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The autumn cloud cover hung in the sky like a dirty sheet nailed tautly between the neighbor’s roof and her own. The identical houses squatted side by side, windows like lidless eyes staring accusingly across the street at each other.
Abby gazed up at the sky a moment longer, then turned her eyes back to the street. Richard would be arriving home soon. Then the curtain would be raised and she would show Richard how serious things really were. She would shine the spotlight on herself for once, and show how badly she hurt.
Abby padded back down the hallway to the bathroom. She knelt beside the kerosene heater she had taken out of the garage this morning. Looking in through the protective grill, she turned the wick adjuster knob until the wick reached an appropriate level. Then she sat back, staring at it solemnly.
She would have to watch the clock carefully. When the time was right, she would turn the heater on. Then she would curl up in the bathtub. With the window tightly closed, the carbon monoxide would build up to lethal levels. Richard would come home, and seeing that she was not at the door to greet him with her customary cup of coffee and kiss hello, would immediately seek her out. She closed her eyes and imagined him striding down the hallway, bursting in through the bathroom door to chastise her for something that she had done wrong. The lunch dishes were stacked in the rack in a way that he didn’t like, perhaps. Or maybe the flower beds beside the house needed weeding. His complaint, whether real or invented on the spot just so that he had something to use against her, would vanish from his mind when he saw the situation.
Richard may be an overbearing lout, but he was no fool. He would add up the situation and certainly not like the sum. No, he would not like it at all. The severity of the situation could no longer be denied. Richard would have to change how he treated her. No husband stands by after his wife attempts suicide and doesn’t make some significant changes for the better.
Of course, it would all be for show. She’d only turn the kerosene heater on when she knew he would be home soon. Just enough to fill the tiny room with warmth and odor. Just enough to get the message across; sell the scene.
But was it a desperate cry for help or calculated emotional blackmail? Abby was a practical woman. She had done enough soul searching to know that this was a little of both. Call it six of one and a half dozen of the other. But in the end, her life would change for the better and wasn’t that all she was asking for?
Once she had harbored a dream of going to school to pursue a career in interior design. Richard scowled whenever she brought the subject up. Money wasn’t the issue; he made a comfortable living, and there were grants she could apply for. The issue, as Richard so succinctly put it, was: “Who’s going to keep this place in order? If you go running off all day, this house will become a disaster.”
The last time she brought up going to school, Richard slapped her across the mouth while she was still talking. Eyes burning with tears, lips numb and teeth aching, Abby silently buried her dream.
Her family and closest friends were no help. She had tried talking to so many of them, needing a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on, but they invariably sided with Richard.
“He’s a good provider,” her father said.
“Richard’s just a little old fashioned,” her mother explained.
“I’d be happy to have a man taking care of me every day,” sighed her friend Roxy.
“Honey, you’re being oversensitive,” opined her neighbor Carla.
Abby rose to her feet and glanced critically at the woman in the mirror. Her button nose, perfect teeth and womanly lips that always seemed just on the verge of pouting should have been enough to make any man admit she was beautiful. But dark circles had made a permanent home under blue eyes that no longer sparkled, and her kewpie-doll cheeks had diminished to pale skin stretched over her cheekbones. The harried housewife was steadily gaining ground on the precocious teenager. Six of one and a half dozen of the other all over again.
Abby returned to the kitchen. It was almost time. The cloud cover had broken, and a single sunbeam struggled in through the window and fell lifeless on the linoleum. Abby paced nervously. What if he stopped for a beer on his way home? What if he had a flat tire? She would simply wait until the last possible moment to turn on the space heater. Abby had no actual desire to end her life. She only wanted Richard to change. That was all she needed.
Abby wanted to be loved and cherished. Richard treated her like a possession, not a partner. Even while they were dating, she felt like a trophy that Richard took along to show off wherever he went. Be quiet, look beautiful. Those were Abby’s duties as Richard’s girlfriend.
Then came the early morning nausea and Abby knew she was pregnant.
“So when do you want to get married?” Richard had asked her when she told him the news. Abby thought things would improve when they married. They would be partners then; there would be so much more depth to their relationship. But Richard had other expectations from their union. Richard liked his steak cooked medium rare, never medium well. Richard liked his socks folded in two, never rolled. Richard liked his lemonade with two ice cubes, not three. Richard liked things his way, and he disliked any changes or interruptions to his routine. Abby felt less like a wife and more like a maid who worked twenty-four seven for her room and board.
The first six months they had lived in his apartment. Then he had bought the house. “In the heart of suburbia, where the suburbs meet utopia,” Richard loved to joke. How everyone had oohed and aahed over the house. Abby, excited at first, soon learned that all it meant to her was more housework. More rooms to be kept clean and well organized.
Then, on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday, Abby’s heart broke. After she had finished mopping the kitchen, she decided to get started on the laundry. Halfway down the stairs piercing pain shot through her abdomen and she dropped the basket. Dirty clothes tumbled down the stairs. Blood slicked down Abby’s thighs as she stumbled to the downstairs bathroom.
When it was all done, Abby was struck by the sight of the dirty shirts and dresses draped over the steps like prostrate grieving women. She joined them.
She had composed herself enough to take a scalding hot shower and to brew Richard’s customary pot of coffee. She met him at the door and fell into his arms weeping. Richard held her for exactly five minutes. Then he had said,
“You’ll feel better after dinner.”
He had told her to stop grieving and start cooking. Richard also said something about the laundry still laying on the stairs, but the blood in Abby’s head hummed so loud she couldn’t quite make out what was said. She knew he would not want to repeat himself, so with water boiling on the stove, Abby went to gather up the clothes.
And so the days had gone. Weeks became months. Months piled up and gave way to a year, then two. Abby felt numb inside; slowly dying. She had to show Richard where she was headed under his constant and heavy demands. Today was the first day of the rest of her life. The phrase was an old one, but apt. Today Richard would see what he had driven her to do and would make amends. Perhaps he would even-
His pickup! She heard him turn the corner into the cul-de-sac and in her excitement, she momentarily forgot to breathe.
The rumble the engine grew louder, shaking her from her momentary indecision, and she fled toward the bathroom.
Abby’s hand shook as she pushed the ignition button. Seeing that the wick was lit, she released the button. The burn chamber lowered back over the wick.
Abby stood quickly, cast a panicked glance at the mirror and the woman who was counting on her. She lifted one leg into the bathtub, then the other. Abby slid down into the interior of the bath, closing her eyes.
She heard the keys jingle briefly, then the front door opened and closed. Abby concentrated on lying still and tried to regulate her breathing.
“Abigail!” Richard called from the kitchen. “Where’s my coffee?”
His footfalls echoed on the hardwood floor of the living room.
“Where is that woman?” Abby heard him mutter as he strode down the hallway. She could hear agitation mounting in his tone. Richard paused and Abby imagined him looking in on their empty bedroom. Then she heard the knob twisting on the bathroom door and held perfectly still. The door swung open.
“Abi-” Richard began then stopped short. The rest of his wife’s name sank back in his throat. There was silence.
Abby became painfully aware of her breathing. Her sprint through the hall had caused her shortness of breath but with any luck, Richard would mistake her fast shallow breathing as the last vestiges of her life slipping away.
Sell the scene, Abby told herself.
Richard still made no sound. Once she thought he exhaled air sharply and their was a rustle of fabric. Otherwise all was silent, save for her ragged breathing and the slight hum of the heater.
The door closed. At first Abby didn’t know that was what she had heard, but when she heard Richard walking hurriedly across the linoleum in the kitchen, she realized she was alone. The front door opened and closed again for the second time in less than a minute. Richard’s pickup engine roared to life. Abby waited, eyes closed and body still, as the rumble of the truck faded away into the dusk.
“He left,” Abby realized, stunned. She shifted in the tub and opened her eyes. Abby looked at the kerosene heater. Through the protective grill, she could see the flame licking hungrily at the newly exposed breadth of wick. He had paused to turn the heater up.
Her vision blurred as bitter tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her pale cheeks. There would be no changes for the better. Her husband was prepared to let her die. It seemed that he actually wanted her death. But did she?
Sobs racked her body. Abby felt utterly hopeless. If she got up, extinguished the heater and made coffee for Richard’s eventual return, he would be prepared to pretend the incident had never happened. It would have been a disruption of his daily routine, after all.
Get up or lie still? Continue life dead inside or end the suffering now? They both amounted to the same. Call it six of one and a half dozen of the other.
Abby decided.
