with rage.
That night when Ellen is gone, I begin to smell something. Something in the attic. Rotting. I set a ladder beneath the square of plywood and push it aside, raising my head above the attic floor. There is a buzz of flies like the hum of a high voltage power line. I shine a flashlight along the attic walls, and at first I see nothing but insulation, a thick pink snow. Then something catches my eye. A gray paw sticking up. And the flies circling it. A cat.
I get gloves and carefully climb into the attic, making sure to keep my weight on the wooden beams. I lift the cat up out of the insulation. Its belly has been sliced open. Its insides have been taken out. I wonder how long it’s been there.
The next evening, I hear Ellen answer the phone after one short ring. I turn down the volume of the television and try to listen. She speaks quietly, yet I hear her, the words like needles pushed into my ears.
“Not tonight. No. I can’t. Tomorrow. When he’s gone. Then we’re done.”
There is a soft click as the phone is placed back in its cradle. Anger overwhelms me. It’s as if a light bulb has exploded in my skull. I want to throw something, I want to hit someone. I want to scream my fucking head off. But instead, I swallow it. I save it in my stomach, keeping it ready, like gasoline. When I face him, he will be the spark that ignites it. He will feel its burn.
At three in the morning I wake as my wife gets out of bed. I pretend to sleep and can feel her hovering over me, watching. She tiptoes out of the room. I hear four short beeps as she deactivates out alarm system. The house shudders slightly as the garage door rises and her car rumbles to life.
My God, is she that desperate, that hungry for this man that she can’t even wait until I’ve left for work?
I wait for her to come back as I toss and turn in bed, my imagination a whirlwind of lurid images and sounds. But by the time she returns and slips quietly next to me in bed, I have somehow managed to fall asleep.
The next day after I get home from work, I can’t stand it anymore. I had spent the whole time thinking I could just let it go, just swallow the thoughts, the suspicions I had, but now they burst up into my throat like acid.
“What kind of deal did you make with him?” I ask. “Did you have to fuck him? Was that part of the deal?”
She sits on the couch, her legs tucked under her. Her eyes widen and turn to her lap. “No.”
“Don’t lie to me.” I’ve never felt this angry, this sure of something in my whole life. “Did you fuck him?”
“No,” she insists.
“Look me in the eye and tell me that. Tell me, ‘I did not fuck him.’”
She puts her face in her hands and shakes her head, then starts rocking back and forth. I can feel it now. I can tell she is going to break. I feel satisfaction coming on along with a new sense of nausea. The whole situation is unreal, and I don’t want it to be happening, but I have to hear her answer. I have to hear it.
This time I yell. “Did you fuck him?”
She looks up at me. Tears stream down her face, but she looks me in the eye and says, “You bastard, you goddamn bastard. No. I did not fuck him.”
I stand there watching her, waiting for her gaze to break, but it doesn’t. It seems like we are frozen like that for hours, yet it is only a matter of seconds before she mumbles the next words
“
My gut twists in on itself. Even though part of me is so completely sure she slept with the real estate agent to get our house, there’s another larger part that thinks the whole idea was ridiculous. And now these words.
“And what was that?” I ask. “What was your second option?”
She stands up. Her eyes flash. “Why can’t you trust me? You’ve never trusted me.” She storms out of the room.
The next night, the buzz of flies is so loud I can hear it through the ceiling like a muffled power generator. I wait until Ellen leaves, get my gloves, and climb into the attic again. The smell is intense.
It’s a dog this time. A big German shepherd, lay across two beams on its side, it’s back haunches and snout sticking above the pink insulation. Is it the same dog I’ve seen the Solomon’s out walking night after night? My God.
It’s hard work removing it. The thing is heavy, but again, the insides have been scooped out.
I confront Ellen about the dog. It is strange accusing my five month pregnant wife of this deed. Accuse? That is too harsh of a word. I question her. But instead of pleading ignorance and acting shocked and disgusted, she just stares at me. Looks me in the eye. Tears run down her cheeks as she says,
Even though we spend that night in the same bed, we might as well be on opposite sides of the world. The space between us seems infinite and cold. I can barely sleep, and when I do, it is only for minutes at a time.
At work the next day, I realize I have never met our real estate agent, Mr. Wishlow. He is faceless and dark in my imagination. He looms like a giant shadow in the corners of my mind. I can barely get any work done. When my boss asks what’s wrong, I tell him I can’t talk about it. I mumble something about family troubles.
When I get home, I find Ellen groaning in the bathroom. Her face is ashen. When I ask her what is wrong, she breaks down and collapses in my arms. I feel her tears warm and wet on my shoulder. “What is it?” I ask.
“The baby,” she says. “The baby.”
She crumples to the floor, her body heaving. She’s hysterical. Blood trickles from beneath her skirt.
I take her to the emergency room. They tend to her, give her a sedative, tell her everything is going to be all right. A young intern takes me aside and tells me Ellen has miscarried. He asks me what she did with the fetus.
I make no secret of placing the ladder beneath the attic opening, of donning gloves, of climbing into the attic, staying on the beams, of screaming with rage when I see it, a tiny hand poking through the pink insulation. I lift it and cradle it in my arms. It’s so small. So light. Dressed in doll clothing to hide the cut. I climb carefully down the ladder, balancing it in one hand.
“When does it end?” I ask her.
She won’t look at me. “It’s over,” she says. “It’s done.”
Can I believe her? When will it really end? How far does she have to go? Was I part of the deal? Was I included in this escalation of sacrifices?
When I ask her this, she replies quietly, “I could never hurt you.” I stand and wait for her to say something else. I watch her as she walks away, her head bowed down, weary and defeated. At that moment, I believe her. At that moment, I feel my heart colliding against my rib cage. What pain she has gone through. What heartbreak. An ugly sound breaks from my throat. I am overcome by loud, body wrenching sobs. To want something so bad…
I run to her. Put my arms around her. Tell her how much I love her, how much I need her.
Two weeks have passed and things are almost back to normal. I outfitted the well room with a comfortable chair and a table full of her favorite books. I sawed a hole in the door at eye level and moved the television at an angle where she can see it. I let her have the remote control.
I don’t believe she’d ever try to kill me. I would hope not. After all, I love her with all my heart. I always have. But still—
I don’t entirely trust her.
Not quite…
