A Very Fine Woman

A Very Fine Woman



She was a very fine woman; an asset to her family and community. She had retired from full time nursing in 2004, but still worked as a volunteer paramedic for the Fire/Rescue Unit that operated in her small town. She was a diligent and conscientious worker; the Fire Chief was delighted when she offered her services to him. She never was the sort of woman who could just sit at home; she had tirelessly volunteered all of her spare time to give back to her community. She helped out at the elementary school; the teachers loved having her in their classrooms because she instinctively knew exactly what they needed her to do with no direction. The children loved her because she was so beautiful and would hug her just to smell her perfume. Her patients at the hospital knew they were in the best of hands under her care because Miss Sue would never let anything bad happen to them; she would even call their rooms from her home to check on them if need be. Friends knew they could always rely on her discretion and quiet listening to confide their problems to, and that if she offered advice, it would be gently and graciously given.

She knew how she appeared to her community and she worked hard to maintain her demeanor. She was a good wife, and a good mother to three children. She sipped her coffee on a golden December morning and wrapped this contentment around her snugly like a robe as she plotted out her errands that day. She never needed to write lists; as she ticked off each chore in her mind she dipped her chin in an affirmative nod to herself. It was an endearing habit; it gave the impression she was talking to herself, which in fact she was, but her friends and family found the small idiosyncrasy delightful in one as flawless as she. “Pick up extra tape and wrapping paper” she nodded, adding “Stop by the nursery to pick up bone meal for camellias” and “Drop Mary Lynn’s casserole dish by daughter-in-law’s” with double nods. She frowned slightly, and mentally reversed the order of her list to best plot out the course she would take. Her daughter-in-law lived the furthest away; it would be best to go there first.

She looked up to watch her husband going out to the garage. He would be getting the Christmas things down today while she went to town to run errands. She wondered if she should stay and help for a while; it made her nervous for him to go up into the attic alone. They had no close neighbors, if something happened he could lie there for hours. He would laugh at her fears if she voiced them to him, and she didn’t for fear of diminishing him. “Ed, do you need help?” she called after his broad back, half sitting up in her chair to go after him. He did not reply, not that she had actually expected him too. Truthfully her question had only been perfunctory; they had a marriage of mutual politeness so he would have expected her kind offer, even if he refused it. She had given him some aspirin this morning for his shoulder pain; “Make Dr. appointment for Ed next week” nodded her efficient chin.

She poured an indulgent second cup of coffee and picked up the phone to call her best friend Mary Lynn. That they were friends at all was a mystery; where Sue was white, Mary Lynn would be if not black, at least gray. Their friendship had endured twenty years of working together, children, and Mary Lynn’s divorce eight years ago. The phone rang emptily, she must not be home. Probably sleeping off another big night with The Married Man, which is what they called Mary Lynn’s latest messy affair. They never had called him by his given name; Sue didn’t want to know anyway, as she would more than likely know him and his wife, and then she would really be an accomplice, not just an uninvolved bystander. Sue did not approve of carrying on with married men, and truthfully was a bit shocked that her friend, a grandmother, could be having such uninhibited and sordid encounter. Mary Lynn never met a secret she loved enough to keep; she swore to Sue last week that The Married Man was so athletic in bed that she got her ankle bracelet caught up in the overhead fan. Sue was sure she exaggerated, what man in this little town had enough energy for that?

She hung up without leaving a message and went to the sink to rinse her cup. She wiped off the immaculate countertops and checked her purse to make sure she had her wallet, keys, and lipstick. She added a small bottle of hand sanitizer and a packet of Tylenol for herself from her cabinet. Her sons laughingly called it “Mom’s Triage Area” because she had a mini-trauma center set up at home; with everything from syringes of ephedrine, to bandages and suturing needles, even nitroglycerin. She kept her kit meticulously arranged so that she could mobilize quickly if she were called out on an emergency.

She checked her makeup again in the mirror, it was important not to be over made up at her age. She lifted her chin and smoothed her fingers down the skin on her neck to make sure no foundation line existed. Everything in her home was smoothed also; she never could leave a bed unmade or dish in the sink. You never knew who might drop by. Stepping into the garage, she carefully pulled the door shut so she would not startle her husband coming down the attic steps with something fragile.

He lay at the bottom of the stairs; body stretched out on the oil stained floor. She frowned at him with exasperation, he was always joking this way in an attempt to get a rise from her. Her boots clicked impatiently across the garage floor, she certainly had better things to do than mess with him today. She stopped a few inches from him; her mind automatically snapping into a clinical assessment mode.

There was a corolla of blood pooling out from his head; easily soaking through the thin strands of his remaining hair. He appeared to be semi-conscious, and his breath rattled shallow in his open mouth. Sue quickly moved into the house for her triage kit. She grabbed a towel from the rolled bundles beside her pack and hurried back to the garage. Kneeling beside him she slipped on surgical gloves; then aimed a small penlight into his eyes. Sluggish pupil reaction. She pressed her stethoscope against his carotid artery gently, as not to move his head. She heard the irregular slush of his heartbeat, rapid and off key. Her gloved fingertips touched where she had placed the scope; there was a damp clamminess she could feel through the latex. She suspected a heart attack; the shoulder pain and nausea he had been experiencing all week indicated that. She packed her things away slowly and with much consideration of each item. If she leaned over his face he appeared make eye contact with her; she felt he was aware of her presence beside him.

She gracefully pulled her skirt to one side so that the hem would not touch his blood and leaned back a bit so that her weight was evenly balanced on her boot heels. Leaning down she looked directly into his staring eyes until she felt some connection with him. “Ed.” She simply stated his name; it was not in a questioning way, but in a calm and clinical tone of voice; “Ed, I know you can hear me and I want you to listen up now. You’ve had a heart attack, and unfortunately it looks pretty severe. I would even hazard an opinion that you are dying right now. You appear to have cut your head badly on the garage floor. You aren’t in shock now, but you will be soon. So this is a good time for us to have a talk. I know about you and that whore Mary Lynn. I’ve known for quite sometime. I found her cheap ankle bracelet caught up in the cuff button on your sleeve. You wore that shirt to church that morning; I can’t believe you didn’t even change before you went traipsing off to her. I remember you told me you had to stop by the office for a few hours and would meet me at Dana and John’s later. On a Sunday! Shame on you, you sorry bastard.”

“Did you think I would not find out? If she had been seeing anyone but you, do you honestly think she would have been able to keep your name a secret? I cannot believe you could shame me anymore than you have with your nonsense, but you have managed to this time.” Sue rose to her feet and stood over him. She looked like beautiful mercy at that moment and the sun slanted into the garage creating a halo around her hair. “I could help you right now. You would make it until the ambulance arrived if I called them.” She gave him her melting public smile. “But I am not going to call” she continued, “I am going to do us both a favor. You’re going to finish dying and make me a widow. I can’t possibly divorce you over this mess; everyone in town would talk about it, and I could not stomach their pretend indignation. Plus, no one ever invites a divorcee anywhere really. Look at Mary Lynn, what did she have after she left Tom? Just a sorry roll in the hay with you to look forward to every now and then.”

She peered into his eyes, oh yes he was still in there and she knew he understood exactly what was happening. “Now I am going to help you finish up here”, she said in her helpful nurse’s way, “because I have errands to run today. When you are done I will close up the garage and go to town for a few hours, and when I come back I’ll phone in your tragic accident. It’s obvious you died accidentally, and I promise you while I am in town I will work up some tears over your unfortunate demise. Please don’t worry about a thing, I’ve always made sure the premiums on our life insurance were paid, thank you for choosing such a good company, and of course we bought those plots last year near Momma and Daddy’s”. She walked around him to view him from another angle. “I must remember to buy hose today in town; I’ll need them for the funeral” she bobbed her chin to commit the addition to her schedule. “I probably won’t call your friend Bert until tomorrow if you don’t mind; I would hate to ruin their Christmas party. Of course they will wonder why we aren’t there; I should probably have Dana call them while I am laying down after the police take my statement”. Her chin bobbed again as she began readjusting her afternoon schedule. She took the towel in her gloved hand and calmly pressed it down on his mouth and nose. “Oh this won’t do at all, the lint from the towel is getting all over your lips, and they really are very chapped.” She glanced around looking for an object to obstruct his windpipe with, and remembered the small tube of hand sanitizer in her purse. Tilting his lower jaw down with her forefinger; she carefully lowered the tube in until it reached his soft palate. Not too hard she thought, I don’t need him throwing up now. Holding the tube steady; she pinched his nostrils gently. She marked the time on her watch; about two minutes would do now. For the next one hundred and twenty seconds she went over her to do list, and when she checked him again he had finally expired.

She placed her sanitizer back in her purse after wiping it off with a Kleenex from her skirt pocket. Peeling the gloves off as she stood again; she looked dispassionately down on him. Nothing suspicious here; he looked very natural. She got her purse and walked cheerfully to the car. She sat for a moment while the car warmed up, pulling the visor mirror down to check her lipstick. She didn’t look back in the garage, nothing interesting to see there anymore. The door to the garage lowered as she backed out of her driveway. The bloody boot print she left behind was the only witness, and in a few moments it too would be silenced as the pool behind her late husband’s head expanded from the heat of the afternoon.