Return to Splendor

When Tara thought of snow, she saw blood. So silly. Obviously they were nothing alike: One red, one white, one warm, one cold, but beyond there was purity in each, a basic component, a reduction of things to their elemental nature that made them similar. 

And to think it was that ridiculous fight she’d gotten into with Hank and Linda - Hank, hubby of ten years and Linda, best friend from high school - that led to this moment: hand on the frozen brass door knob, staring out the window at the winter diorama that had been laid down overnight, her heart pounding in her chest, sweat beading on her brow, hands clammy on the chilled metal. All of this caused by one little misunderstanding, and now - ridiculous! - she found herself absolutely horrified about stepping out onto that unbroken blanket of ermine, terrified that somehow she would sink into it and keep sinking, the earth would swallow her up.

I’m being punished. Now that was a ridiculous thought.

Tara stood at the front door of the 150-year-old farmhouse for a full ten minutes, hand cramping on the cold doorknob. It was late November and the storm that had come to Echo, Utah, during the night had laid down three foot snowdrifts and flocked the cottonwoods and high desert Juniper with fluffy limbs of cotton, but now it was sunny and the morning light shone golden on the gemstone surface of the snow, reflecting glitter-sun and snowbeams.

When she’d found Hank and Linda together, she’d returned home a day early from a week-long haul to New York to deliver a load for Walmart. The funny thing was, she’d wanted to surprise Hank, figured she’d treat him to a nice dinner and then give him the loving he’d been missing, but instead, she opened the front door to the sounds of her best friend fucking her husband (and she’d known immediately who it was.) Of course it had broken her heart, and she’d stood there, in the exact same spot she was standing now, crying silently for five minutes before she steeled herself and decided to confront both of them.

They were really going at it. It was painful to hear Hank moan like he’d never moaned for her; full throated and hoarse.

What made her most sad was that she’d understood why Hank was lonely. Having a trucker for a wife wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to deal with. She was gone for weeks at a time, so she got it. And she’d known. Hell, she’d even given him permission to have a lover, as long as he didn’t leave her over it. But this? This was something altogether different.

When she’d had enough, she slipped off her shoes and walked quietly to the back room, her socks keeping her steps quiet on the warped and faded hardwood. The sound of Hank and Linda escalated as she drew closer, and the louder they got the more she wanted to puke. Sounded like Linda was getting close to orgasm (or was faking it the bitch) and the thought made her face go red and fury boil inside of her.

No fucking way.That was one thing she couldn’t allow.

She sighed. It had been really hard, the hardest thing she’d ever done. She wondered what they were up to now.

But that was then, this was now, and now, now she really needed to open the door - be brave girl - and take that step out. She had her snow boots on with the faux fur and leather, rated to twenty below, so her little toesies would stay nice and toasty warm, no need to worry about that, but sweet Jeezus she really didn’t want to do it.

Blood, there’d been so much blood…

Tana squeezed the cold doorknob, her sweaty palms chilling her skin even more. It must have been ten below zero out there, and the cold transmitted through the mechanics of the knob, making her bones ache, sending little jolts of agony up her forearm to her elbow. 

Without even thinking, her hand rotated the door handle and she was pulling it open, a wave of icy air billowing into her cozy warm house, washing over her, a shock to the brain, a jolt, an explosion, sending a deep shiver through her core and drawing instant water to her wavering blue eyes. 

She had her hands around Linda’s neck, and her face was turning blue and spit was slobbering out her mouth and running in sheets down and off her chin as she choked the life out of her and she had never felt anything that felt so amazing and pure and delicious. 

She stopped at the edge of the snow, level with her front porch, the four steps leading to the lawn completely buried by the white. It was so quiet and still and peaceful, serene in the way that only desert snowstorms can bring. Every few seconds a clump would break loose from the cottonwoods and crash in muffled thumps to the deep snow below. She smiled and drew in a long breath, the chilled air cooling her lungs. It helped to calm her. Her heart was slowing, her breathing measured and even.

You got this girl. Hashtag bossbabe.

With tears freezing on her eyelids, she stepped down into the snow, sinking up to her thighs, drawing a quiet cry of shock and delight. A silent shiver tickled her spine.

Hank was lying on the floor beside the bed - the bed they’d been fucking in - his back full of dark ragged holes pouring terminal streams of blood and he was moaning quietly and his lungs were rattling like deflated balloons.

She plunged forward into the snow, giggling, drawing her arms around her chest as she waded towards the street. Oh this isn’t so bad, so silly that I let such a little thing get to me. Then, spontaneously, she threw her arms out and whirled around, spinning in circles, a child reborn, laughing and taking delight in the snow. This is great. 

But then she stopped.

Oh Hank, dear Linda, why did it come to this?

You goddamned cheating motherfucker, she’d said as she brought the knife - his father’s bowie knife - into his back. She’d only intended to confront them, scream at them, humiliate them, but as she opened the door to the bedroom she spotted the knife lying on the bookshelf just inside and grabbed it, a spontaneous act, and by the time she reached the edge of the bed, she was shaking and almost blind with rage. The fact that Hank and Linda just kept on fucking even though the goddamned door squeaked as she opened it brought her to the edge of madness. So the knife had come down and she’d screamed, pouring all her unexpected fury into the blow.

She wondered what they were up to now, if they were still together, if they were happy.

She saw their faces as she tossed dirt, pebbles, leaves into their shared grave, the rocky loam scattering across their shocked final expressions. Linda wore her death with a stretched, contorted grimace of terror on her blue-black skin, a ghastly sight. Linda had always been the beautiful one - likely why Hank was seemingly enjoying himself so thoroughly, she’d seen his long looks before - but now she looked awful, a gray shell of what used to be a human. And her friend. 

She’d kept shoveling the dirt until the grave was filled, then tossed rocks and Juniper branches all over it, hiding it. Snow drifted down, silent flakes cascading heaven-sent feathers, only a few fitful flakes at first, then growing into a full-bodied flurry as the sun bled towards dusk, illuminating the growing storm in a desert glow of purples and reds. She kept shoveling until their bodies were covered, naked and twisted with one another, a final embrace in a black hole beneath Pilot Peak. By the time she got back to her house it was past midnight and the snow was coming down in smothering flurries and a foot had accumulated on what had been dry ground that morning.

“I killed them,” she said, standing in the snow, shivering. She’d never said it out loud. She looked around her. No one was out.

A small tremor of pain bloomed a rose in her heart. She didn’t often acknowledge what she’d done. The fact was, she had gotten away with it - at least for the time being. Apparently all of Echo knew they’d been having an affair, so when she announced that she’d caught the two of them and that Hank had left her for Linda, well, no one was at all surprised. And no one doubted her when she said they had apparently run off together to some sunnier climate - California maybe! 

Neither had any close living relatives, Hank had always been a damned homebody and Linda and Tana didn’t need anybody but each other. She felt a pang over that one.

Regardless, everyone seemed to buy it, and she was never questioned.

I killed them, she thought. It was only the third time in the last year she’d admitted it. I killed them both.

She shivered. A large clump of snow fell from the massive cottonwood lining her yard, and bombarded her with a shower of dry powder, pouring over her in a mini-avalanche, knocking her to her knees until she was half buried by the stuff. She burst out of it screaming in pain and shock from the cold. 

She glared at the tree, as if it had done it on purpose.

She looked around again to see if any of the neighbors had heard her scream, suddenly suspicious about what they knew, suddenly feeling their eyes - and their judgment - on her, but as she whipped about, looking this way and that, she saw no one. They had enough good sense to keep inside.

She’d dragged them out of the house around 5:30 p.m. It was dark, but even then, enough folks were up and about to convince her she was going to get caught, there simply was no way a 120 pound woman was going to be able to haul two dead bodies - one weighing 200 pounds - all the way to her Jeep. No way. Yet she had been working long haul for close to a decade and a half, and she’d become a wiry ball of muscle and sinew and surprised herself by not only dragging both through the snow to the SUV, but also lifting them into it as well.

Once she had the bodies in her Jeep, she drove a hundred yards to the outskirts of town, where a single lane dirt road led towards E-Hill and Pilot Peak. Beyond these two buttes lay a wilderness of desert forest, miles and miles of brush, pinyon and juniper forests. No one would find them out there, not ever. There was nothing out there.

She shook the snow out of her hair, watching it fall in a shower of powder, catching a ray of golden sun on its descent, shining, twinkling as it fell.

Something that always stuck with her about that horrible day: When she’d been murdering Hank and Linda, the song ‘Return to Sender’ was stuck on a continuous loop in her head, but for some strange reason it kept coming out as ‘Return to splendor’ instead, and she’d been thinking about this as she plunged the knife six inches into her dying husband’s back as Linda sat shaking on the bed, the sheets drawn up around her, hiding her nudity, as if that mattered.

“Return to splendah,” she whispered, shivering, the cold starting to get to her now. In the distance, she could hear a car creeping slowly, cautiously down the road. “Return to splendah…” Her voice drifted off.

It had been a year since she’d killed them, and no one had doubted her. She spent the first few weeks unable to sleep, tormented by nightmares, paranoid, almost delusional. She’d argued with strangers over the most trivial things and withdrew from speaking with friends. After the weeks had turned to months she began to relax. She was surprised. Tara hadn’t actually expected to get away with it.

She sat on the floor next to Hank’s body, crying. Linda was growing cold on the bed, eyes staring at the ceiling. The house was silent. She’d never heard such a profound silence before. She was in shock. Half an hour ago she’d been pulling into the driveway, happy to be home, excited to see her man. Sure things had changed over time, but she believed in him, she believe in them, they could get through anything together. They’d already weathered so many storms.

And now Hank was dead. What was she going to do? 

Oddly, her mindset changed after that. A strange sort of existential haze had come over her, and even as she stripped the lovers naked and wrapped them in visqueen, even as she cleaned up the gallons of Hank’s blood, even as she avoided looking at the dead stare of her best friend, even as she dragged both of them to the front door to await transport in her Jeep, the idea that she’d had anything to do with their current states was gone - vanished - from her mind. No, she was taking out the garbage, only this garbage needed to be buried.

A guttural sound caught her eye and she turned to the sky to see a flock - was it a murder? - of ravens thirty strong flying from east to west, making a cacophonous noise as they headed towards North Flattop Mountain. It's not a murder, that's for crows. This was a - conspiracy.

It was over. The charade was ending.

Something in the snow told her. Something in the cold air was shocking her with the knowledge that while she believed she’d successfully avoided paying the dues for her actions, that wasn’t true. She couldn’t say how she knew this, only that it was true.

She hung her head.

“Hey neighbor, how you doing over there?” A man's resonant voice broke the still morning air, and Tara jumped, gasped, and fell over in the snow, shocked by his unexpected arrival. She plunged into the snowbank and when she came up gasping and sputtering and flailing, her neighbor Joe - he of the startling voice - was running, wading to come to her aid. He grabbed her gloved hand and pulled her to her feet.

“You OK there Tara?” Joe said, laughing and brushing the snow from her shoulders. Joe was a sweet guy, in his 70s, a widower with thinning silver hair slicked back over a witch’s peak. He wore a thin mustache that reminded her of Clark Gable, except he was the country version, dressed in denim overalls and a fleece shirt buttoned to his neck and wrists. His bright blue eyes stared at her with intense concern.

“I’m fine Joe, really,” she said, laughing. Her face was beet red and she she just couldn’t make eye contact with him, no matter how hard she tried.

He watched her, and as she avoided his gaze he remained silent. She could feel him scrutinizing her face, seeking answers, and it made her want to scream.

“Tara?” He said, and he put a firm, kind hand on her shoulder.

“What is it Joe? I’m kind of having a -” She couldn’t get the words out, it was like she was choking on them, they stuck in her throat, the lie was jammed in there, and she knew she’d die if she tried to get it out. 

It’s over.

Her body went still, calm, her breathing deepened, measured and suddenly she found she could look him in the eye, but as she did so, she caught a glimpse behind him, towards the road. It really was over. A Ford Explorer dressed in the livery of the Washington County Sheriff was slowly crawling down the road towards her house, lights flashing.

She shuddered. 

It’s over.

“I need to tell you something,” she said, looking Joe dead in the eye. He nodded.

“I know,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears.

“You do?” she said, shocked.

He nodded again.

“Of course I do,” he said grimly. “I’m no fool Tara.”

“I know you’re not,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I still think you’re a good woman,” he said. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this.”

The sheriff pulled to a stop in front of her house. She and Joe looked at it, looked back at each other. She heard the doors open.

“Thank you,” she said, then turned to look at the two burly deputies trudging through the snow, their hands on their holsters. 

“Tara Edison,” one of the men said as they ran towards her, his eyes like a shark fixated on prey, “You are under arrest for the murder of Hank Edison and Linda Mars.”

She looked down at her legs, half-buried in the snow. 

It was so cold.