Mildred listened to George's breathing slow down and finally even out in the other room.
There had been a brief moment when the inhale-exhale had snagged, somewhere between 3:34 and 3:35 on the digital clock in front of her. She knew it was because George slid his arm, elbow onward, into the space where it would lie upon her if she was lying beside him.
George and Mildred had been married for thirty-five years.
"And right now I can feel every second of it," Mildred said out loud, to no-one in particular. Her voice - generally clear and rhythmic (though nothing like the 'sonorous warble' her husband told guests about at dinner parties) - sounded rusty and disused to her. She hadn't said a word to George all week. It was her idea of giving things one more chance.
She got up to get her glasses from the dining table. She'd placed them within easy reach of the armchair before she went to bed, but George continued to arrange them at the exact center of the table every godforsaken morning.
The morning tableaux were another thing Mildred could do without - her husband smiling at her over the paper, mottled chin moist like some godforsaken retriever, straining his eyes for the slightest sign of approval.
"Too hard," she said, and it was true. He was straining too hard. Missing other things which should have been obvious a long time ago.
The joints in her knees popped like gunshots, and Mildred felt rather than heard the sound. She held her breath for a few seconds, but George's breathing continued along the same lines.
The glasses were kept over the telephone bills from the previous week. She picked up the limp envelope by force of habit, and it took her a concerted effort of will not to place it on the mantelpiece among the bric-a-brac that comprised the padding of their little household.
She put it back on the table, put on her glasses, and spared a brief glance at the picture of her son in his football jersey, the bright yellow and green stripes and number 15
(I don't want kids not now not ever just to roam the world live at my own pace you know)
of the fullback. He'd made her proud; very proud indeed. But her husband's reaction
(of course dear I understand I totally do it's not like I wanted one that bad)
had put Mildred to shame; the incessant preening and proud exclamations and those godforsaken awestruck whispers about strong jawlines and his mother's eyes.
The clock hit 3:47 and Mildred quickly sat back down; the time had been the one thing she had been particular about. Sure enough, there was the muffled thump of padded footsteps and then a brief ratcheting as the lock on the front door was overcome.
Four men in black overalls and balaclavas entered the house. They were greeted by the sight of an old woman seated alone by the dining table, her glasses opaque reflectors in the green glow of the digital clock.
"Listen to me closely," she said in even tones. "We have an agreement and you're going to keep it. Your payment is in the bedside cabinet. Touch anything else and I scream for help right now. Improvise and I call the cops. Try to get any funny ideas about taking orders from old ladies and a dead man's switch lands you in jail. You know about dead man's switches, don't you?"
The men nodded, hesitantly. They'd probably taken her for a senile old windbag when she first approached them at the bar; but this was unquestionably a voice of authority.
They would have to obey her.
"Good," Mildred smiled. It had been a hobby of hers to collect obscure lexicology, and it made her happy to see it come back. George had all but cured her of that particular affliction. "Now get to it."
The men marched into the other room. There was a brief spell of silence as they readied themselves.
Mildred closed her eyes.
She heard her husband's gasp as he was yanked awake by the lapel of his dressing gown. She also heard the first blow land in the middle of his garbled protest. Judging by the sound he'd been struck across the face, which meant the loud crack was the bridge of his nose breaking open.
After that the sounds resolved themselves into a more regular rhythm, and she let it flow over her like the intro to some plodding march. The only false note came when George (in a desperate bid to escape) tried to squeeze between two of his assailants; he ended up losing his footing and falling facedown off the bed, breaking his maxillary central incisors (one of which had been chipped during a skating accident on their honeymoon). To give them due credit, the men instantly improvised by tossing him against the wall, after which the earlier rhythm was miraculously regained.
Five minutes later (the digital clock said 3:53) the men strode out of the room, overalls stained with sweat and large quantities of AB negative. The man in the front held a thick wad of cash, which he waved at Mildred as they passed her.
"Don't let me see you again," she said. The men nodded, hastened their steps, and were soon part of the night.
Mildred took off her glasses and placed them back where she'd found them.
The only sound that came from the bedroom was the occasional broken sob. She walked back inside, where she found George lying on the floor in a crumpled heap. The bedsheet lay pulled on the floor around him, stained with blood and sweat and tears and snot.
"Baby," George said as he saw her. "Baby Ruth."
It was an endearment that she'd actually liked (and, perhaps consequently, hadn't heard more than half a dozen times in the past few years); so Mildred wasn't really surprised to feel tears pricking her own eyelids.
"Are you okay, Baby Ruth?"
"I've been better," She said. She wanted to stroke his hair but there was a leaky hole on top of his head. "What happened here, George?"
"I didn't see you when they... When I woke up," George said. A sense of unreality was settling on the whole conversation. "I didn't know how long they'd been here. I'd hoped you were in the bathroom."
"Of course." She looked the other way; her husband was moments away from his demise and yet this close to descending into the same banality that he'd embodied throughout his life.
"Why, Baby Ruth?" She turned back sharply, but it was merely the delirious rant of a dying man. "Why? Why? Why?"
Mildred sat and stared at her husband. It had been a perfectly planned operation - from the hired thugs to the depersonalization of George (a proper noun) into her husband (a common noun). It had been a cold and calculated act of hatred, the sort meticulous people commit when pushed beyond the edge. But what edge? He'd always been faithful. He'd loved her dearly. How was she supposed to explain to him the idea of loving someone too dearly? Of finding patterns and sequences where there weren't any? He'd blown a casual summer fling into a lifelong romance, a slightly-crazy girl who sought freedom into a godforsaken ice princess, to be cherished and adored and held captive in a steel cage of material comfort.
How was she to explain to her husband that the past thirty-five years of his life (of her life, of their life) had been a lie?
Instead she ran her fingers through his hair. "Apophenia, George," she said. "The word is apophenia."
George didn't hear her because George was already gone.
Mildred sat there for a few more seconds. Then she got up, pulled her husband's mobile from the dresser drawer, and called 911.
As the slightly-accented voice of the operative answered, it finally hit Mildred that George - her husband of thirty-five years - had just passed away in her arms. And despite his flaws, despite his eccentricities, despite his madness, she'd always loved her Musketeer (the one who called her Baby Ruth, dear God). So the tears that began to flow were real.
"A b-bunch of armed thugs just broke into our house and killed my husband," she said in one gasping breath, and then she was crying, sobbing over her George's body, too broken even to put two words together, beyond inconsolable. It took the operator over a minute just to get her address right.
After the call she dropped the phone and sat gently rocking the corpse of her husband. And that was how the paramedics found her, seven minutes later.
There had been a brief moment when the inhale-exhale had snagged, somewhere between 3:34 and 3:35 on the digital clock in front of her. She knew it was because George slid his arm, elbow onward, into the space where it would lie upon her if she was lying beside him.
George and Mildred had been married for thirty-five years.
"And right now I can feel every second of it," Mildred said out loud, to no-one in particular. Her voice - generally clear and rhythmic (though nothing like the 'sonorous warble' her husband told guests about at dinner parties) - sounded rusty and disused to her. She hadn't said a word to George all week. It was her idea of giving things one more chance.
She got up to get her glasses from the dining table. She'd placed them within easy reach of the armchair before she went to bed, but George continued to arrange them at the exact center of the table every godforsaken morning.
The morning tableaux were another thing Mildred could do without - her husband smiling at her over the paper, mottled chin moist like some godforsaken retriever, straining his eyes for the slightest sign of approval.
"Too hard," she said, and it was true. He was straining too hard. Missing other things which should have been obvious a long time ago.
The joints in her knees popped like gunshots, and Mildred felt rather than heard the sound. She held her breath for a few seconds, but George's breathing continued along the same lines.
The glasses were kept over the telephone bills from the previous week. She picked up the limp envelope by force of habit, and it took her a concerted effort of will not to place it on the mantelpiece among the bric-a-brac that comprised the padding of their little household.
She put it back on the table, put on her glasses, and spared a brief glance at the picture of her son in his football jersey, the bright yellow and green stripes and number 15
(I don't want kids not now not ever just to roam the world live at my own pace you know)
of the fullback. He'd made her proud; very proud indeed. But her husband's reaction
(of course dear I understand I totally do it's not like I wanted one that bad)
had put Mildred to shame; the incessant preening and proud exclamations and those godforsaken awestruck whispers about strong jawlines and his mother's eyes.
The clock hit 3:47 and Mildred quickly sat back down; the time had been the one thing she had been particular about. Sure enough, there was the muffled thump of padded footsteps and then a brief ratcheting as the lock on the front door was overcome.
Four men in black overalls and balaclavas entered the house. They were greeted by the sight of an old woman seated alone by the dining table, her glasses opaque reflectors in the green glow of the digital clock.
"Listen to me closely," she said in even tones. "We have an agreement and you're going to keep it. Your payment is in the bedside cabinet. Touch anything else and I scream for help right now. Improvise and I call the cops. Try to get any funny ideas about taking orders from old ladies and a dead man's switch lands you in jail. You know about dead man's switches, don't you?"
The men nodded, hesitantly. They'd probably taken her for a senile old windbag when she first approached them at the bar; but this was unquestionably a voice of authority.
They would have to obey her.
"Good," Mildred smiled. It had been a hobby of hers to collect obscure lexicology, and it made her happy to see it come back. George had all but cured her of that particular affliction. "Now get to it."
The men marched into the other room. There was a brief spell of silence as they readied themselves.
Mildred closed her eyes.
She heard her husband's gasp as he was yanked awake by the lapel of his dressing gown. She also heard the first blow land in the middle of his garbled protest. Judging by the sound he'd been struck across the face, which meant the loud crack was the bridge of his nose breaking open.
After that the sounds resolved themselves into a more regular rhythm, and she let it flow over her like the intro to some plodding march. The only false note came when George (in a desperate bid to escape) tried to squeeze between two of his assailants; he ended up losing his footing and falling facedown off the bed, breaking his maxillary central incisors (one of which had been chipped during a skating accident on their honeymoon). To give them due credit, the men instantly improvised by tossing him against the wall, after which the earlier rhythm was miraculously regained.
Five minutes later (the digital clock said 3:53) the men strode out of the room, overalls stained with sweat and large quantities of AB negative. The man in the front held a thick wad of cash, which he waved at Mildred as they passed her.
"Don't let me see you again," she said. The men nodded, hastened their steps, and were soon part of the night.
Mildred took off her glasses and placed them back where she'd found them.
The only sound that came from the bedroom was the occasional broken sob. She walked back inside, where she found George lying on the floor in a crumpled heap. The bedsheet lay pulled on the floor around him, stained with blood and sweat and tears and snot.
"Baby," George said as he saw her. "Baby Ruth."
It was an endearment that she'd actually liked (and, perhaps consequently, hadn't heard more than half a dozen times in the past few years); so Mildred wasn't really surprised to feel tears pricking her own eyelids.
"Are you okay, Baby Ruth?"
"I've been better," She said. She wanted to stroke his hair but there was a leaky hole on top of his head. "What happened here, George?"
"I didn't see you when they... When I woke up," George said. A sense of unreality was settling on the whole conversation. "I didn't know how long they'd been here. I'd hoped you were in the bathroom."
"Of course." She looked the other way; her husband was moments away from his demise and yet this close to descending into the same banality that he'd embodied throughout his life.
"Why, Baby Ruth?" She turned back sharply, but it was merely the delirious rant of a dying man. "Why? Why? Why?"
Mildred sat and stared at her husband. It had been a perfectly planned operation - from the hired thugs to the depersonalization of George (a proper noun) into her husband (a common noun). It had been a cold and calculated act of hatred, the sort meticulous people commit when pushed beyond the edge. But what edge? He'd always been faithful. He'd loved her dearly. How was she supposed to explain to him the idea of loving someone too dearly? Of finding patterns and sequences where there weren't any? He'd blown a casual summer fling into a lifelong romance, a slightly-crazy girl who sought freedom into a godforsaken ice princess, to be cherished and adored and held captive in a steel cage of material comfort.
How was she to explain to her husband that the past thirty-five years of his life (of her life, of their life) had been a lie?
Instead she ran her fingers through his hair. "Apophenia, George," she said. "The word is apophenia."
George didn't hear her because George was already gone.
Mildred sat there for a few more seconds. Then she got up, pulled her husband's mobile from the dresser drawer, and called 911.
As the slightly-accented voice of the operative answered, it finally hit Mildred that George - her husband of thirty-five years - had just passed away in her arms. And despite his flaws, despite his eccentricities, despite his madness, she'd always loved her Musketeer (the one who called her Baby Ruth, dear God). So the tears that began to flow were real.
"A b-bunch of armed thugs just broke into our house and killed my husband," she said in one gasping breath, and then she was crying, sobbing over her George's body, too broken even to put two words together, beyond inconsolable. It took the operator over a minute just to get her address right.
After the call she dropped the phone and sat gently rocking the corpse of her husband. And that was how the paramedics found her, seven minutes later.
