Iron

Dust lit like gold flakes throughout the room in vertical lightbeams.

Through the slightly open double doors of the back porch, the sun fought its way in. Sheer drapes welcomed it, swaying gently in the wind. One corner was snagged on a chipped wood panel, a few strands pulled loose, forming wrinkles in mismatched patterns.

Maria walked slowly, taking in the rippling light that moved in waves, like dancing to an unheard song. The air smelled like iron. Or copper. She couldn’t say which.

She brushed a hand over the high bar on her right. Her fingers came away dusty. Wiping them on her palm, her broken nail caught on a loose thread in her dress, unraveling a little more of the tear already forming.

Ahead, the reading chair was empty.

A book lay at its feet, open down the middle. Its pages swayed in the breeze.

A glass of red wine had spilled onto the white carpet. The stain seemed to grow slowly.

To her left, in front of the white couch, a burning candle flickered.

She moved toward it, picked it up, and blew it out.

The label read:

petrichor — for the woman who knows what she wants.

It still smelled like iron to her.

She gathered the two cups and dumped them in the sink.

Then she turned, drawn by the sound of seagulls, and stepped outside.

Dusk was creeping in. The light shifted, soft and uncertain.

The sea looked troubled, foaming at the close shore.

Beyond the first rippling waves, she saw her — face down, body limp.

Maria rushed across the cooling sand, tore off her dress, and dove headfirst into the water.

She swam as fast as she could, limbs burning, lungs straining. Still, she fought against the waves and cursed the cold that crept into her bones.

The body wasn’t moving.

Arms and legs were spread wide, like a child making snow angels in ice-cold water.

When she reached her, Maria turned her over to see her face.

The girl burst into laughter, forgetting to tread water, and pulled Maria under with her.

She did this all the time. Faked drowning.

She was a good swimmer. Not as good as Maria, but good enough.

It was their thing.

Their come save me thing.

And Maria did. Every time.

Large, heavy raindrops began falling, blinding them with saltwater.

The storm they had been expecting finally came.

Faster and meaner than it should have been.

They ran out of the water, naked and shivering, and dashed back to the beach house.

They jumped onto the wooden deck to shake the sand from their feet. The sunbaked floorboards creaked with disuse.

Maria stopped first, laughter whipped off with the sand.

“You spilled wine on the white rug,” she said and sighed, opening the door wide enough for them both.

“I had to dodge the bullet, didn’t I?”

“You’ll have to clean it up. It’s gonna smell like stale alcohol all weekend. You know I hate that shit,” Maria said, pulling the door almost shut behind them. She left a crack open, just enough to hear the rain.

“Fine. Oh, you blew out the candle? Why? I thought you liked that smell.”

“I do. But that shit smells like blood,” she said, turning and heading for the upstairs bedroom. Her feet dragged wet sand across the carpet.

“Blood. Smells like blood, Maria.”

She didn’t respond.

She rushed, teeth chattering, to the room she’d dropped her luggage in and climbed straight into the tub, running the tap with herself already inside.

She tried to detangle her brittle hair but gave up when her arms started aching. Instead, she hugged her knees and waited, letting the hot water rise high enough to cover her.

The door opened behind her, quietly, as if asking permission.

She turned her head, chin resting on her shoulder.

“I take it this is the only tub?”

“No. But I wanted to talk to you about what we do now,” the woman said. She hadn’t opened the door all the way, and her voice was soft beyond it.

“Then join me,” Maria said.

She did.

And together, the tub filled faster, warming Maria’s strained body.

She kept hugging her knees and didn’t let them go until the water covered her completely.

Then she stretched her legs out along the left side of the tub, leaving the right side free.

“Do you have any gin?” Maria asked. “It’s been ages since the girls and I went out for a wild night. Maybe we can have a drink, gossip, play some Rummikub?”

The bath bomb she’d found under the sink had done its job, and Maria relaxed in the dark red water. She rubbed shampoo into her hair, knowing she was about to hear a whole speech about girls’ night.

“I’d like that,” was what she heard instead.

No mention of the refused invitations. No excuses. No reminders about canceled plans over the past months. Just that.

She knew.

Of course she did.

“So you do have gin?” Maria continued, unbothered by the shift in dynamic.

“I might. If we can find it.”

She washed her short violet hair and stepped out of the tub, splashing soapy water across the tile.

“I’ll go look. Join me when you’re… decent,” she added, giggling like a schoolgirl — just like she had when they were fifteen and nineteen.

Maria always running after her.

Always chasing the big girls’ club.

She finished rinsing her hair and washed away the soap, the sand, the cold. She dressed in whatever felt warmest.

Downstairs, the candle had been lit again.

Two glasses waited on the table, filled to the brim. A sliver of sand-dried lime floated in each, a green olive perched on a toothpick.

“This is the best I could do,” she said, holding one out. “The gin’s watered down because we don’t have any tonic. And the lime… probably a month old. I found it on the top shelf of the fridge.”

“And the olive?”

“I thought it looked fancy. You used to like fancy.”

“I do. Thank you,” Maria said, and joined her on the couch.

The Rummikub set sat open on the table, two boards already angled toward opposite sides of the couch. A game had been started.

Maria took hold of her two piles — she was first — and began arranging them on her board.

The rain tapped against the windows in a soft, beautiful rhythm, a stark contrast to the warmth of her body wrapped in dry clothes. A blanket had been left for her, and she draped it over her shoulders with one hand while laying down two perfect runs.

A red seven through twelve.

A full twelve set in mixed colors.

She held double ones in black and red, and a spare black seven, which she placed neatly between her other tiles. That left her with two random pieces, which she set on the table beside her board, hidden from curious eyes.

It had been years since the last time she’d arranged something so carefully.

She hadn’t even realized how much she’d missed it.

She placed the black seven down, raised her glass to clink against the other, and waited for her turn.

When it came, she picked up a tile, but before she could look at it, her board slipped and fell face-first, scattering pieces onto the floor.

Maria leaned down to gather them, but paused when her hand was taken and held.

“Leave it.”

Maria looked up.

The woman holding her hand had been part of her childhood, her early rebellious phase, the girl who had been just a few feet away in the other room the night Maria lost her virginity.

She froze.

The hand holding hers was clammy and warm. A second hand covered it, gently. A knot began to form in her throat.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” the woman asked.

Because I never wanted you to look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.

Because I was afraid.

Because you were already married when I finally understood.

“What?” Maria said quietly. “That I was in love with you since the first time we met, twenty years ago? Or that I’m dying?”

The woman laughed, and her red-rimmed eyes brimmed with tears. She’d been holding it in long enough.

Maria wanted to spare her more suffering.

“Both,” she said.

“What difference would it make? Now or then?”

“I don’t know. Probably no difference now, since you…”

The tears fell freely. They gathered on her lips, and she licked them away.

Maria didn’t answer. She didn’t see the point.

She had weeks — months, if she were unlucky. This continuous torture served no one. Least of all her.

She squeezed the woman’s hand and looked up, searching her eyes.

“I’m here now,” she said, trying to smile. Trying to lift the mood.

“I know. Thank you,” the woman said, finally pulling one hand away and wiping her face with her shirt, snot and all.

“I know you are. Seriously… I didn’t think you’d come. After all this time.”

“How could I not? You were crying.”

When she recovered her hand, the tile was still clutched in it.

She turned it over.

A joker.

***

Maria lost the game. Again.

And after finishing the bottle of gin, they fell asleep on the couch.

In the morning, the storm had passed.

They swam in the cold sea, shivering and cursing as they walked farther and farther from shore.

When they got back, both their lips were blue, mirroring the skin around the woman’s left eye and along her throat.

They took another hot bath.

Ate two cans of tuna.

Found a bottle of red wine.

Read for a while in silence.

Come nightfall, Maria stood in the doorway.

The woman hesitated just outside.

“Let me stay with you,” she pleaded.

“What on earth for? You need to go. Be as far away as possible. Across state lines, preferably.”

“Maria,” she begged, hand outstretched.

Maria took it. Held it. Kissed it. And pushed her away.

“Go.”

She went.

***

Inside, the iron smell grew with every second Maria breathed.

The petrichor candle, still lit on the living room table, did nothing to change the acrid scent of day-old blood seeping into the floorboards, dripping from the kitchen tile.

The open space didn’t help. It just let the stink spread faster.

She sat on the couch, pulled open the bottle of pills she’d fought hard to procure, and emptied them all into her wine glass.

It would take a while.

She opened all the windows. The double doors. Left only the front door closed. And waited.

The air felt cleaner. She took a few ragged breaths, tried to reread the same passage she’d been stuck on for hours.

She gave up.

Let the book fall, spine up, pages spread.

She took the glass and drank it in one go.

No hesitation.

She’d waited long enough.

Gently, almost afraid to make a mistake, she picked up the lit petrichor candle and walked to the window.

She set fire to the drapes, the sheer iridescent ones.

Then the blankets on the couch.

Then she walked over to the kitchen and placed the candle on Gregory’s chest.

The son of a bitch still had a smirk.

Even dead for two days.

So she picked the candle back up and set it near his hair.

It caught instantly.

The smell was intolerable. She rushed up the stairs to escape it.

Halfway up, her vision blurred. Her steps faltered. The candle slipped from her hand.

She fell — in fractions and fragments.

Was her friend far enough?

Would the cops question why the other woman in the house was a childhood friend?

Would the mention of an affair hold, if they were the only two in the house?

She hoped it would.

It was the best idea she’d had.

Take the fall for the murder.

Even though she’d arrived just as Gregory pulled the gun on her friend.

She’d jumped in without thinking. They both had.

There was screaming. Scratching. Blood.

They fought him together.

And in the end, the asshole wife-beater died. Shot in the throat.

Maria didn’t know who pulled the trigger. Him or her.

But he was dead.

And the marks on her friend’s body made her glad for it.

And now it was her turn.

***

The house was burning.

Flames licked at the open windows, and one exploded as she watched.

She jumped, heart racing.

She couldn’t move.

Her husband and her best friend were in there.

Dead and dying.

Because of her.

Because she’d stayed when she should have left.

Before. And even now.

She couldn’t leave him.

She watched as the flames devoured the beach house he’d bought her.

Just before the first fist started to fall.

And she laughed.

She picked up her phone and called 911.

When a woman answered, she said:

“Hello, this is Giorgia Malone. I’d like to report a murder.

Two, actually.”