Windchimes

The day started out bright but veiled – clouds forming a tattered gauzy curtain over a bluest sky. The air was clear; the pitch of the backyard dove more soprano than coo this time. It was an easy morning made for a Sunday. Popping prosecco felt like as natural a move as brewing coffee. Coffee came first though, the beans saturated deep enough to fill the house with its earthy, steamy scent. When Jason finally rustled out of the bedspread, he was greeted by visions of Stepford wives and shiny Cadillacs. Nellie stood over the sink; cup enveloped by short, thin fingers. Sun hit the steam rising silently under her chin and Jason admired her from the shadow of the hallway a moment longer than acceptable. Nellie, oblivious to her sunrise stalker, stared out the window without objective. The dove continued to croon, the coffee cooled at a glacial pace, and her mind emptied.  It was this emptiness that gave her the space to notice a feeling – a gravity sitting deep in her intestines, pressing her empty bowels to a sensation of sickness or speedy defecation.  Her cup shattered in the sink, ripping up both their reveries. 

“What the fuck, Nellie?!”

She was dazed, focused on the pieces of ceramic bleeding a mahogany pool around the drain. She was barley aware the cup had left her hands. 

“Why did you drop the damn cup? You were just standing there.” Jason’s impatience woke up and pushed his admiration back to the depths he kept it. 

“It just fucking slipped.” The shattered cup was less abrasive than Jason’s attitude. This fight, his presence in the hall, that must be what caused her stomach to curdle. 

Jason’s cold shoulder quickly turned and he headed to shower or relieve himself or get back into bed – it didn’t really matter. Nellie was used to his short fuse though she never accepted it. Her little fingers snagged up the larger pieces and she left the rest for later. The morning was still beautiful and she wasn’t going to let it go to waste. She poured Jason’s portion of the pot in a fresh mug and headed to the patio. 

The air was clear for the first time in weeks. A baby rain storm had blown through early in the night, pushing out the smog the valley would trap again by rush hour. But right now, it felt like a true spring. 

Nellie eased into the loveseat, gathering her feet under her as the moisture left in the cushion seeped onto her spine and sit-bones. The dove was interrupted by a pair of scrubjays flitting around the desperately overgrown shrub, as Nellie interwove her fingers around the mug instinctually. The cup seemed heavier now – like a manifestation of the rock dropping in her bowels. The twinkle of the shower turned on, allowing her to relax her jaw but not her grip. 

The windchime her mother-in-law had intruded on their porch played a soft alarm; Nellie reached for her phone before remembering it was inside. Those ringing tubes of steel ended her moment of peace with the reminder that the outside world still existed. Her mind now filled up with the outfits and hair and makeup and shoes she would need to decide on before the party bus rolled by and away with her. She grabbed her phone on the way to the bathroom to begin the routine. 

“Be there in 30!” Maya’s message was followed by a handful of alcohol-related emojis and liked by Nellie in acknowledgement. 

Her hair could squeeze out another day with a healthy dose of dry shampoo, leaving her with around ten minutes to spare before the girls snagged her. A day of wine tasting meant a day of unguarded sun exposure, so Nellie doused her nose and temples with sunscreen first.  Jason continued to languish in the shower; Nellie made sure to catalogue his debt to the water bill for the next time he came at her about the lights. She was mid-lipstick application when the chimes sounded again but this sound wasn’t the one she reached for. It was Jason’s phone, calling to her and that bad feeling. She looked at it through the mirror, knowing Jason would be watching her react to it. That’s why he left it downturned on the vanity. Nellie had never invaded his privacy but he had done it enough times for both of them. She caught him on her phone so many times it was like she did it to herself at this point. He never found what he was trying to and she never found a good enough reason to pull his stunts. 

The wind blew through again and her guts took hold of her hand, ordering her to reach over and look at the screen. Nellie refused to be “that wife” so she hasted to the closet as the showerhead stopped flowing. She picked an outfit in one try – a behavior so shocking for her that they both should have known something was amiss. Her mind was fixed onto his messages, allowing her decision making to be unfettered by uncertainty. Being fully dressed before Jason emerged unarmored felt like a power move. 

Having sped through her dressing process, Nellie had to kill time to keep her thoughts subdued and mind primed for a girls’ day out. Now the prosecco was not appropriate; it was necessary. As the bottle popped and bubbles burned, her stomach continued sinking. She drained two coupe-fulls in a desperate attempt to escape the quicksand of her body. Her caffeine-only diet expedited the buzz, bringing her into an artificial meditation. Jason’s phone continued its siren call. 

“Fuck it.” She swallowed half of her third cup and went to crash into the rocks. 

Sunlight through the windows turned gray as she stormed into her resolve to ask Jason what the hell was wrong with him. He was laying on the bed again, towel on but falling, phone in hand. She thought her anger was so loud that it silenced the room, but something else had drained out all the sound. Heavy air stopped her mid-step; it was Jason’s breath. He wasn’t laying down. He was dead. 

After the autopsy had confirmed the stroke, after the air had been cleared and the body buried, the stone in her stomach remained. His phone was turned off but on it lay the messages that had caused Nellie to pause that morning. 

He was leaving her – he had been fucking her step-sister. And the bitch had miscarried the day he died.