care that it is unfair. Fairness is for the people whose babies lived.
***
He brought me flowers. That's what my husband did. We don't talk very much, mostly because I don't move. I don't get off the couch, or out of the tub, because I'm underwater. I don't think I can eat at lunch with my brother today. I haven't had a full meal since she died. I did eat some chi
ps yesterday. Then I hurled it all over the stairs. I left it like that so that John could find it later. In case he wanted to ask his perpetual: "How are you doing, darling?" I can just point at the stairs.
He could have taken time off.
We had already planned it, that when she was born, he could take two weeks off. But since she was born dead, he took one day off for her funeral. Then he went back to his secretary.
I just hate him.
But he brought me flowers today, and he wrote me a card. And here's what it says:
Baby,
My heart is broken.
Is there anything we can do? Is there any way I can convince you to eat? Please don't leave me alone in this world. I'm an absolute mess. I know you can't see it because you are so consumed by your pain. But I would give anything to take it from you. I love you with my whole life, and I know that I left you when you needed me the most. I wish I could explain what happened so that your heart wouldn't feel so destroyed. I feel destroyed. I look at the rubble of our marriage, and how broken you are, and I don't know what to do. Please don't give up. Please. You are the only thing that has ever mattered to me. Please.
I love you so much.
John
Cute. John thinks he can implore me with his broken heart? I don't even know how to put into words how I feel. If I were a camel, he would be the straw. Snap.
These words feel like lies.
I read it four times. And then I put it away.
I will try to eat lunch.
***
When we fell in love, a million and a half years ago, John and I were amazing. It was heavenly. Have you ever been truly in love?
It's magical. He would stare into my eyes, and suddenly words would come pouring out of me in a rush of deliciousness. "You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life." I would kiss him, on the lips, on each eyelid, and his dark brown eyes would see inside my very soul.
Sometimes infatuation doesn't last, you know? But for us, through the years, it deepened into a wild richness. If we had started off as a sweet milky chocolate, we had only shifted into a dark, silky flavor by now. We were to be savored.