The day I murdered my wife was a day like any other. Nothing special, except, of course, for it being the day I murdered my wife.
Now, before you go judging me, you have to understand that there is a story behind this. Isn’t that always the way it is? In all my 81 years I have never heard any statement like “I murdered my wife” without there being some complicated story behind it all. She slept with the best friend, she gambled away all the money, she left the child unattended...but I don’t want to get off track here. I don’t have much time and I want to make sure I get my story told.
My daddy use to say always keep your confessions long, and your guilt short. I don’t know if there is any truth to that - but the way I see it, no harm in telling you what I did and why. I couldn’t make me feel any worse than I feel now...although these days, guilt is not my problem - it’s fear, clear and simple.
I murdered my wife out of pure necessity. If she were allowed to keep her life, that means the thing inside her also would have life. And let me tell you, nobody, and I mean nobody, would want that. So let me start at the beginning.
I’m what you call a real “meat and potatoes” kind of man. I like to be the king of my castle, and I know exactly the kind of woman who can satisfy my simple needs. Annie was just that kind of woman. From the first time I saw her, balancing 4 plates of pancakes and sausage on one arm, I knew. She was the woman for me. I ordered extra syrup, then more coffee, some cinnamon, and a spare plate of cakes. She came back every time, wearing an expectant smile and a thin gold chain.
That chain glistened with sweat hours later, as she made sweet love to me. It is a glorious world, my friend, when a woman smiles up at you during the passionate dark moments. That night was truly a feast and I will never forget her whisper pleas to never stop. In those days, giving yourself to a man before marriage was frowned upon. She didn’t care, and I loved every minute of it.
Again, I’m getting off track. Maybe it’s my age, or maybe I just want to live in the past. At least, that is what these doctors tell me. Shit, I can’t tell the difference between the doctors and the orderlies - these people here all wear the same light green scrubs and comfortable shoes. Who knows who is who. Where are the days of wearing a long white coats so an old geezer like me can tell what is what? I think it’s the way they keep us subdued, the way they keep us on track - that’s Dr. Yahn’s phrase. At this point, does it even matter?
Anyway, so Annie and me, hit it off from that day forward. Eventually, we got hitched. Her mama didn’t want it. My mama didn’t want it. And I’ll tell you this - it didn’t matter a nib what they wanted. We were in love, and you already know what that’s like. It was me and Anne against the world.
Over time, everybody ran out of energy - they gave up. But we didn’t. Not one bit. There was so much love between us, nothing could stop us.
We set up our life and we were determined to live it.
About five years after our day of holy matrimony, we decided to take a few days and get away from the world. One of our favorite places to escape to were the Xandi mountains. We used to needle each other about the name needing to start with a “z” - we were a real pair of word lovers.
Anyway, we creep up those winding mountain roads, windows down, Annie’s hair blowing every which way and both of us laughing like fools. We had rented a little cabin up there, nothing fancy… just a bed, a fireplace, and a porch overlooking miles of trees. The first couple of days were perfect. We ate, drank, made love, hiked until our legs hurt, then did it all over again. On the third morning, Annie woke before me and went walking alone. That wasn’t like her. She wouldn’t even go down to the car without waking me. But when I opened my eyes, she was gone.
I found her about an hour later, sitting beside a stream nearly a mile from the cabin. Barefoot. Her nightgown was wet around the bottom and there was blood beneath her nose. I asked what happened. She looked at me like she didn’t understand the question. Then she smiled and said she had found something beautiful. I asked her what. Her smile widened and she pointed toward a narrow split in the rocks behind her. Now, listen - I had walked that trail plenty of times and I had never seen that opening before. I went toward it, but Annie grabbed my arm so hard her fingernails broke the skin. “Don’t,” she said. Then, after a second, “There’s nothing in there.”
We left that afternoon. I insisted on it. Annie slept most of the drive home, and every so often I would look over and see her stomach twitch beneath her blouse. Just a little jump here and there. I told myself it was a muscle spasm. Hell, people twitch. I twitch. You get old enough, something on you is moving all the time without permission. But Annie was twenty-seven years old, and by the time we got home, whatever was moving had stopped.
For fifty-three years, nothing happened.
That’s the part Dr. Yahn hates. He says things don’t wait fifty-three years. Diseases don’t. Parasites don’t. Babies sure as hell don’t. I told him I never said it was any of those things. All I know is that six months ago Annie started complaining about something moving inside her. We laughed about it at first. At our age, you either laugh about what your body does or spend all day crying. Then one night I woke up and found her standing naked in front of the little bathroom mirror, holding her stomach with both hands.
“It remembers you,” she said.
I sat up. “What remembers me?”
Annie turned around.
Her stomach moved.
Not a twitch this time. Something rolled beneath her skin from one side to the other, slow enough for me to follow it with my eyes. It rolled…do you hear me?
We went to the hospital. They ran every test you can imagine. Scans. Blood work. Machines I couldn’t tell you the names of if you held a gun to my head. Nobody would tell us anything. Then Dr. Yahn came into the room with two other doctors and asked to speak with me privately. I told him anything he had to say about my wife, he could say in front of my wife. He looked at Annie. Annie looked at him. Then she smiled.
That was when I knew.
It wasn’t her smile. I mean, it didn’t belong to her. It was off, you know? Crooked, or, or…too wide…
Now, here, I’m not going to tell you exactly how I killed my wife. Some things a man ought to be allowed to take to his grave. I will tell you she didn’t fight me. Not at the end. She looked right into my eyes and whispered, “Hurry, Charlie.” So I did. I held her afterward and cried harder than I had cried in all my eighty-one years. And while I held her, something underneath her nightgown moved once.
Then stopped.
The police came. Then the ambulance. Then the questions. Eventually I ended up here. They tell me there was nothing inside Annie. They tell me the scans showed nothing unusual. Dr. Yahn says grief can rearrange memories. Says sometimes the mind builds a story because the truth is too painful to handle. Denial. He called it denial. Maybe he’s right. Hell, I’m eighty-one years old and locked in a place where everybody dresses alike. What do I know?
But I know this.
Dr. Yahn came to see me this morning. He didn’t bring a clipboard this time, just his hands and that same careful look he always has. He told me to lie back and lifted my shirt, pressing his fingers into my stomach like he was checking for something ordinary. I watched his face while he worked. Calm. Professional.
Then I saw it. Felt it.
A slow shift beneath my skin. Right across my stomach.
Not pain. Not cramping. Something moving, deliberate, like it had been waiting.
Dr. Yahn’s hands stopped.
Just for a second.
His fingers stayed pressed against me, but he didn’t move. He looked down at my stomach, then up at me.
And then he smiled.
That’s why I told you I don’t have much time.