body struggled to come to terms with the fact that she was dead. Within minutes, her empty shell might simply collapse onto the seat as a great and final darkness settled her world. She had no delusions about Heaven… not after the type of life she’d led. But Hell would be fine; just as long as Matt was there by her side and they could spend….
Matt.
The thought of her husband was like a splash of cold water on Mona’s face. She jerked, as if startled from a dream, and then scrambled for the seat belt.
“Matt! Are you okay, baby? You okay?”
Matt had his head thrown back over the seat and one hand cupped his nose. His eyes were squeezed shut so tightly that creases formed at the corners of his eyes, giving subtle hints of the old man he’d someday become.
She scampered across the seat and grabbed him by his shoulders.
“Oh shit, baby… oh shit… you’re bleeding.”
Spurts of blood leaked between Matt’s fingers and trickled through the grooves formed by his knuckles.
Mona’s head whipped to the side where she saw the battered animal kicking in the snow as if it could somehow find the strength to rise up on its shattered bones and scurry into the night.
“Fuckin’ deer! Fuckin’ piece of shit, apple eatin,’ salt lickin’ son of a bitch!”
Her voice was a shrill screech and she punctuated each word by punching her fist into the foamy covering of the roof.
“Mona… baby… I’m oday, sweetie.”
Matt’s hand muffled his voice, yet it still sounded as stuffy and congested as when he’d caught the flu a few months earlier. It robbed his voice of hard sounds, smoothing Ks and Cs into something that sounded more like a D and dropping the letter G altogether.
“Fuddin’ busted my nose on the fuddin’ steerin’ wheel. You oday, baby? You hurt?”
Mona had leaned over the seat and pulled clothing from one of the duffel bags hurled forward upon impact. She snatched a t-shirt as if ripping a tissue from its box and wiggled her way back into the front of the car again. Bunching the shirt up, she pulled Matt’s hand away from his face gently and winced. His nose had already swollen to the point that it looked as bulbous as a drunkard’s and his palm had smeared blood across its bridge. Crimson finger marks trailed across his cheeks and his nostrils looked so much smaller surrounded by the puffy flesh that imprisoned them.
“Damn, baby… you whacked yourself good.”
She pushed the t-shirt against his face and, for the first time in her life, wondered exactly what was meant by apply pressure. How much pressure? Did she need to press the cloth against his injury so tightly that she risked hurting him? Or could she simply dab it against his face and allow the fibers to soak up the blood so it could begin clotting?
“Does that hurt? Shit, Mattie, this ain’t right, it just ain’t right.”
Matt took the t-shirt from her and pushed it onto his nose with both hands.
“You oday, baby?”
Mona had begun stroking his hair almost before the shirt was even out of her grip. She needed to be doing something… anything. She just couldn’t sit there and watch her man bleed: she wanted to scoop him into her arms, to bury his face into her chest as she rocked back and forth, to somehow reach deep inside him and take the pain away.
For the first time in the last year and a half, Mona felt as powerless and ineffectual as she had during the majority of her life. She felt small and quiet, like a shadow that had fooled everyone into thinking it was a person… but this man had saved her from all of that. He’d shown her that she could be strong, that she was worthy of being loved, that she deserved to be treated so much better. And now, when he needed her most, she was trembling like a child as she sniffled away the tears that blurred her vision.
“Mona! Are you oday?”
“Shhh… I’m fine, baby, I’m fine. I just can’t stand to see you hurtin.’ Do you need something cold? I think there might be a pop in the cooler or I could dunk a shirt in melted ice or get some snow from outside or….”
Matt chuckled and glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
“I been worse. ‘member that time outside Ronoade?”
Mona forced herself to smile as she continued to run her fingers through hair that was as soft and fine as individual fibers of silk. It splayed over her hand, tickling the little webs between her fingers.
“How could I forget something like that?”
It was typical Matt, reminding her of a time when she had been strong and fearless. He’d been hurt so bad back then… much worse than a nose that bled like a staked vampire and which probably wasn’t even broken. He’d really needed her and she had risen to the occasion.
“Turnin’ oudda be one helluba honeymoon, huh?”
By the time the couple staggered out of the car, the deer was dead. Its body lay motionless in the snow; only the unnatural stiffness of its legs and an antler that looked as if it had been snipped off with a bolt cutter betrayed the fact that it simply hadn’t laid down for a little rest. Mona expected to see red stains that had seeped into the drifts around it. But there were only a few drops, like tiny rose blossoms, directly beneath the beast’s dark mouth.
“Piece of shit!”
She kicked the carcass and her combat boot thumped hollowly against the tawny fur… its dark eyes never blinked, never shifted in panic or fear. They simply gazed into whatever void its spirit had slipped into as flakes of snow slowly melted on their surface.
While they had still been in the car and waiting for his bleeding to stop, Matt had suggested that she put the thing out of its misery. They’d been able to see it clearly: the way its body twitched with spasms of pain, the quick plumes of steam that snorted through its flared nostrils, how it had gradually lost the strength to even hold its head up any longer. It probably had been suffering… but, in all honesty, Mona had been perfectly fine with that.
Let the damn thing finish out the remaining moments of its life in pain and fear. Served the fucker right… it had derailed their trip, wrecked their car, and—most importantly—hurt Matt. Why should it be allowed peace when the man she loved, the only man in the world who mattered, probably felt like his face had gone twelve rounds with Rocky Balboa?
“Didn’t realize we went off the road. Seemed like there was suddenly just this tree in our way.”
At some point during the wreck, the car had apparently went over a small embankment. Not steep enough to have caused them to flip, thank God, but the hillside was marred with deep, muddy ruts that looked like open wounds on the snow-covered earth.
For a moment, they stood with their arms wrapped around one another and listened to the soft ticking of the cooling engine. Though the clouds of steam had long since dissipated, the smell of antifreeze still hung in the air like the scent of a sweet flower.
Matt held his hand out and the keys jangled softly as he pressed a button on the black fob. Two quick chirps filled the night in perfect synchronicity with the flashing of the taillights. Mona shook her head and laughed in a way that only Mattie could coax from her: it was as if the sound simply bubbled up from inside her, as light and free as a bird in the sky.
“What?”
He tried to suppress his own grin as he looked at his wife, yet his voice still quivered with amusement.
“We wouldn’t want anyone stealing that fine automobile of ours, now would be?”
“Oh, no. Heaven forbid. I hear there’s quite a market for crushed up Hondas. All the cool kids are driving them these days.”
Matt squeezed her as best as he could through the thick layers of parka that separated them and then touched the tip of her nose with the cold, vinyl finger of his glove.
“Stick with me, kiddo, and we’ll own five crushed up Hondas.”
He pulled the zipper on her jacket so that it was snugly beneath her chin and then cinched the drawstrings of the fur-lined hood.
“Come on, Nanook… let’s get going. It’s fuckin’ freezing out here.”
