Perri O'Shaughnessy - Sinister Shorts

What an eligible widower he would make, with his charm and her money.

What perfidy, these traitorous thoughts. He had been nothing but kind, and this was how she repaid him, with doubt, suspicion.

Fear assailed her, confusion.

Swallowing water, letting the cool liquid flow into her living body, hoping for cleansing, the dark moment returned.

Pillow pressing down on her face. Those eyes of his, gleaming, black as a raven's. Breath gone, agitated heart stopping… Yes. Clea's eyes squeezed shut, her mouth trembled. He would certainly try again.

Claude made quite a fuss over Clea's homecoming. Lavish flower arrangements graced every vase, and he had only the warmest, murmuring, loving things to say. He wanted a quick bite, then bed, but she nixed the idea. “I have chores.”

“Leave them to Lucy,” he said. But she wheeled into the kitchen and began wiping the counters.

Well, let her squander her last moments on trivia, Claude thought, stomping out of the kitchen. So be it. Ignoring the ringing telephone, he sat down with the newspaper, aware he would try to kill her again that very night, but not obsessing over the fact. Why drag things out? So the first attempt ended badly-so what? Clea was a ghost to him now. The decision had already been made; she was as good as dead. There in the study, considering his options, rather worn out from the ordeal of the past night and day, he waited for the phone to stop ringing and ordered take-out Thai for dinner. Clea loved sesame noodles.

“I've been a good wife to you, haven't I?” Clea spoke these words after dinner, gazing across a candle at him, decaf coffee untouched before her.

Actually, Claude felt miffed. Clea had eaten almost nothing. She had, in fact, been terribly nice all evening. She made things so difficult, with her capricious moods. He had a simple plan for the night. He would use her very own suicide stash of pills, oh, yes, he had found those long ago. He would crumble them into a hot bedtime drink, and she would go peacefully to sleep. No need to go through that awful struggle of the last attempt this time, or a reprieving vomit. He would prevent nasty surprises by using enough to slay a horse. Confronted with an overdose, he would admit to her serious depression, and he would not admit knowledge of the extra pills. Lucy would confirm Clea's previous suicide attempts.

“Clea, you're the most wonderful woman in the world. You always have been. You always will be,” Claude said, tired of saying this sort of thing, but rallying for one more try.

She nodded. She must be satisfied with the sentiment.

Lucy had left a few hours before, with a malevolent glance in the direction of Clea's room. “She's alive. What a miracle. How we should thank God.” The words held a cold affect of which he did not approve. He wondered if Lucy would regret her attitude tomorrow.

“You've had it hard, Claude,” Clea now said. “You've never liked involving yourself in the running of a household, have you? I guess you were raised that way.”

Oh, why did she have to get into this now, too late? Why not spend these final hours in calm realms beyond the irritating day-to-day? “No,” he said firmly. “Everything about us is right.” He approved of the statement, so simple, so encapsulating.

“Sure it is,” she said.

In the study, post-dinner, she offered him a brandy, insisting on getting the bottle and pouring it herself, refusing his offer of help. She poured two glasses, and took one. “You used to love brandy,” she said. “Remember how we danced the tango, and how drunk you were, and how I fell to the floor when you let go?”

He laughed obligingly, hating the reminder of himself at another time in another state of mind. He drank the brandy, mindful of these final statements. Would he spend the rest of his life going over this evening? He thought not, but you never knew.

“Tell me this, Claude,” she said, fixing steady eyes on him.

Her insatiable needs hurtled toward him once again, too fast, and he felt suddenly shot with fear. He would be glad never to see those beady eyes open on him again. “What is it, darling?”

“Have you ever sorted one load of laundry in your life?”

He had to laugh.

What an ending to their six years of love and trial. He had expected more of her, he really had.

The funeral home had wanted to know, did she want a graveside ceremony or something more traditional? Did he wish to be remembered some other way?

She instructed them, and went all the way down to the city cemetery to pick a discreet granite gravestone, paying with a check from her own account.

On this day, the day Claude would be buried, she arrived early, wanting it all to go without a hitch. His family, the French and the American sides, wailed like people in a melodrama when they saw the casket hovering above the hole. His friends and acquaintances, mostly lovely customers, were even less restrained in their mourning.

While a priest who had never known Claude eulogized him, book in hand, Dr. Bartholomew drooped a weighty arm upon her shoulder.

“So especially sad,” he whispered, “considering the circumstances.”

Clea heaved an appropriate sigh, thinking about how hard it had been, crushing so many pills, mixing them in the brandy.

“I'll always feel just a little at fault,” the doctor went on. “Please forgive me for asking, but I understand he left a note. Why would a man like him, in his prime, take his own life?”

She examined the doctor's face for suspicion, but saw only a disturbed sadness in it. “Apparently,” she paused to choke the words with emotions she did not feel, “he felt terrible about some rather serious business losses. He had hidden so much from everyone for a long time.” Handy, her acting ability. Handy, her signing all those letters for all those years. His signature on the suicide note, and his motives had not been questioned. If the police even once suspected her condition had anything to do with her husband's unfortunate death, they had generously kept it to themselves.

“I've been calling,” the doctor said, looking strangely relieved, as if he, too, found the contents of the note reassuring. He put a hand to his beard and pulled. “Why didn't you call back?”

“What does it matter now?”

“Because I don't get many patients like you. Patients who survive a fall like that.” He cleared his throat. “I imagined you might be our spokesperson. Yours is such a success story. That kind of injury to the back, well, there's not usually such a stunning outcome.”

The priest had stopped talking. People threw flowers on the casket. Clea, admiring the pretty colors and the largesse of the splashy bouquets, barely registered his comments.

“I mean, usually patients like you die or otherwise screw up. It's not easy to adjust to such massive injury when you're so young.”

“I feel myself going downhill,” Clea said, sure of herself. “Do I have long to live? Am I dying?”

The doctor started. “What?” he said. “Not at all.”

“Doctor, there's no room in my life for pretending anymore. I'm getting worse. There's such pain, more every day. My emotional problems are affecting me physically. Although I've been pretending to myself that I am a strong person because I've needed that to go on, in reality, I feel less physically able every day.”

“You don't know?” he said, shaking his head. “You really don't know? I hoped maybe you suspected. I thought you refused my phone calls because you needed time to adjust to the thought.”

Clea squelched her irritation with the man. No wonder she had avoided his calls.

“I tried calling to tell you the results of our last tests. Remember? You complained of phantom pain in your paralyzed legs.”