~*~
They avoided the subject for the rest of the evening, doing what they did, what they always had—concentrated on making life good for the other. That was how they had survived lost jobs, six children and forty years of marriage. They finished off one bottle of wine and opened another. Then Woody turned the stereo on low. He picked up her hand and guided her to the center of the room, where they danced. It was a night for the blues. Afterward they made love. Slowly. Sweet, gentle love.
“Woody?” Annabelle lay snuggled against him, her head resting on his chest, his arms tight around her.
“Hmmm?”
“You remember talking about what our wishes were if ever … well, if we ever found out we had a terminal illness, or wouldn’t recover from a terrible accident?”
His arms grew tighter. “Yes.”
“Well, I just wanted to make sure that, well… you know… we still want the same thing.”
“Annabelle, I don’t want to live as a vegetable, or in terrible pain. If it ever comes to that point, and I can’t do it myself, I want you to put me out of my misery. That’s why we bought that concoction, just in case. I haven’t changed my mind.” He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her shoulder. “How about you? Have you changed your mind?”
“No,” she answered quietly. “I haven’t changed my mind.” Annabelle fought back tears, trying to be brave. She would have to find strength somewhere, from deep within. Woody’s arms loosened as his breathing deepened. She rolled onto her back, threw off the covers and fanned herself.
~*~
“Annabelle, do I smell double bacon and cheese?” Woody peeked around the kitchen door.
“Yes, I thought we’d have something special tonight,” she tried to smile.
He kissed her cheek and went to the wine cabinet. “I guess we’ll need some wine, maybe some red zin?” He asked as he pulled out two wine glasses.
“My favorite.”
Annabelle looked at the pizza on his plate as she carried it to the table. No sign of the poison. No pain, no agony, the man had said. It will take a few hours to take effect and, basically, you just fade away in your sleep.
Woody placed a half-filled glass near each plate and they sat down to eat. Our last meal together. Just as they were ready to begin, the phone rang.
Annabelle started to rise to answer it. “Leave it,” Woody said. “They’ll call back if it’s important.”
“But, it might be important. It might be your doctor calling back to talk to you.” The phone continued to ring.
“What do you mean, calling back? I thought it was your doctor who called.”
“He did. Rather, they both did.” The phone rang again.
“What exactly did he say?”
“Doctor Cummings said it’s ‘just menopause’. Doctor Hornbeck said that, well … your chemo didn’t work. He was going to call back to talk to you more about it. That might be him.” The phone stopped ringing in the middle of the fifth ring.
“What else did he say, Annabelle?”
“He said there was nothing else they could do.” Her voice cracked and tears filled her eyes as she reached for her wine.
“Wait, Annabelle.” He reached for her hand, as she brought the glass up. “Wait.” They lowered the glass together and his hand stayed there, on hers. “So it isn’t you, it’s me? I thought when we were talking last night… that it was you … But…” He looked down at his plate and back up, searching her eyes. “The pizza?”
She nodded, tears now cascading over her pale cheeks.
“Ah. I see.”
“This is what you want? You’re sure?” She whispered.
“Yes.” He smiled at her. “Annabelle, let me have your wine.”
“My wine?” She hesitated before pulling her hand back from the stem. “I see.”
Woodrow picked up her glass, lifted it to his lips, tipped his head back and drank. “Ah,” his eyes twinkled. “A very good year.” Rising, he held out his hand. “Annie, come here.”
Annabelle rose, and he pulled her to him, her arms snaking around Woody’s neck as he held her close. One large hand moved softly down her side to settle at the smooth curve of her hip.
“Sing me the blues,” she whispered.
Woodrow’s deep voice was muffled as he sang, his lips pressed against her fragrant hair. And they danced.
*~*~*
Julie Watts is fully committed to her attention deficit, hyperactive personality. Her past writing includes articles published in Nebraskaland magazine; the poem, THREE HAPPY WIDOWS, published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine; and a musical, THE CAST, performed on stage by The Sheridan County Players. While she lives in Nebraska, she works in South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska, caring for our Veterans. Around work, family and building a cabin in the Black Hills, she manages to dabble in photography, music and new writing projects, but is waiting for retirement to finish those five books that reside in her files.
Memory Details Assignment
C. Priest Brumley
"With rare exception, one can not write on a subject unless one experiences it first. This is a cardinal rule of writing. Tragedy, sadness, happiness; every experience you have marks you, it stays with you in some form or fashion throughout your life."
"The more powerful of the memories, of course, stay longer, occurring frequently within the mind's eye. The details of the event; the rough-hewn edge of a man's shirt, the scent of a woman's perfume, all stay, ready to be recalled at a moment's notice, with or without provocation."
Professor Wayne DePriest, head of the English department at East Jefferson High School, took a moment to stare at the sea of faces around him. "The applications for this lesson, of course, are broad, spanning almost every discipline of writing you can ima—"
The bell tolled in the distance, a shrill pierce cutting Professor DePriest off at mid-sentence. "We'll resume this thread tomorrow. Homework: write a short piece describing an event from your past in as much clarity and detail as you can. Editing is not necessary. Try to keep under a thousand words. And it's due Monday, so you'll have the whole weekend to do it, okay? Go on."
The class rose in fits, filing from the room in the spurts that showed the true segregation of youth: the achievers left first, anxious to begin their next challenge, fiending as addicts for the drug of knowledge. The next were the middling crowd, the many who merely hoped to end their day without falling adrift of the losing side of the grades battle. Then came the lolly-gaggers, as Professor DePriest liked to call them. The slackers, the sleepers, and the inattentives who worked tirelessly to undermine his teachings without working at all. These were the students he tried to reach more than anything, the gems secreted away under the mountains of laziness. If he could bring just one of them out of their shell and inspire them to showcase their true talent, he had done his job properly.
"Umm, Mister DePriest?" It was Kristopher, one of the newer faces on the year, a brilliant kid with an aptitude for writing that had, at times, impressed the man now standing over his desk.
"Whatcha got, Kris?" With the class gone, Wayne had removed all pretense and authority from his voice. It was a tactic he'd found to work well over the years in dealing with the lolly-gaggers, making them feel as though he was talking to them, rather than at them.
"Well, you said to write a piece about something that's happened to us in the past, right?"
"Indeed I did. What's the question?"
"What if I wanted to write something about a new experience, something I'm going to do? Would that count?"
Wayne felt his hand stroke the edges of his salt-and-pepper moustache as he considered the proper answer. "I don't see why not. After all, the recent past is still the past, wouldn't you say?" Kristopher's enthusiastic nod was all the prompt he needed to continue. "However, since I know you're capable of it, I'll tack a little something on to the assignment, should you choose to accept. If you do it, you get bonus points toward your over
all grade. If not, well, no harm, no foul, as they say."
"Okay. What is it?"
"I want you to write about a murder." Wayne watched with mild amusement as Kristopher's eyes grew wide with shock. "I don't want you go out and kill anyone, Kris. So here's the kick: you have to do it using your imagination. Draw on your memories and experience for what you can, but for the kill itself, you have to imagine up every detail you can muster. Sound doable?"
Wayne watched as Kristopher struggled to find an answer.
"But, the assignment—"
"—Is for everyone else. I know you're a good writer, kid. Some of your stuff this year has been flat-out brilliant. The Sonnet assignment? Stone-cold brilliant, if I do say so myself. And now, I'm presenting you with a challenge. If you don't want to do it or don't feel as though you can, it's okay. I just thought you would like the extra challenge."
The teenager's face lit up at the praise. "So you want me to write a murder scene, using as many details from memories and life experiences as I can while imagining the murder itself in detail, am I right?"
"Right."
"Can-do, sir! See ya Monday!" Wayne's smirk followed the squeak of Kristopher's high-tops out of the classroom.
* * * * * *
The following week had been a flurry of activity, with the staff's Christmas party and school rally and Wayne's family coming in to town for the holidays. Grading had always been the thing to fall behind in any situation, this time proving not to be the exception. Those of the class that had turned in stories waited the last week before the holiday break for news of their grades, all to no avail. Wayne decidedly kept to the lesson plan for the last week, allowing the Friday before the break for his classes to goof off and blow off some steam.
A bell tolled in the distance. The winter break was here at long, blessed last.
Wayne stooped to the locked drawer at the bottom of his desk, retrieving the small pull-along he had carried his books in for the last ten years. When he emerged, Kristopher was standing at his desk, backpack dangling from one shoulder, looking all the more like a child facing the gallows.
"Everything okay, Kris?"
"Yes sir. Umm, I was just wondering if you'd read the story I handed in yet?"
Wayne felt a pang of guilt clench his stomach. With everything that had happened in the time intervening, he had forgotten the extra assignment entirely. "Not yet. I, uh, planned to read through the stories over Christmas break. It'll give me more time to grade them appropriately. Sound fair to you?"
"Yes sir. I was just wonderin'. Have a Merry Christmas." And with a squeak of tennis shoes, Kristopher turned to the classroom door and made his exit. Wayne felt the knot of guilt ease a bit, and, retrieving his fedora from the next drawer up, made his way to the faculty parking lot.
It was an hour later on the drive home that the call came. Fumbling for the cell phone lodged firmly in his pants pocket, Wayne managed to slide the "answer" bar just in time to avoid missing the call altogether.
"Hello?"
"Yes, is this a Mister Wayne DePriest?" The voice was female, with a husky edge and a hint of a northern accent.
"It is. To whom am I speaking?"
"This is Lieutenant Parks from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. Do you have a moment to speak?"
"Indeed I do. Can I help you with anything, ma'am?"
The sound of shuffling papers hit his ears before her voice came back. "Yes. We're trying to find a student of yours, a Kristopher Bates? We were told that he's in your final class of the day, so you're possibly the last person to see him. Do you have any idea of where he might be? Maybe where he might have gone after school?"
"No ma'am. He stayed behind to ask about a writing assignment he'd turned in and then left. I didn't see where he was going at all."
"Ah." Lieutenant Parks' disappointment was palpable through the receiver.
"If I may ask, why d'you need him? He's always seemed like a good kid to me. Never late, bright as a bulb—"
"He's a murder suspect."
Wayne didn't see the car stopped in front of him until it was too late.
* * * * * *
His hospital stay lasted all of a day. Doctor Delph managed to cast his leg as well as she could, with the remaining time set aside for rest. On her orders he stayed in bed for the next week, foot raised on a stack of precariously balanced pillows. When time came for Christmas Day, he managed to monopolize the entire sofa, an act eliciting mutinous grumbles from the gathered family members.
After Christmas, the time came to get back to work.
* * * * * *
The desk lamp felt hot on Wayne's hands as he sat through the night in his study, with one week left to go before the start of the second semester. The stories were primarily anecdotes of teenaged life, recollections of bitchin' parties and first kisses (names removed for fear of repercussion, of course). Wayne sped through the majority of them, giving points where he saw fit, "A"s for those who had taken the time to ensure proper grammar, "B"s for those who hadn't, and so on.
At long last, and with a rather harsh jolt, he came across Kristopher's submission. It was towards the bottom of the stack, two sheets of loose-leaf paper bound by a single staple, cramped handwriting in black ink covering the fronts and backs of both pages.
Wayne felt his fear bubble up, the acrid stench of stomach acid mingling with the battery-copper taste in his mouth, felt the slight tremble of his aged hand as he lifted the sheaf and began to read:
Memory Details Assignment
By Kristopher Bates
"I creep along the hallway, as silent as a mouse. The carpet masks the sound of my footsteps, one foot in front of the other, as I make my way to the door at the end of the hall. I can hear the snoring, which means she's asleep.
Good. All for the better, I suppose.
As I peak my head around the doorframe, I see her laying in the bed, as elegent as a swan. The pale white nightie barely covers her tits breasts, pale half-orbs of perfection, moving up and down in a slow rythem. I feel a stir in me, but I quiet my feelings so I can do what needed to be done.
The knife is in my hand, hard plastic handle slippery from sweat. I feel my arm rise, then fall, and I hear the wind rustling the curtain, and I know I have to do this.
I don't want a new daddy father. I love my real Dad. I smell his cologne, my "new dad", and my arm rises again before I can tell it to stop. I feel the kitchen knife enter his chest, but a jolt hits my arm, and the point won't go in any more. Mark wakes up and he's screaming and looking down at his chest and his eyes are SO big, and my momther wakes up too and she's screaming too. I pull as hard as I can on the handle, and the knife comes up and blood starts pouring from Mark's chest like lava from a volcano. Before I can back away the knife comes down again, sliding right into his chest, and it feels like cutting a watermelon. I look up to see my mother staring at me with a look of terror, and Mark has blood coming from his mouth so I stab him again in the stomach to stop the blood because if the blood's coming from lower down won't it not go higher up?
My mother screams again and I yell at her to shut the fuck hell up. I pull out the knife and the smell of bad shit feces hits me and I gag. My mother tries to run but I point the knife up in time to stab her in the stomach too. The knife points up and she falls down, and I feel another stir as I pull the knife out and her blood comes out. I stop being scared as I unzip—"
Wayne managed to pull himself from the morbid tale before reading any more. His hands, coated in sweat, smoothed the paper down on the desk's surface in front of him. It took all of his resolve to keep from screaming himself, as he pictured in his mind's eye Kristopher's every move, his cold, hard face, the blood-spattered kitchen knife clutched hard in his hand ...
Shaking his head once with a jerk to clear the memories not his own, he reached for the phone inches away from his right hand. Sliding his shaking finger across the touch screen, he brought up the dial p
ad, pressing the three numbers he had only had to dial a few times before in his life.
"Nine-one-one, please state your emergency."
"Uh, yes, ma'am. Could you please connect me to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office?"
"Is this a matter of urgency, sir?"
"Yes, ma'am. I may have a piece of evidence in a current murder investigation related to a student of mine. Can you patch me through, please?"
"Yes, sir. Please hold."
Sweat caused the phone to slip a bit in his grasp, necessitating a tightened grip as a new voice entered his ear. "JPSO, Officer Walls speaking."
"Yes, is Lieutenant, um, Parks, I think it was? Is she on duty?"
"Yes sir, hold on one moment, I'll put you through to her desk."
Muzak took place of the female officer's voice, smooth jazz fading in and out with the differing connections. Before he could begin to decipher the song, the husky voice of Lieutenant Parks broke through the noise. "This is Parks, can I help you?"
"Yes ma'am. I'm Wayne DePriest, we've spoken before."
"And that would have been about ...?"
"A student of mine, Kristopher Bates? You were trying to get his location."
The change in her voice was noticeable enough for Wayne to spot the difference. "Yes sir, of course. Actually, I have news on that front, if you'd like to hear it." A sad tone.
"Sure thing. Did you ever find him?"
"Yes sir, but unfortunately, we were too late to save him."
Wayne felt his blood run cold once more, felt his grip on the phone loosen in shock. "Wh-what do you...?"
"We found his body the next day. We thought he might have killed a local girl. Reports state she was his girlfriend, but it's unconfirmed. When we went back to his house, we found him behind the air conditioning unit in the back yard."
Wayne felt a burning sensation spread from his chest to his left shoulder, making him drop the phone in his right hand to the desk. He felt sick to his stomach, short of breath.
"Mister DePriest? Are you still there?”