Paul Curtin - Gray Snow

She shook her head. Just get it done, she thought to herself. It’s the only way. It’s the only—

Her hand was already turning the doorknob, cracking it. She threw on a heavy coat, hat and gloves, and opened the door. The chilled air from the garage rushed over them. Sean didn’t move. “Please don’t wake up,” she whispered to him, a little because she feared what he might do, more because she didn’t want to have to explain herself.

She dragged him into the garage, waddling back and forth with his weight in her arms, his feet dragging against the frozen concrete, his head bowed downward, body like a dead fish. She reached the door leading to the backyard before she had to take a break. Her lungs felt constricted, like there was scarcely any oxygen in the air. She laid his head against her feet, put her hands on her knees like she had been punched in the stomach, gnashed her teeth together, and allowed a painful, subdued moan to escape from behind her teeth. She wanted to scream. Wanted to cry out and curse and stamp her feet. None of this was right. Leaving her child without a father. Leaving her hopes and dreams of dying at a ripe old age with her husband out in the freezing cold. Life was never meant to be like it was, so painful and filled with tears. Life was never supposed to be where survival meant killing the person she held most dear. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Not like this.

She knelt and held his head in her hands and kissed his forehead and stroked his hair, her wet hot tears dripping onto his neck. Her husband of almost twenty years, the love of her life, the only man she had ever really wanted to be with. She whispered over and over that she was sorry, asking for forgiveness she would never get, then she took him back into her arms and dragged him toward the backyard.

There was no holding it in anymore, her groans now became full-blown sobs. She got the backdoor open and started out into the backyard as the light receded from the clouds. Her arms grew weaker as she pulled on his body. She prayed. Prayed hard for forgiveness, not sure if she would ever get it. Not sure if God was even listening anymore but praying regardless. Halfway through the backyard now.

When Sean opened his eyes.

She hopped backward and dropped him, the back of Sean’s head smacking against the hardened frozen soil, Sean screaming out in pain. Elise backtracked into the snow, her hands slapping around her hip for the gun but not finding it.

He rubbed his head and looked around at the dark snow piles, at his scarcely-dressed body, at his wife, and then back at himself, his face flashing confusion. “Elise?”

She had the gun out now, standing between Sean and the home.

He blinked, and it was as if he knew what was happening. “Elise.”

“Please, Sean, don’t.”

“Elise,” he said, still on the ground, his hand over his forehead, sounding confused. Acting confused. It had to be an act. Playing her. “What’s going on?”

She settled the pistol’s bead onto his chest. Everything inside her screamed for her to stop. This was rule number one: don’t point weapons at people, particularly those you love. And never point a weapon unless you’re ready to use it. But she wasn’t ready. “You weren’t supposed to wake up.”

He had one hand raised toward her. “Just calm down, okay?” Consternation spread across his face. All his planning—all his violence and the death he had caused—meant nothing facing down the barrel of his own gun. “Let’s just calm down, okay?”

“You weren’t supposed to wake up.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re—”

“You killed him. You killed Andrew.”

He said nothing for a while. “Elise—”

“I found the pill bottle.”

“You’re not thinking straight.”

“Stop it,” she yelled. “Stop it. Don’t try. You killed him. And you sent Kelly out to get shot. And then you killed Michael.”

Sean said nothing.

“Try to deny it. Go ahead.”

“You’re right.”

Elise lowered the weapon an inch. The bitter cold wind kicked up against them and settled. For the first time Elise noticed the snow falling around them—bright white, fluffy snow. She raised the gun again and took two steps back.

“I did it. All of it, okay? All of it.”

“He was just a kid.”

“He was eating our food every day. Consuming our resources—”

“Is that all we are to you? Just people consuming your resources?”

“You aren’t. Aidan isn’t.”

“God, Sean. How can you say that?”

“I know what it sounds like, okay? I know.” His teeth were chattering now, nothing to keep his heat in, and losing it fast.

“So we’re all just in your way.”

“You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I’m thinking just fine.”

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for us. For our survival. Us. Do you think if Michael killed me—and he was trying to kill me—he would’ve been able to fix anything around here if it broke? Or been able to plant crops if the winter ends? Or have even the slightest idea how to keep this family alive?”

Elise swallowed.

“What happens when the supplies get low?”

She said nothing.

“What happens? How’re you going to do everything? Chop wood? Maintain the house? Clean the furnace? Cook meals? Because Aidan won’t be able to help.” He was standing up now, his arms outstretched. “I did what I had to do, Elise. I did what I had to do for us .”

“You did it for yourself.”

He took a step forward.

“Stop,” she yelled. “Stop, Sean. Stop. I’ll do it.”

He took another step forward, and she shifted a little and fired the weapon to his right. He stopped moving.

“Elise. I’m sorry. Please. Please listen to me. What are you going to tell Aidan? That now his dad is dead too?”

“Stop.”

“We need each other. We need each other more than anything.”

The tears froze to her cheeks before they could drip any further. The look on his face. This was a man unprepared to die. She wanted to believe he was being honest and that he was seeking forgiveness. After everything he had done. But she couldn’t know. Couldn’t see whether his heart was truly black or whether he was just all gray, a tangle of virtue and sin inseparable within.

Another harsh breeze blew over them, and Sean winced. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

He walked closer. She fired again, over his head this time, so close that he ducked. He approached her with another step. “Damn it, Sean. Stop it.”

“I love you, Elise.”

“Stop it. Stay where you are.”

He didn’t. He got closer and closer, his teeth chattering, his body shaking now, the wind sucking the heat from him each passing second. She kept the weapon trained on him even as he approached, now just a few steps from her. Her finger held taut against the trigger, looking into his eyes, those eyes she loved so dearly, those eyes that had told her so many lies she could no longer distinguish what was true and what was false.

He pulled the gun from her hand. She let her arm drop and bowed her head, expecting to look back up and see him aiming the weapon at her now.

The end.

Sean was staring down at the weapon. He exhaled a long, slow, vaporous breath through his teeth. His hand carrying the weapon raised upward, and Elise flinched, closing her eyes. But the sound wasn’t a gunshot—it was the pistol’s slide racking backward. She opened one eye, then the other. Sean dropped the magazine from the pistol and ejected the round in the chamber. He exhaled and said, “Let’s not do this again,” pressing the empty pistol onto her chest as he passed her.

She turned to watch him disappear into the garage. She clasped her hand over her mouth and cried. Her chance was gone. Any justice for Michael and Kelly ended there. If Sean was right, and God was gone, no justice would ever come. There was no blueprint moving forward, to guide her past the truth of everything Sean had done. To show her how life was supposed to somehow go on, with everything so stained and dark and wrong.