The Not-Murder Story (Short fiction)

He was from a small town, or he was from a city. They had met only a few months before, or they had been married for years. There were children, or there were no children. They were together constantly, or he had just returned from deployment. He was successful, or he had just been fired from his job. His high school teachers called him clever and charming, or dense and belligerent.

The children flitted from the refrigerator to the back yard. They were running with ice pops in their mouths. Their sky was the constellation of his rages and the calm in between. At the moment it was calm; he was not there.

Once she got the children to stop running with the popsicles in their mouths, she turned her attention to the dog, who lay whimpering under the table. Rocco was a white teacup poodle, a tiny dog. He had been her companion since before she met the man. The man tried constantly to edge Rocco out of her life, once dropping him on a roadside across town, once kicking him down the stairs. Yet the dog persisted. She called him.

Rocco got up hesitantly, when normally he would have leapt into her arms. His eyes were closed, but that made no sense. Then she understood, a queasiness growing inside her. He had glued Rocco’s eyes shut with some kind of industrial epoxy. The dog’s tears had not stopped its eyelids from drying shut.

She pulled Rocco into her lap gently and studied his face. In a cartoon world the dog’s expression might have been comical, but in reality it was sickening. She texted the neighbor, whose kid was playing with her kids, to tell her she had to go out for a while. She retrieved a small roll of bills from an empty Comet container that was stashed under the sink and took Rocco to the vet, which was just a short drive out of the trailer park and then a quarter mile up the road in a strip mall.

It would have to be different. She loved Rocco, she didn’t want to give him up, but it would have to be different this time. The vet managed to get its eyelids unstuck, but it took the vet and his technician almost an hour. Paying for his time, and for the medicine for the raw spots the glue made, took all of the money she had saved.

One of the vet assistants took pity on Rocco and said she would adopt him, so she left her dog there, biting her lip to keep from crying. She could not bear to see that, or worse, happen again. She would tell the man that the dog had run away. He would not believe her, but eventually that rage too would pass.

What, anyway, was the source of his rage? She asked herself often, but today she felt more detached than usual, taking a page from the vet’s clinical manner. The vet had shaken his head with disgust and pity, but then set his feelings aside to do what had to be done. He had sedated Rocco and carefully wiped the epoxy from his eyelids without letting the solvent touch his eyeballs.

Surely that had been worth her emergency money, which was what she dared to call it, the money she had saved to leave. That was so like the man, though. He had not even known about her emergency money, yet still he had managed to sabotage that plan.

What, anyway, was the source of his rage? She asked herself again, driving home silently, trying not to think about her dog.

It could not be her, she had realized some time ago. The rage inside him had been a mature, coiled viper by the time she met him. It was not really her, although he told her constantly that it was. Who or what, then? The inability to see where he ended and another began?

Eight children; she knew he had grown up in a family of eight children. He did not talk about it much, and was in touch with only one sibling. She did not know exactly where he fell in the birth order, but she knew it was toward the end. By the time he came along his parents’ resources had been exhausted. There was nothing but jeans with holes in the knees, vegetables they grew to stretch the budget, and (he told her once when he was drinking) an old hunting dog.

That dog in her husband’s youth was a German Shorthaired Pointer, with black speckles in his fur. Once, he had been a top bird dog. Then the children kept coming, and his father ran out of money for hunting, pawned his best rifle. As the dog got older his main occupation was walking stiffly around the kitchen, shepherding the kids. Then he was gone, and soon after that the kids had been taken out of the home by social services .

She was home now. Soon it would be time to get dinner on the table. Then he would be home, and she had better think of something to distract him… or maybe he would be sweet tonight. That didn’t happen often anymore, but you never could tell, maybe he would be sweet.

He was driving, maybe a little too fast. Maybe he cut the guy in the hybrid off, maybe he didn’t. He was thinking about her, how she refused to do things the right way. Take the beer the other night. She had bought it at the warehouse club, so it was warm when she brought it home. She had put a few cans in the freezer and forgotten them. The cans froze. One can exploded, making a mess. Maybe he had gone a little too far, but who could really blame him for pushing her head into the freezer, so that she would remember next time?

Things like that. Such simple things.

He pulled his old Ford Bronco into their front yard. It didn’t matter anymore where the actual driveway was, the grass wouldn’t grow into a nice lawn, so he had stopped trying. A kid’s bike with a flat tire lay near the front ditch. There was a rusty jack under the old carport to the side of the house.

The neighbor kids were on the front porch with his kids when he pulled in. They cut their eyes to the side to take him in and slid down the steps, heading home. As far as trailers in the development, theirs stood out: It had a nice lawn and Christmas decorations that were put away before they were broken.

He noted the neighbor kids’ departure, put the Bronco in park, and twisted the key in the ignition to off. No blunt-ended computerized keys for him, his vehicle had a real key. Why did things change in useless ways? How was a computer key better? All that computer stuff was just a way to keep him from working on the newer cars, that was all it was. Things should stay the same. If they did change, it should be for a reason, it should be better.

Where was she? At least she ought to come onto the porch, let him know she was happy to see him. Most often she did, although with that little dog tucked under her arm. He smiled a little when he recalled what he had done early that morning, holding that damn squirming dog in his lap, gripping its mouth shut to quiet the yelps while he glued its eyelids.

His children hung uncertainly on the front porch, trying to judge his mood, caught between him and the relative safety of their bedrooms. The eldest, Lily, could remember before things got bad. When the man coming home meant hugs and airplane rides. Lily frowned and turned to her younger brothers, her straight hair falling like a curtain down the side of her face. The shirt her mother had gotten her at a dollar store did not do her justice, but still, Lily was lovely. A frown line was already setting in between her gray eyes, though. Lily, who balanced the hopes of the mother, and the teachers who looked to her to lead the class, and the attentions of the gym teacher who put his hands on her too often. On top of that, thirteen-year-old Lily worried about her younger brothers, Owen and Gunner.

Owen was a middle child striving to be noticed, the one who played church league ball. If he lacked his sister’s quickness in school he made up for it with plodding determination, willing himself to stay on the B honor roll. Willing the father to be proud.

Gunner had been named when the father was mildly high and sitting with his Army buddies at a bar in Fayetteville. The mother had kicked the father out of the delivery room because the smell of weed and cheap beer that clung to his jacket nauseated her while she labored.

It was Gunner who had been trying to use a bottle of white glue he had swiped from school to fix the Hotwheels tracks to the porch railing. Lily had told him that it wouldn’t work, that the glue would just make a mess on the porch railing.

A piece of track trailed from Gunner’s hand. “Dad, will you put this track up?”

“Sure, son” the father said, giving Gunner a pat on the shoulder as he drifted inside. Lily saw the exchange and considered it a win. She listened for the mother. For the first time that day, it occurred to Lily to wonder why Rocco wasn’t there.

“Hey witch, where are you?” Called the father, tossing out the nickname he used most often for his wife. It was both a taunt and a term of endearment. Witch, who could still enchant him after three children. Witch, who could be a nagging bitch.

“Witch?” He looked in the kitchen and then, not finding her, went through the empty living room where the television was playing a talk show. There was no one in the room listening to the dramatic reveal of a paternity test. He continued into their bedroom, and saw the closed bathroom door.

“Witch?” He called a third time before she answered.

“What? I’m in the bathroom.”

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m in the bathroom. Common sense will tell you what I’m doing.”

He gritted his teeth. He hated that expression, she was just trying to make him feel stupid. He sat on the bed to wait. The comforter was worn, with loose threads, but the bed was made up neatly. Witch kept the house clean, he had to give her that.

She emerged from the bathroom and stood in the doorway, tying back her hair. He sat on the bed and the news slipped from his mind. He had been fired before, but if only she would sit next to him on the bed… Lily interrupted the moment.

“Mom! Rocco just came up into the yard, and there’s something wrong with his eyes!”

The woman cursed to herself. Rocco must have gotten away from the vet assistant and run the short distance home. He had always been a clever dog, but of course no dog could understand the danger he had just created. She started to walk out of the bedroom to look at Rocco, but the man jumped up and blocked her way.

He didn’t say anything, but looked down at her, challenging her to say something.

She did, even though she knew it was unwise. “Why did you glue Rocco’s eyes shut?”

“Why shouldn’t I, that little shit is always underfoot, and you kiss him more than you kiss me.”

“Well, maybe if you were nicer to me, that would be different!”

He caught her by the wrists and shouted in her face. “We had a deal when we got back together! When Gunner was born and we moved in here, you were supposed to be a good wife and mother!”

“And you were supposed to keep a job and stop hurting me! Has that happened?”

“Mostly! Can’t you give me credit for trying? I got you a car, and I give you grocery money…”

“The car lot called today. They said they would repossess my car if we don’t make a payment by Friday. I have $100 from my eBay sales, but they want the whole $257 payment.”

“Mom?” Lily called again, she sensed as much to try to break up their shouting as anything to do with Rocco.

“Let me go!” The woman hissed at him, and he did. For the moment.

She moved quickly toward the kitchen, in case he changed his mind.

“What’s the matter, baby?” She spoke brightly to Lily as if to say, never mind me, your worry is more important.

“Rocco’s eyelids are bleeding!” Lily held the little dog up, tears forming in her own eyes out of distress for their pet.

The mother took the dog gently and looked at his eyes. Lily was right, there were still raw spots on Rocco’s eyelids. They did look bad, although not nearly as bad as when they were actually glued shut.

“Here, we’ll put a little of this triple antibiotic ointment…”

Lily held Rocco on the kitchen counter while the mother dabbed ointment on the raw spots on his eyelids. Even with her back turned to the man, the woman could feel his anger building. She hoped he would stay in control until Lily was out of the room, but no, he couldn’t quite make it.

“Why are you spending time on that dog when you should be getting dinner for us?!?” He thundered.

“I’ll be finished in a minute,” she said calmly. True to her word, she handed the dog back to Lily.

“Lily, will you please sit on the porch with him and make sure he doesn’t rub his eyes until dinner is on the table?”

Lily nodded and went back onto the porch. The man still hovered in the kitchen doorway as the woman started boiling water for the pasta. The meat sauce was already prepared and simmering on the stove. The table was already set.

“Did you pay a vet to unglue his eyes?” The man growled.

“Why do you enjoy torturing a defenseless little dog?” She countered.

She moved to get the salad from the refrigerator, deliberately blocking his view of what was inside, so that he wouldn’t notice the shoebox full of salad greens and homegrown tomatoes that her mother had given her. Without the vegetables her parents grew, it would be a lot harder to feed her family.

“How about a beer, Witch, or did you freeze them all again?”

She turned away, rolled her eyes, and silently got him a can of beer from the door of the refrigerator. He would bring up her mistake from two months ago. It was stuff like that, more even than getting pushed around, that made her want to leave. The grudges that he wouldn’t let go. His refusal to acknowledge any of the creative ways she kept the family eating good meals.

“Mom! Mom! There’s a lady out here who says Rocco is her dog!” Lily called.

The mother sighed. From the moment Lily had called to her that Rocco had come back, she was afraid of a confrontation like this. She rushed to the door to speak to the woman before the husband did. He wasn’t far behind, and already she could hear him breathing harder.

“Hey, Amanda” she greeted the woman from the vet’s office as nicely as possible, willing her to see how volatile the situation was.

“Rocco slipped out of his collar when I was walking him to my car, and he must have ran back here.” Amanda explained, the door of her car open, her engine still running, obviously expecting a quick resolution.

“Mom, is that true, you gave Rocco away to her?” Guner asked in disbelief. Owen and even Lily also looked at her accusingly.

The husband came up behind her and spoke loudly “She made a mistake. Sorry for your trouble, but we’re not giving the dog away. You can go on home.”

“But…” the young lady floundered, clearly not wanting to upset the kids, and not fully aware of the threat unfolding. Amanda turned back to the woman, who was willing her to leave.

“Yes, I’m very sorry, I changed my mind.” She pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow, nodding her head ever so slightly back to indicate the man behind her. Amanda finally got her drift.

“Okay, well, if you change your mind please let me know.”

Amanda got back in her car and backed out of the yard. Lily was still holding Rocco. When Amanda was a few hundred yards down the road, the man grabbed Rocco from Lily and stormed inside.

“So now you don’t want him? What would you care if I put him in here?” He strode over to the pot of pasta water, which was now at a rolling boil.

This time the kids had followed them inside, and she could not prevent them from hearing the argument.

“Stop it! So I made a mistake, but I had to do something after you glued his eyes shut!”

Now the kids’ accusing eyes were turned on their father.

“Why are you looking at me? It was just a joke, a prank. How did I know your crazy mother would give the dog away?”

Meanwhile, she had slowly moved closer to the stove and turned off the burners. He came towards the stove anyway, Rocco clamped firmly under his arm. The water was still plenty hot. She tried to calm him.

“Why don’t you just put the dog down, and we’ll have dinner in a minute?”

“No! Why don’t you tell me why you gave the dog away? You upset the kids! What else are you doing while I’m at work?”

She glanced at his belt on the side of his waist. His work pager, normally clipped there, was gone. He had lasted six months as an exterminator, and she’d had high hopes for this job.

He followed her gaze but didn’t say anything, jaw clenched in humiliation and fury. Without warning, he flung the dog toward the stove. Rocco flew through the air, paws spread as if trying to put on brakes. He bounced off the side of the pot of boiling water, and some of the water splashed over the edge onto his nose. This made him scream and recoil so fast that he backed into the pot of hot pasta sauce. His tail and haunch were covered in the red sauce, and he cried pitifully.

“Lily, Gunner, Owen, go to the neighbor’s house now” she yelled, while snatching up the dog and carrying him over to the sink. The kids ran for the back door. She felt a flash of gratitude that he did not try to stop them, and then felt how perverse it was that she should feel grateful that the man did not try to hurt the children.

Rocco whimpered softly while she ran cold water over him. She hoped he wasn’t burned too badly. She didn’t dare keep her back turned to the man for long.

“You love that damn dog more than you love me!”

She wanted to lash out, to say that was true, that it had been true for the past year at least. Instead, she took a deep breath, reminded herself that her safety depended on what she did next.

“Look hon, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. Why can’t we just have dinner?”

“Because I can’t concentrate at work, because I don’t know what you’re doing all day. So I make mistakes, and they let me go!”

So that was it. He was coming back around to find an angle, a way to blame her for the fact that he had been fired.

Trapped in the U-shaped space between the kitchen counters, she took two bold steps toward him, Rocco still cradled in her left arm. She wanted to get past the man and slip out of the sliding porch door. Instead, she felt a painful sting and a rush of heat. He had hit her across the face with his open hand. She put her head down and rushed him, almost making it past before he grabbed her right wrist and her hair, jerking her head back. Rocco fell to the floor and started dancing around their ankles, growling and barking.

The man kicked Rocco. The little dog lay in a crumpled heap for a moment, then jumped up again but kept his distance, growling.

“Let me go!” She yelled, hitting the man’s chest without much effect.

The man dragged her by her hair to the bedroom, where he flipped open the small gun safe that sat on top of his dresser. It wasn’t locked. She heard the safety on the handgun click.

Maybe they had been together for years, or maybe it was a second marriage for both of them. Perhaps he had been on the road too long, or perhaps too long at home. He had been decorated for saving his friend while under fire in Iraq, or he had been dishonorably discharged. He quit drinking, or he raged and drank and burned down their home. She escaped, or she was caught in the fire. The children watched, or the neighbors covered their eyes. The little dog danced, trying to set things right. His eyelids were still raw, but his eyes were wide open.