The Halo of the Blue Moon

Marcia stood at the big living room window. She stared at the blue halo moon. It would slowly rolled in the frosty sky. There was a dead stillness in the other room. Blue moonlight reflected on sheets of snow that blanketed each yard. His body still, under a blanket in their marital bed. She walked to the other side of the living room. 

She looked through the glass doors, to the deck, at the silent stillness of her property. The pines lined the roadside blocking the view but not completely blocking the sound of any traffic.  

It was the blueness of the night that soaked into the glistening snow and reflected onto her face. Marcia could feel the heartbeat of the long-haired chihuahua cradled in her left hand and whose skull she stroked with her right. She stared out the window at the icy stillness noticing the moon occupied a new part of the sky. Everything was so calm that time seemed to stand still. The only movement Marcia felt was small dog’s heartbeat. 

It may have been few minutes or perhaps just seconds. Then, Marcia took a deep warm breath. She noticed the window fogged up just there and blocked her view, flipping her mind back into the present. She held the small dog a little closer. She cupped the dog’s head in her right hand. She rubbed the dog’s hair from its eyes. Looking the tiny dog in its face, she finally smiled. 

She returned to the bedroom. Her husband’s corpse still there. She thought how she had grown so tired of his self-pity. She could not tolerate his complaining. Marcia tried to avoid him these last few days. When he needed help with the feeding tube, she cringed. She could not bring herself to touch him. Not then, not now. 

She hated what he did to her life. He ruined it. He no longer cooked. He was preoccupied by the tube he had to pour liquid nutrients into that attached to his abdomen and his nausea. She would order her meals and sit at the counter in the kitchen. The odor wafted through the house of fries, or cumin-soaked meat and the cinnamon laced apple pastries or chocolaty temptations, torturing his existence. 

She despised his shame. Marcia was most intolerant of the havoc it reeked on her social life. Most of their friends were distanced after his diagnosis. He was always so perfect never ill, never a hair out of place. His vanity suffered horribly as did his physical body.  

The feeding tube was the breaking point. It was the mark of defeat to him. He was disgusted and ashamed by his own physical state. He became depressed. Marcia viewed the tube as weakness and hoped it was temporary. She needed everything to return to the way it was before his sickness.  

Marcia was crumpled in an oversized armchair when he returned from driving himself to treatment last month. He saw her head convulsing as she sobbed. He approached her chair, concerned about her crying. She screamed and shouted. The holidays were approaching and they would be isolated.  

Phone conversations did not go the way Marcia expected. As she called one person after another, she complained of her suffering. He was always in a bad mood, he angered easily. Then, people just had enough of her selfish heartlessness. She looked forward to visiting their homes hoping to be consoled. 

Since her husband had the feeding tube callers asked Marcia how her husband would eat his holiday meals. She would reply that he could wait in the laundry room with the dogs or watch television in the family room while they dined. Her husband might even stay home because of the feeding tube.  

She craved company and attention, but everything shifted to reflect his crisis and his suffering. This made him withdraw more. It enraged Marcia. He did not want anyone to know about the feeding tube, at first. Marcia convinced him to let her share the news. She feared losing all her friends. She wanted them to console her.  

Stunned by Marcia’s callous responses and lack of empathy every invitation was rescinded, infuriating Marcia. Each time the excuse seemed less and less believable. There she sat in the soggy armchair, drowning in self-pity.  

There would be no festivities. He robbed her of that. He took her model lifestyle. The pedestal she put them on was knocked over. Lost in her own self-absorbed world, she did not see the pain in his face, as she went into a rant only to end up crumpled into that same chair, where he found her. She wept all afternoon. 

Everyone was sympathetic to his tragic situation. They cared more about his condition and how he was coping than with her crisis. Since he could not take out the garbage, cook or shop she had to go around asking neighbors, friends, and anyone with whom they had an established relationship for aid. Out of respect for her husband many of them helped. The lawn care worker rolled the garbage to the curb. After the second week, when she told him that he needs to work faster, he doubled his price. They took her orders and watched as her husband and their own tolerance faded. 

She loved the attention but now most people distanced themselves at the inconvenient embarrassment of seeing her husband’s shame and then there was her barking orders at them. No one understood why he tolerated her mistreatment. 

They seemed like the perfect couple from the start. Two tall fit blonde teenagers, they married and lived happily ever after, Marcia thought. She smirked to herself. If only they knew the truth. 

It was the summer of junior year at a huge party and Marcia allowed the neighbor girl to convince her to go. Once there, it was obvious that everyone from both senior and junior year were in attendance. The party spilt out onto the yard. Marcia and her neighbor friend got themselves pushed to the back of the house into a kitchen and then out the back door.  

Marcia was tired and wanted to sit down. There were kids everywhere. No one spoke to either of them. It was a bit boring. There was no place to sit on the back porch. She decided to hop up and sit on the thick plank railing. She overshot the railing and landed in the thick shrubs on top of two half-dressed tanned teenage boys. She had a confused look on her face, but the boys had a horrified look on each of their faces.  

A moment frozen in time. The three sat in the shadow of the shrubs. As the boys tugged their own clothing back into place, he lowered his voice as he told Marcia that she did not see anything. She recognized both and glancing away she nodded in agreement They were varsity athletes. Both were popular seniors. It took her a moment to understand what she saw. Amazed that no one even realized that she had fallen off the porch, she crawled to the side of the house through boxwood shrubs before crawling out of the bushes leaving the boys where she found them. 

It was the 1960’s. It was a small town. It started as a friendship with a popular boy. She was the only girl who knew his secret. She was loyal, she kept his secret. It led to a favor as a prom date. This jettisoned Marcia into ridiculous popularity as a junior in high school “dating” a handsome popular senior. She loved the attention. It just made sense to not disappoint their devout parents and they ended up married. 

Marcia believed she could change him. She could not. Inside she was dying of jealousy. She wanted a family. Her friends had families. She wanted the intimacy and affection. Her friends had amazing relationships. She buried her secret deeper. She had his guilt and fear but not his passion. That would have to be enough. 

Their careers led to wealth but not happiness. Marcia hoped to evoke the jealousy she felt. She was so lonely and became self-absorbed. No one could tolerate her besides the husband for whom she abandoned her happiness. 

She was young in those days and now at almost eighty years of age, she realized what she had given up. She realized what she lost. To preserve the admiration and jealousy of others she stayed in a sham of a relationship. She was so naïve. She was not true to her own self. She gave up being happy. She thought he would love her, the way she loved him. She spent so much time on living a lie. 

He spent so much energy worrying and defending the lie he was living. Her husband eventually realized when many people expressed how lucky Marcia was to have him, and she loved that attention. He realized she would not jeopardize that envy. She loved making people jealous. He was safe.  

That was the time he was diagnosed. A new struggle began. Marcia walked away from him during his illness. She could not stand next to him. When she fell ill, he was by her side the whole time. Her friends came to visit and marveled at his devotion.  

After he retired, he spent more time “at his office” which was nothing more than a converted garage in a rural part of town. His boys had magnetic swipe keys that unlocked the back door. Behind the old garage was a parking lot big enough for ten cars. There were couches, cots and pull-out beds for the guys to have their fun. They spent their time enjoying each other’s company the freedom to be themselves. Often, they recalled that it was thanks to Marcia. At that point, Marcia had not yet realized her husband was discreetly living his real life while she was living an empty lie. And the worst part, no one cared. 

His corpse in bed. Marcia walked around the bedroom not looking in his direction. She now realized that she would have to do something. She needs to call someone. How would a normal wife of 55 years of marriage act. She would not know.  

She picked up her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. She was crying because she was scared. She reported a death. She explained how the body in bed was cold. He must have been dead for hours. The operator said she needed Marcia to perform CPR. No there was no way Marica could do that.  

The operator was insistent. She asked Marcia if she had a family member or neighbor wo could help. Marcia was thinking of the neighbor an OR nurse. No, Marcia thought she could not allow a stranger into the room. She could not admit that to the operator. She lied to the operator she could not think of anyone. There were no family members.  

The operator told her she must do it. His body must be put on the floor. She must start compressions. Marcia pushed his body to the floor. She had to get in bed and push him with her feet. He was large and she was not a muscular person. He was on his side. Rigor Ortis had set in. Hi body was not only cold but stiff. She had then gotten out of bed and come around his side of the bed.  

Marcia stood over his body. She heard the operator state that EMS was on its way. She stared at the corpse. Strange it should end this way. She thought that being void of love and affection, she would die first. Marcia heard the operator ask if she was still on the line. She did not answer but started to cry. Marcia knew if she answered, the operator would tell her to start compressions and Marcia could not. 

Hearing her crying, the operator reassured Marcia the ambulance was on the way. Marcia walked out of the bedroom, clutching her cell phone at her side. The big picture window in the living room was glowing with light from the blue halo of the moon. It was like a masterpiece. She stood staring at the view noticing the wall of pines with branches crowned in snow standing guard on her property line. The view was beautiful and serene. The bright blue halo wrapped around that full moon reflected on the fresh snow. 

Opening the front door, Marcia stopped living the lie. She got a chill down her spine. Was it the frosty air or the new beginning she was to about to embark on? She was not sure. Marcia, impatient for the ambulance to remove the dead lie from her residence, slightly hesitated as she walked onto the blanket of fresh snow crunching under the hard bottom of her shearling slippers. For the first time in Marcia’s long life, she ventured out on her own in the halo of blue moonlight.