My Duplicated Husband novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Anniversary
On their sixth anniversary Lydia's husband tells her the divorce is filed and hits her, and when she shoves him back he dies on the hearth, so she buries him by dawn.
I set the table for two on our sixth anniversary, and I lit the candles twice because the first match died.
The roast had been done since eight.
By ten the gravy had a skin on it.
By midnight I had stopped checking the window and started checking the clock.
I wanted to be standing in the kitchen when he came in, so he'd see I was fine.
That was how three years had taught me to behave.
The truck turned into the drive at twelve-twenty.
His boots hit the porch.
Lorne came in smelling of whiskey and somebody else's perfume.
He looked at the candles, the roast and the cake with six sugar roses on it.
Then he laughed.
"You made a dinner," he said. "That's sad, Lydia."
"It's our anniversary," I said. "I thought you might be hungry."
"I ate."
He dropped a thick envelope on the table, right on top of my good plates.
"What is that?"
"The petition. I filed Thursday. You've got thirty days to be out of my house."
My ears started to ring.
"Your house," I said.
"The deed has my name on it. The yard is in my name. The accounts are in my name."
He pulled out a chair and sat down.
"You get the car and your clay. Be grateful."
"Six years, Lorne."
"Three of them were good. I'd say that's generous."
He said it like a joke.
I picked up the cake plate because my hands needed something to hold.
"You're tired," I said. "Come to bed. We'll talk in the morning."
"Don't handle me."
He stood up and knocked the cake out of my hands.
It hit the floor and the sugar roses broke into pieces.
"Look at you," he said. "Standing there like a kicked dog."
I bent to pick up the plate.
His hand cracked across my cheek, so hard that my vision went white on one side.
I tasted blood where my teeth had cut my lip.
I had heard that sound before.
I knew the next part by heart.
He wound my braid around his fist and pulled my head back.
"You don't walk away from me," he said into my ear.
"You don't cry to your sister."
"You don't tell the sheriff, because the sheriff plays golf with me."
That was true.
Last spring I had called the sheriff's office for help, and a deputy drove me to the emergency room for an "episode."
Lorne had a folder of papers saying I was not well.
He had a speech about how much he worried.
He had everybody's sympathy.
His hand tightened.
"Say it," he said. "Say you're nothing without me."
I put both hands flat against his chest and I shoved with everything I had left.
It was not a plan.
He let go of my hair.
He stumbled back two steps, his heel caught the edge of the rug, and he went down sideways.
His head met the corner of the stone hearth.
I heard it.
He lay there with his eyes half open and one boot twitching.
Then the boot stopped.
"Lorne," I said.
The fire ticked in the grate.
"Lorne, get up."
I knelt on the floor in the cake and put two fingers under his jaw like they teach you in the classes.
Nothing moved under them.
I held them there until my arm shook.
I could call the sheriff.
I could say it was an accident, and I could say it while my lip was bleeding and my cheek was swelling.
I could say it to the man who'd driven me to the hospital for a breakdown I never had.
I looked at the folder on the sideboard.
I looked at the husband on my floor.
I made my choice before I let myself think about it.
His phone was in his jacket.
I took it and put it in the kitchen drawer under the dish towels.
Then I wrapped him in the rug he had tripped on.
He weighed more than I did by a hundred pounds.
I dragged him through the kitchen, down the porch steps and across the wet grass one foot at a time.
The rose bed behind the garage was soft from the October rain.
I got the shovel from the shed.
The first hour I cried.
The second hour I stopped.
By the third hour the hole was deep enough that I had to climb out of it.
I rolled him in and I did not look at his face.
One of his shoes came off in the rug.
I threw it in after him.
I shoveled until the sky went the gray of dishwater.
Then I planted the rosebushes back on top of him, one by one, and watered them like I always had.
My hands were raw.
I had dirt packed under every nail.
I washed in the kitchen sink, mopped the hearth, and crawled into bed in my clothes.
I thought I would never sleep.
I slept like I'd been dropped down a well.
Sunlight woke me.
The room smelled of butter and warm batter.
Somewhere downstairs, a man was humming off-key.
It was the song from our wedding.
I lay there frozen with the quilt in my fists.
Then I heard the spatula scrape the pan, and a voice called up the stairs.
"Lydia? Breakfast is ready!"
It was his voice.
It was Lorne's voice, and it was kind.
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