Destany

Miranda woke on her fourteenth wedding anniversary with a permanent hollow in her chest. It had been like this for three years, her shattered heart just refused to mend itself. She looked at her sleeping husband and fought back the urge to hit him. That beautiful face. A real life Ken doll, just as she bragged to all her friends when she first met him. That face didn’t deserve to have such charm. Oh, what a hateful bastard he was underneath that glowing tanned skin and rugged features.

She climbed out of bed and took a quick glance in the mirror. Pale heart shaped face, not unpretty, and long luxurious brown hair that he used to love to run his fingers through. Used to. He used to do a lot of things and enjoy them, but they’ve been going through the motions for quite a while now and he couldn’t even pretend convincingly anymore.

Last night he told her he was leaving her. She said she couldn’t blame him, and even had sex with him once more for farewell. But she couldn’t deny that she was still in love with him and that she had never stopped. No, that was a lie when she had told him she hated his guts.

Tying her hair up haphazardly, she wiped at the tears and turned away from her tortured reflection.

The empty cradle still sat in the corner of the room. He refused to allow her to remove it as a constant punishment for her treachery. God, that was the mistake, wasn’t it? She didn’t even want the baby when she found out she was pregnant and had told him so. They had three kids already and barely kept them fed.

Her children were the love of her life but they didn’t need her anymore. They didn’t even like her. It tore her up everyday to look into their faces and see hatred looking back. But he wanted the baby and no way in Hell would he have one of his kids aborted.

When the baby died, he blamed her. Said she didn’t take care of herself during the pregnancy and that’s why it was premature. Damn him! She hadn’t done anything differently than she had with the other kids. But she hadn’t wanted it in the beginning and he didn’t believe that she could share his grief. If he only understood what happens to a woman when she feels a life inside her, he never would have said something so cruel. She came to love that baby even more than he did!

Everything was ready. It had been for weeks, she had only been waiting for the signal. Well, this was it, wasn’t it?

The hell he’s leaving me! Bastard.

She threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and sat down at the desk to scribble a note. Sort of a “Dear John” but with a twist.

Fucker!

Out in the hallway, she quietly closed the door. Tommy, her youngest, opened his door and stood looking at her with a sleepy slack mouth and cold glint in his eyes. Six years old and so full of rage. Of course, his daddy always blamed her for their problems. His daddy put everything on her and if she was Tommy and thought her mother caused all this shit, well, she’d have hated her too. She did hate herself, didn’t she?

“Give this to dad when he wakes up. No, don’t wake him, I set the alarm. He wants to sleep in, just give it to him when he’s up.” She handed him the note she’d written in cursive so he couldn’t read it.

He didn’t reply, he only shrugged and pushed passed her into the restroom, knocking her backwards into the wall.

Don’t kiss the kids goodbye.

Stepping out into the hot summer morning, she unlocked the trunk of the car. The cooler was in the shed; she took it, a fishing pole and the tackle box. Everything she needed.

Climbing into the drivers seat, she looked up at the house. So many wonderful years in that house, so much hatred under it’s roof now. She found she wasn’t sorry to leave it.

It was a long drive down to the lake, their once favorite haunt. She knew just where to go and took the curves quickly but precisely as she’d done so many times before when they used to come here every weekend. Was that only a few years ago?

The cooler shifted violently in the trunk but it didn’t matter. Before she knew it, she was pulling the car into the lot at the marina. Her cell phone started ringing and she dug it out of her purse to see that it was her sister, Marianne.

Oh well. She chucked it into the water. Cell phone dead.

Dragging the cooler out of the trunk and hitching it under her arm, she took up the pole and the tackle box and headed down the pier with her purse slapping her on the back with her stride.

A kind stranger held the door for her and she stepped into the air conditioned room breathlessly. Heaving her load on the counter, she pulled her wallet out of her purse quickly, ignoring her trembling hands.

“Got a bass boat for today?” She asked the pimple faced girl behind the counter.

“You need it all day?” Came the slick voice in return.

“Might as well.” She forced a smile.

The girl narrowed her eyes and looked her over for a moment before getting the paperwork from beneath the register.

“Fill this out.” Said the girl.

Her hands were shaking so badly she could hardly write, but she managed.

“Palsy.” She lied casually to the girl who’s expression was growing more and more concerned.

“You know how to drive the boat?”

A nervous wicked laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it.

Get a GRIP!

“Yes, I’ve driven these before.” Miranda gestured towards the rental boats bobbing in the docks.

“I’ll need your drivers licence, we keep it here until you return the boat.”

“Of course.” Miranda passed the clerk the little plastic card with the ugly picture of herself on it.

“You need to pull up to the pumps when you get back in, we’ll add the gas to your bill.”

“I know.” Miranda said a little impatiently.

“Dan?” The clerk handed her the map of the lake and a yellow slip of paper as the man named Dan came to grab the cooler and help her into the boat.

“I’ll get that!” She said quickly, and snatched it away. “Sorry, um... could you get the pole and tackle box?”

Dan shrugged and took them, then led her out the door to the little boat at the very end of the row.

She forced herself to breathe slowly and evenly as he explained how to work the propeller motor and untied her from the dock, kicking her off with a dirty sneaker.

Finally!

She gripped the gear shaft and reversed the boat out of the harbor and propelled quickly passed the buoys, not caring that she was breaking the rules by driving fast in the no-wake zone. Out into the middle of the lake she plowed, and was there within a minute. She didn’t have to think about what she was going to do. She’d done that already, planning every detail down to the wire. She wasn’t going to ponder or question it either. She wasn’t going to back out.

Humming the “Star Spangled Banner”, she prized the lid off of the cooler and took the two cinder-blocks from inside. They already had three feet of rope tied tightly to each. She lovingly caressed the rough cement and carefully tied each one to her ankles, double checking that the knots wouldn’t slip. It would hurt only a little, but it would be over quickly. Suddenly, she remembered the anchor and tossed it overboard.

Picking up a block in each hand, she stood in the very middle of the boat and contemplated the watery depths below her.

I feel like I should say something.

But she had said everything she could say; screamed everything she could scream; cried all she could cry. No, there were no words for her in this moment. She stepped to the edge and took a deep breath. Closing her eyes tightly, she jumped in.

The cool water forced itself up her nose and before she reached the bottom she had released all her breath and cinder-blocks, letting them drag her down. It must have been a whole minute, at least that’s what it felt like, before she felt the cement hit the bottom and she remained suspended by the ropes. The pressure pounded in on her, driving out all thought as her eardrums were about to burst and her skin prickled like thousands of tiny ants biting her all over. The force of the water on her body should kill her.

Don’t fight it!

She sucked the water into her lungs and was startled by how easy it was. It hurt a little, but nothing as bad as fifty feet of water pressing in on her body. For only a minute, she breathed the dirty water in and out before the vision faded and she was gone.

***

Tommy was standing in front of her gaping slack jawed and glaring malevolently as the scene that played inside her head slowly faded away; leaving only a gaping chasm instead of the endless strains of thought that plagued her night and day.

Something jolted in her chest. A feeling so raw and indistinct that hadn’t been there in years. Tommy’s expression changed abruptly and he started to cry looking up at her. God, that she could feel! That she could see so clearly and that evil glint in his eyes, it was pain!

A dam was bursting and mighty howl erupted from with in her. She collapsed on the floor in front of Tommy and pounded the floor with her fist, still clutching her suicide note. The door behind her burst open and the real life Ken doll stared down at her in groggy confusion.

“Oh my God.” He whispered.

Ashamed to behave this way in front of her son, she could not stop the shrieking. The pain that she had concealed within her, the proverbial bottle had finally filled so full, it shattered and was leaking like acid throughout her entire body, bringing about a moments clarity that was too much to bear, yet delicious all the same. Tommy didn't hate her, he needed her and she had not been there for him. Her husband didn't hate her, she had been isolated too completely to feel his love.

The Ken doll scooped her into his arms and carried her back into the bedroom. Rocking her back and forth and desperately smoothing her long brown hair, he talked soothingly into her ear.

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. We can get through this.”

Tommy at the door. She pulled him to her quickly and held him tighter than she ever had.

“I’m sorry!”

yunir

Woah... this is an excellent piece....
Great descriptiives......

only one setback for me.......
Excuse my stupidity, but I don't get the last part...

Was she dreaming? But If she was, what's there to be ashamed of, and she can't be dreaming out of bed.....

Was she drunk? and she had all the while only been dreaming about the suicidal jump?

__________________
"I was thinking, and it came into my mind how pitifully short human life is - for of all these thousands of men, not one will be alive in a hundred years time." - Xerxes (519-465 BC)

Destany

Thanks for reading

The last part, it's sort of a moment when she knows what she's going to do (standing in the hallway looking at her son) and plays the whole thing out in her head. But she's unable to go through with it in the end.

Or, you could look at it as she really went through with it but got a second chance.

I'm going to think about this and decide which I like better, then clarify. I'd like to know what you all think is a better scenario.

Oh, and she's ashamed to be crying and wailing in front of her son. No, she wasn't drunk...

I'm going to give the ending more thought, thanks again for reading!

Wyndstar

This really is very good (and you spaced it---the addled mind is eternally grateful). The one thing about your chars is that they're so easy to relate to, and you write them with great clarity and definition.

That said, I had a problem with the ending a bit. Though it isn't very clear, I assumed that this was a dream (yes you can dream standing up and walking and out of bed). If it was a dream, was her husband actually going to leave her? That is a bit inconsisitent with him picking her up lovingly and telling them they were 'going to get through it'. I would more have expected him to be gazing down at her in disgust, or move her somewhere away from the kids. I mean, if he was cruel enough to keep the cradle of dead child in their bedroom to torture her, I'd think her agony would make him even happier.

Aside that---I think she should hook up with a char of lone wolf's. She might find that a bit more satisfying than suicide, heeheehee. Yeah, I'm twisted...

__________________
Old enough to know better, young enough to think I can still get away with it.

Destany

Thanks Wyndstar! Yes, I definitely need to work on the ending. I'm still thinking it over. Miranda is one of these people that feels sorry for herself, and reads too much into things. Seeing only the negativity around her and none of the good.
As a result, she's cut herself off emotionally. Her husband is fed up with trying to make things work since she won't meet him halfway.
The cradle is in the room because he's still attatched to the baby. She misconstrues it and sees it as a punishment. Her kids don't actually hate her, this is something she imagines because they are unhappy with the fact that she has become cold and distant with them herself.

This is going to prove tricky to try and relate- a woman who blames everyone else for her problems and refuses to accept that she caused most of them, and it's told from her own skewed perspective. Tricky tricky.

When her husband sees her expressing her emotions *finally*, he sees that there still is hope for the marriage... Gotta think about this for a bit.

Were you shocked when she pulled the cinder-blocks out of the cooler, or did you see that coming a mile away?

Squirrel

*Wipes eyes*

That was beautiful!

I was not expecting the happy-ish ending, and it in combination with the despair (a much underused emotion) did truly bring tears to my eyes. I too was a bit confused at the transition at the end though. One thing you could do to make it clearer is:

Or something to that effect. Skipping the part of her leaving the house could make the reader believe that the break is simply a jump in time. I'm not sure it would work perfectly at the second transition though.
Well, it's a possibility.

Many thanks for the good read.

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I'm a sig virus. Attach me to your signature so I can take over the world!

yunir

well, not entirely shocked, but it did caught me off-guard.
I was wondering what she was up to......

i'd prefer if u choose how the endng will be....
but only hope is that, you could phrase it better..

__________________
"I was thinking, and it came into my mind how pitifully short human life is - for of all these thousands of men, not one will be alive in a hundred years time." - Xerxes (519-465 BC)

Destany

Okay, I've revised the ending some, I hope it makes more sense. More to the point, I hope I got the point across without creating more confusion or ubelievability.



Oh, and Squirrel, thanks for reading, I'm glad you liked it and found it emotional, precisely what I was going for.