Winter Squall

WINTER SQUALL

Eugene tormented his wife and daughter. He sniped at them day and night. He was a 58 year old fortress of fear and doubt behind the walls of which he sniped at them all day and all night. His ammunition was their trust and love. The more they loved him and danced around him on eggshells the deeper his assorted grievances against them lodged in the horizontal crevices that lined his forehead and the folds of his double chin.. He was a closet miser who gave to charity only in an effort to purge the rot and darkness from his soul. The scant light that shown in his eyes was avarice and the mental wheels that planned his gains and others’ losses.  

Being germ-phobic Eugene didn’t shake hands. He threw his right elbow up in place of his hand and asked you to grab that. His attention span lasted only as long as it took for him to get his way and not a second longer. There was a friendship insinuated in his voice which turned sour and vaguely menacing almost imperceptibly. He hated you at first and then, if you didn’t disrupt him or somehow challenge his grandiose opinion of himself, the hate mellowed to dislike, and then to a grudging tolerance which was as human as he got. For a sense of where his head or mood was at, you checked his wallet and account balances. He was neither tall nor short, fat nor thin, young nor hold, alive nor dead.  

His daughter fled and his wife succumbed. The former got married and moved away before it was too late, cutting off all contact. That was 12 years ago. She had a few children and they never came to visit; never was their car seen traversing the long driveway up to the house set back high above the main road or their children’s laughter heard in the high-ceilinged hallways and great rooms of the gothic style mansion. Against all odds, she realized that the palatial home of her parents would consume her and bleed her heart dry. Headaches every day and terrible prolonged periods told her something was wrong, something fundamental, and that her life was at stake. She saw well the disquieting signs that her mother suffered daily, deeply and seemingly without recourse. Mother gained weight then lost it, then gained more and a few months later got skinny. She went to the doctor all the time. Her hair thinned and her eyes seemed to bulge. The frequent pill popping was obvious even as she denied that anything was the matter.

The young lady looked into her dad’s vacant eyes and realized what it was. He hoarded everyone’s love and good energy for himself. Into his vault of vanities went their cares, hopes and dreams where they swished around with his own juices and gases to form a kind of rancid effervescence that was difficult to detect but impossible to miss. He offered in return fine china, expensive crystal, sterling cutlery, fancy cars and affluence. On the living room shelves and in Eugene’s study stood fine filigreed collectibles and impressive religious ornaments that reflected back his handsome face which he admired and never once missed when he walked past. 

Mother eventually collapsed: spiritually, physically, completely. Poor Sharon, still young, twelve years Eugene’s junior yet brought to the very brink. The timing made plain the cause. She was shattered by the loss of her daughter, her abrupt departure and the bitter isolation and loneliness left in her wake. She could hardly look at Eugene’s closely shaven face anymore without losing her composure. His icy caked-on faux smile had a reptilian aspect that gave her the shivers.

Eugene didn't talk to his wife so much as as sizzle or hiss at Sharon like a coiled snake in the grass preparing to pounce. She experienced panic attacks some mornings after he left for work and, when he returned from work, and tried to talk to him, she almost swallowed her tongue biting back honest thoughts and words - the kind that bruised his fragile ego and kindled jealousy because they were real and someone else’s, because he didn't give her permission to have a life, or opinions, or tastes, and never would so long as they remained alive and married.

Her diagnosis was 'neurodegenerative illness, etiology uncertain.' The doctors were flummoxed, but that's how it is with the withering physical effects of chronic emotional abuse: no apparent cause, no cure, just head scratching, deep sincere looks at the patient and palliatives. Confined to a wheelchair, Sharon came to require 24 hour care. Her hair turned a ghostly white and her fingers froze in place. Her periods stopped and her teeth turned gray. Her eyes focus and her mind seems to work but when she tries to speak what comes out is a weak guttural effort reminiscent of a whale with a hangover . 

Sharon loved her daughter in the worst way, but it was a bleak love, fraught, hedged inside Eugene’s massive and domineering insecurity, and now physically separated by her departure, which kept asking: is it my fault she left? How did this happen? Is Eugene really that bad? She knew that he was but her mind played tricks on her, alternating between hyper-alertness and despondency, like a traffic light flashing green and red. Her parched soul saw in Eugene the mirage of an oasis of love and support that she crawled towards for a drink that never came. She had normalized so much fear she couldn’t think straight. The prospect of facing him all alone every day without an ally wrecked her poise and decimated her immune system. She had nowhere to turn. Their son took after his father and was no help. He was off at school getting a Masters anyway. From her wheelchair Sharon wondered in her lucid moments what would become of her and how long she could survive like this.  

Eugene was not the least fazed by the state of his family. To the contrary, his daughter gone, dead and gone, basically, since he didn’t miss her, after Sharon went down he doubled-down on his charitable giving and grew his name in the philanthropic community. They were invited to all kinds of balls, banquets and openings. He was named Executive Vice President at his financial services firm. New clients poured in. He went from having six figures under management to eight in a couple of years. Everything was on the upswing. He seemed unstoppable. As Sharon sank he soared. 

The disability insurance policies he purchased for Sharon some years prior for just such a contingency seemed downright prophetic. They paid out considerably more than the cost of her care. Such business acumen combined with prescience in the care and service of a spouse was indeed rare. The Black and Filipino care-givers who pulled round the clock twelve hour shifts taking care of her wouldn’t miss being paid properly if he paid them in cash, so that’s what Eugene did. Sharon’s medicines were covered anyway by Medicare, so he double dipped there as well. The insurance checks arrived in his mail box like clockwork, two or three a month, which he duly deposited and set to work figuring out how to put the money to work, for himself.

The recent turn of events left Eugene quite pleased. He quietly congratulated himself on a job well done and combed back his dyed black hair in each of the several mirrors around the house. He smiled easily and developed a bit of a skip in his step. Success oozed from every pour. His son was coming along nicely as well. Having finished graduate school at a fine university, Peter settled down with a wife and some children of his own. He had his father’s black eyes that expressed various degrees of disdain alternating with insecurity and feigned surprise. He didn’t trust anyone. He bought a house even nicer than his father’s and a gun to protect it. He reinforced his father’s complaints about the breakdown of decent society and his asinine neighbors. The neighbors really hadn’t done anything except water their grass and take care of their flowers and landscaping, which beautified their properties. No matter what Eugene did to take care of his lawn and landscaping, or how much time or money he spent on yard maintenance, no flowers grew and the grass turned yellow and died. 

Peter didn’t worry much about his sister or mother. He had precious little interest or insight into why one left and the other got so sick. As mother got worse, he visited her occasionally and always with the wife and children in tow so he didn’t have to be left alone with her. He was mostly busy running a business and building his fortune. His name spread in his field. His three little kids had to be driven here and there and entertained. Mostly his frazzled wife did that while he worked. Already their oldest, a 6 year old son, began to develop the entitled arrogance and subtle sneer of father and grandfather. He routinely threw elaborate tantrums when he wasn’t the center of everyone’s attention, which led his parents to redouble their efforts to make him the center of attention.. Grandfather Eugene approved of the boy’s moxy. He had a generation skipping trust drawn up to avoid paying taxes, that rewarded the boy but threw crumbs at his sisters. It was not personal against the girls; they just reminded him viscerally of his ungrateful daughter and wife.  

One night in mid winter Sharon dreamed that her daughter returned home with her husband and children. They all looked fresh, healthy and held their heads high. They embraced her and all of them cried tears of joy. When she woke bitter cold winds lashed the house and snow whipped around outside her window. She stayed in bed and the care giver brought her tea and toast. As was his wont, mid morning Eugene went to fetch the mail from the box down at the bottom of the driveway at the front curb. She heard the front door open and the wind tear into the house then open again, more wind and close a few moments later

In the mail he saw an unusual letter postmarked Boston where he knew his daughter had moved so many years ago. It was addressed to Sharon and Sharon only, not to him. He didn’t care. He ripped it open. Yes, it was from their daughter, the first letter from her in all those years. This is what she wrote:

"Dear Mom, I heard you are wheelchair bound. It breaks my heart all over again, but doesn’t surprise me. Dad is a monster and a kind of psychological criminal. He has no business being alive but there he is, as formidable as ever, hovering and waiting for you to die so he can collect all the life insurance. If he ever goes away I’ll come home with the kids to be with you, promise. Until then, I’ll try to write more often but only to you. I will not call the house and risk being on the phone with him. He is too sly. Love, Rhonda"

Eugene sat down in his study to catch his breathe. For the first time in eons he was dumbstruck, even dumbfounded. His hands shook, not so much from the cold outdoors as from being confronted, finally, by the honest truth, the ugly brutal honest truth, about himself, about his mendacity and cruelty. He ran his arm clear across his neat desk in a fit of rage, all the quaint knickknacks sent flying and crashing down around him. As the things hit the floor, a mirror in a gilded frame began to vibrate and come off of its flimsy wall support helped by the fierce wind blowing outside against the house. It hung up for a few seconds at an angle, turning and teetering, then fell to the floor with a thud and shattered into large jagged pieces all knives and spearheads. From behind it, from a cavity in the wall, worms and rats emerged and slithered into Eugene’s pockets and house slippers. The desk lamp hung off of the side of his desk, swinging and flickering. His good looks contorted into a vampire-like sharpness. His hands were cold and white like a vampire’s and a little numb from his walk to the mailbox and back while the heat of his burning anger suffused his face with a dark glow. 

He fondled and looked over the letter with a ruthless imperious gaze. He wasn’t going to let Sharon have it or read it, no way. “Over my cold dead body”. He knew what he had to do. Burn it....or? He went to his vault, dialed the combination, opened it and put the letter in the way back next to his will, the grandchildren’s trusts and the life insurance policies on Sharon’s life naming him as sole beneficiary. On the way out, his hand brushed against the gun that he kept there for boasting purposes but didn’t know how to use. He ran a finger softly over the trigger and accidentally discharged the weapon. 

His accidental aim was too good. Eugene was dead before he hit the floor. The miniature human mountain that was him lay there on its back bleeding out. One of his knees twitched for a second then went limp. A winter fly roaming the house since autumn landed on one of his eyes. The muzzle of the weapon peeked out over the front edge of the vault emitting tiny almost imperceptible wisps of smoke. It seemed poised to take aim, shoot again and finish the job if Eugene moved. The fly flew off. 

Sharon was in the middle of a bite of toast. She remembered her dream in that instant like somehow the violent noise released it from her subconscious, rescuing it from oblivion. Her care-giver next to her dropped to the ground and lay flat. She dialed 911 from her cell phone from her prone position terrified for her life. The house phone commenced to ring and kept ringing, singing the praises of the single gunshot in all of its dazzling power and efficiency.  

There was a wicked mess, to be sure, and a corpulent body swelling with a volatile mixture of toxic liquids and gasses that had to be moved and refrigerated until it could be buried. The bullet went clear through and through, through the front of his neck and out the back, lodging in the wall where the gilded mirror used to hang, where his dapper reflection used to appear on demand. The worms and rats scampered back into the wall whence they came in search of a meal.. 

The lashing winds outside subsided. The snow came down from a pinkish blue sky in a lovely gentle slow motion from all sides and angles reminiscent of a snow-globe after it is shaken up. Eugene’s mailbox had frozen over with a long white snowy beard hanging down below it on a skeleton of ice like a presiding judge listening to all of the testimony. The judge ruled. The verdict was guilty. The penalty was carried out. Sirens could be heard closing in the distance. 

Rhonda, her husband and children flew in for the funeral. They all stood behind and close to Sharon at the cemetery, surrounding her on either side. The sky was a steely winter gray. Sharon actually got up out of her wheelchair for the first time in years to shovel a bit of dirt on top of the coffin after it was lowered, as was the custom, then fell backward into the wheelchair with a weary satisfied expression. Peter cried briefly; then his cell phone rang and he walked away to answer it. His wife looked around sheepishly. Their children weren’t there. No one else was either. 

The elderly clergyman stamped out his cigarette, coughed a few times, bowed his head in mock grief and spoke briefly on the holy virtue of generosity which Eugene exemplified through his charitable giving. He opened a prayer book but his cataracts were so thick he couldn’t read from it. The grave diggers stood by impatiently in the cold leaning on their shovels and exhaling winter vapor in unison. One of them pulled a small metal flask out of his pocket and took a hit, then passed it to his partner. After the service was over the clergyman walked over to them and took a hit, emptying the flask. As the family walked away, except for Sharon, who was pushed with a loving touch by one her grandchildren, the mostly bare cemetery trees rustled and quivered in the winter breeze as if to bid them peace and wave farewell