Jack Ketcham - Right to Life

"Kath? Do you think I could have a little more tea?"

She shrugged. "Sure. You know where it is."

She lifted the cat gently off her lap and put her down on the floor thinking yes I do, I know where everything is, you bitch and walked past Kath to the kitchen and ran water from the sink into the mug and put the mug into the microwave and turned it on and then opened the bottom cabinet door and took out the twelve-inch stainless steel frying pan they hardly ever used, the pan looking new as they day they'd bought it, new as the stainless steel cart upstairs and gripped it in both her hands and walked over to Kath who was hunched over her mug, who had the mug to her lips sipping Tummy Mint tea and brought the pan down as hard as she could on the crown of her head, the pan ringing like a bell, the sound true and pure and brave, Kath's face driven down into the ceramic mug and the mug to the table, the mug shattering between table, teeth, flesh and bone and flooding the surface with a liquid the color of autumn leaves.

Not a sound out of Kath as she brought the pan up and hit her again, the pan musical once more against the side of her head which suddenly sprouted glistening drops of red forming a rough half-circle across her forehead at the hairline.

She examined the base of the pan. The base was flecked with blood and a stray brown hair or two. Despite the rapid heartbeat she felt steady and powerful.

"You dead yet? Should I hit you again?"

She had the urge to giggle.

No. She'd done it right so far and Kath hadn't made a sound. Only the pan had made a sound and that one was delightful – the tolling of her freedom-bell. She could still hear Stephen's saw whining in the garage but he might stop at any time. Don't push it, she thought. You still have him to deal with.

Or do you?

Car keys, she thought. Fucking car keys. In her purse.

Where the fuck was her purse?

The purse was on the couch in the living room.

The cat peered out at her from the hall as she crossed the living room and put the pan down on the couch and rifled through the purse. She felt the baby kick inside. The baby was urging her on.

Yes! Got 'em!

The keys jingled in her hand. Smaller bells of freedom.

The saw outside stopped.

She picked up the pan. The pain had stained the couch. She hadn't meant to do that but hadn't thought of it either. She walked quickly through the living room past Kath at the dining room table to the kitchen and looked out the window to the garage. He wasn't there. He wasn't cutting across the lawn and walking toward the house. She couldn't see him anywhere.

What she could see though was that the keys were useless. Kath's station wagon was the one sitting there in front of the garage which meant that Stephen's pickup would be directly in back of it. That meant she needed Stephen's keys, not Kath's. Stephen would have them in his pocket. And now she realized that she'd been wrong before, she didn't know where everything in the house was because she didn't know where they kept the goddamn spares.

They weren't in the kitchen. She'd spent a lot of time in there and would've noticed them. The bedroom? The end-table drawers in the living room?

The basement?

She wasn't going into the basement. Not ever again.

Goddammit! There wasn't time! There just wasn't time to go through every damn drawer in the house. The sawing had stopped. God only knew what he was doing. He was probably finishing up out there. He could walk in on her at any second.

The pan felt puny in her hand.

She needed more.

She needed to get out of there but first she needed more because she wasn't going to go strolling out like the first time only to get caught again.

The shotgun, the pistol. Where would they be?

The bedroom. She wasn't allowed in the bedroom and though the door was never locked she never thought to disobey and go there.

She'd damn well disobey now. She had no idea how to shoot a pistol unless you counted what you saw in the movies and what he'd shown her in the basement and even less idea how to load and fire a shotgun but she was counting on the pistol to be the simpler of the two and that probably it would be the easier of the two to find, that most people would want a pistol in the nightstand drawer by the bed in case of intruders.

She went to the phone on the kitchen wall and punched in 911 and let the receiver dangle. Maybe the police would trace the call here and maybe they wouldn't but she didn't have time to talk.

Why hadn't she done this months ago? 911. Such a simple thing.

Greg. Mom and dad. The Organization.

The fucking Organization!

There isn't any.

The cat followed her down the hall.

There were two night tables in the bedroom and she didn't know who slept where or which side would be Stephen's side so she went to the nearest. In the drawer there were a dirty jumble of pads and pencils, cough drops, matches, an address book, a Vicks inhaler, an open package of Kleenex, a tin of aspirin. No gun. She walked around the bed to the other side and opened the drawer and there it was, the pearl handle and the gleaming polished silver and now at the sight of it she remembered what Stephen had done that day exactly. As though she'd memorized it without knowing, stored it away for just this very moment. Her finger went to the cylinder latch and she checked the chamber. The gun was loaded, not even the first chamber empty. She didn't have to search for cartridges. She threw the cylinder back into place and threw the safety, left the frying pan where it was on the bed and walked out into the hall.

All you need to do is get his keys, she thought. Put the key in the ignition and drive away. And that's the end of it. The end of all of this. You have the gun. He can't stop you. He can't hurt you at all anymore.

Just get the keys.

But when she got to the living room and turned and saw him coming through the back door, slamming the door, pausing at the landing at the top of the cellar stairs, saw the old claw hammer in his hand, saw him take in the sight of Kath slumped across the table and saw his face darken with that now-familiar blush of rage it was not the keys she wanted, not anymore.

She felt her own face twist tight into a snarl and the sudden wild pounding of her heart and she raised the gun and fired twice, the gun jumping in her hands and woodchips flying off the doorjamb and as he crouched and stepped back toward the door she fired again lower this time, the bullet slamming him back against the door and bright arterial blood spurting off his thigh and he was shouting no no no no which she could barely hear above the high roar in her ears, his face gone sickly, cowardly white as she stepped forward and forward again with the gun held out in front of her and realized she was roaring too, a sound the like of which she'd never heard before twice in his presence she'd made these strange and awful sounds, the first against the X-frame and as she closed in tighter watched him try to make himself small in the corner, shrinking away, down to his goddamn proper size, trying to crouch in the corner – the snake – and she took one more step uil she was sure she'd get it absolutely perfectly right this time, obeying the tidal pull of her own perfect instincts in this single perfect moment and shot him in the chest and shot and shot again.

Watched him slide to the floor.

Watched him smear his filthy death across the walls.

Watched urine soak his pants and puddle up beneath him.

Saw the open mouth and the open eyes and the bright blood flowing. And felt the baby kick.

New York City