There was no winning.
If he stayed with Margie now, it would look like they planned his wife’s death so that they could be together unencumbered, and the proof would be found by looking at them.
“Look at them. Finally, free to be together. I bet his wife fought the divorce or threatened to take everything if he went through with it. Poor girl. She should have just let him go.”
If he left Margie, it would look like he was blaming her for his wife’s death. Margie would play the jealous mistress part too well, since she was, by all counts, the jealous mistress. By leaving her, it would be an unspoken accusation. Unspoken by him, of course. The women in the neighborhood would telephone it across the county.
“She never understood her place, that Margie. He loved his wife, he was just having a little mid-life crisis – which we can understand given the incident, but oh! He never wanted to leave his wife, of course not! Margie just didn’t understand. Now look at what’s happened. I bet he feels responsible. Never should have invited that woman into their lives.”
He chose the option that relieved him of murder accusations. He told Margie they were done. He changed all the locks. He blocked her on all his accounts and devices. They were done.
Unfortunately, it meant he had to plan a funeral and the only florist in town was his ex-mistress. In a cruel twist of irony, his mother-in-law was also a florist and could easily arrange for the best arrangements to be shipped in. It meant he had to call.
“Hal.” Her voice was clipped with anger and raspy from crying.
“Flowers. Uhm, we need flowers for the, uhm, for the service.” His stutter that had subsided in grade school was attempting its come-back tour in the days after his wife’s death.
“Yes.” She would make him ask. She would make him own his mistakes.
“Will you, I mean, could you arrange, or, have them arranged – Will you do the, uhm, will you do the flowers?” How was he supposed to ask his mother-in-law, whose daughter he had been cheating on for the better part of a year and who had now died a death under suspicious circumstances, to create the floral arrangements for said daughter?
She cursed him. He stayed on the phone, and he took it. He expected nothing less. She agreed to arrange for the flowers to be delivered the night before the funeral, but only because “she deserved the best and God knows you can’t do that for her, you never could.”
Hal set his phone on the coffee table; the short phone call had drained him in a way he didn’t know phone calls could.
Someone knocked at the front door.
Hal cursed out loud. The police had already been by a handful of times. They had interviewed him up and down and collected samples and photos and shared half-hearted condolences, then they had come back and done it all again. What more could they possibly want?
He stood and went to answer the door, because what else was he going to do? Hide inside where a peek through the front window would reveal his attempts at ignoring the visitor?
The guest was a blur behind the frosted glass of the front door, they knocked again.
Hal opened the door. Unfortunately, it was not the police.
“Hal!” Margie shrieked. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her blonde hair frazzled like she forgot to brush it. She had been discreet while they messed around behind his wife’s back. Apparently, all pretenses were dropped now as she was standing on his front porch in the middle of the day – something she had never had the gall, nor the imprudence, to do before.
Hal tried to close the door on her face, but she crashed against the door, jamming a foot between the door and its frame.
“Hal, please!” Tears were streaming down her face, and she was sniffing loudly. He used to placate her questions about the future with half-truths about how he loved her, or how he could see a future with her. In this moment, those quiet whispers shared while he had thrust himself into her felt sour. Her cries disgusted him in a way he never could have predicted.
For months he had caressed her face, kissed her lips, touched her, parted her legs and ravished her with satisfaction. Now, if he had been a lesser man he could have slapped her.
“I told you; we’re done.” Hal opened the door, grabbed her arm and pushed her back onto the porch. “Leave!”
With a final shove to keep her at bay, he slammed the door. He turned the deadbolt. He closed the blinds on the front of the house.
She wailed and pounded on the door for a minute then, coming to her senses, left.
Hal stood in his kitchen, shaking. Everything was falling apart. He looked around the kitchen and felt the ghosts of another life mocking him now. He’d had it all – the wife, the family, the house, the job.
He found his phone on the coffee table and did a quick search for real estate agents. He couldn’t stay in this house.
They still had a mortgage that would need to be paid off, but otherwise he wanted it listed for whatever price guaranteed he could be free from this place by next month.
He sat on the couch in silence. Listening to the sounds that empty houses make. Houses that used to hold a marriage and hope for children. Houses that witnessed the joys of positive tests and the agony of a loss. Houses that watched, stalwartly as spouses tried to deal with the pain in their own way. Houses that watched as full lives dwindled into depression and avoidance. The air return clicked softly as the air conditioner turned on.
Tears streamed down his face.
He’d had it all.
