BY MARYELLEN CAMERON
Copyright is held by the author.
WHERE THE hell can I find heroin? All my friends prefer coke. Or, these days, Ketamine. It’s out there. Seems like every day some poor schmuck gets picked up for petty drug dealing.
As I wiped the last bit of shaving cream from my face I considered my options. I keep ditching pitiful email pleas for pro bono work for losers. But I only need one of those losers to hook me up. They beg for help even though I’m best known for fucking people over, not giving them free rides. Hope really does spring eternal I guess.
My wife appeared from her dressing room, dressed to walk a fashion runway. She held out a heavy sterling silver necklace. “Can you help me with this clasp?”
Christy turned and lifted her silky black hair so I could secure it around her lovely neck.
“There.”
“Thank you, Sweetie.” She leaned toward the mirror to straighten the necklace just so. “Can you believe I agreed to chair the food bank fundraiser again this year? I hate the endless meetings, but you know me, I couldn’t say no.”
Christy is a sucker for fundraisers. She calls it her life’s work. Why did her life’s work have to cost me so much? Forget divorce. It would cost me more than money — I would have to share our child Natalie with her.
She smiles at the man she sees reflected in the mirror, not the one who is really there. It makes her life easier to see a good guy who happens to be a superstar at tax law. Tax evasion was more like it but that was far beyond her attention span. It doesn’t hurt that I write big checks to her “cause du jour,” whether it’s food for the poor or the library addition for children.
Not to mention the man who can afford the thousand dollar necklace she just put on. It was wasted money. Women would hate her and men would gawk at her if she dressed in a burlap sack.
I get the men want to fuck her. It doesn’t matter what an idiot she is. They don’t have to live with her. I get crazy just thinking about how she agonized over the library mural; should it be animals reading books to children or children reading books to animals?
Does anyone care?
After work I took a bus into a desperate neighborhood where drug dealing is the only employer around. I got off near a collection of crumbling brick buildings. A smug kid in $400 shoes sized me up. I could be a cop, or a clown with too much money.
He deemed me a clown.
Soon I had my little packets of magic white powder. I bussed back to my Porsche, parked where it was just another flashy car among many.
***
Saturday’s bright blue sky held the promise of freedom. Today I would become a “devastated widower.”
In the kitchen, Natalie stood on the step ladder she used to reach what she wanted, whether or not she was allowed to have it. Today she needed it to mop up a puddle of coffee on the counter. Brown liquid trickled from her squishy wad of paper towels and down her pink nightgown.
“What happened, Tinkerbell?”
“Sorry, Daddy. I made you some coffee, but it didn’t all go in the cup. I’m wiping it up now.”
“Good girl.” At eight years old my beautiful daughter is a mystery to me. She’s kind, generous, thoughtful. Nothing like me.
Natalie pushed aside the sugar bowl, oblivious to the deadly contents it held. It slid against a wine glass, clinking softly.
Christy had used the glass just last night for her favorite red wine, with a little powdered Oxycodone I slipped in for good measure. Opiates in her blood? Doc Morgan gave her the scrip for her injured wrist. Nothing to see here, folks.
Natalie carried the dripping towels to the trash, then disappeared. Moments later Paw Patrol theme music drifted into the kitchen.
I added creamer to the “World’s Best Dad” mug waiting for me. The cups were Natalie’s favorite Father’s Day gift, so my collection grew annually. I sipped at it, grimacing at her coffee recipe, and dumped in another big dollop of creamer. Tolerable enough. I chugged it down.
I jumped at the sound of Christy’s voice.
She stared at me. “You were dozing, here at the kitchen table. Are you all right?”
Strange. I guess I need more sleep. “I’m fine.”
She pulled the refrigerator doors wide open and surveyed the contents. “I can’t believe I slept so late. How about an omelet? I’m starved.”
“Pancakes, please!” Natalie twirled through the door waving a sparkly wand topped with a star.
“Did you like your coffee, Daddy?”
“It was extra good, Tinkerbell.”
I stood to get Christy coffee with plenty of “sugar.” The room shifted. I clutched the chairback and took a deep breath to let the dizziness pass.
Christy frowned at me, clutching a carton of eggs in one hand and a jug of orange juice in the other. “Maybe you should go back to bed.”
“It’s nothing. I stood up too fast.” I slithered back into my chair as hot, sour bile spiked in my throat.
Christy filled a World’s Greatest Mom mug. “Ugh. The sugar bowl is empty.”
Didn’t I know something about the sugar? I tried to remember but there was a belt squeezing my chest, crushing my insides so tight not even a whisper of air could get in.
“Sorry about the sugar, Mommy. I put it all in Daddy’s coffee.”
“You what?” Darkness framed my glorious daughter.
“I gave you big spoonfuls of sugar, Daddy, to make it taste like magic.”
Her glittering wand left trails in the dark as she waved it over me. It was the last thing I saw before the darkness set in.
***
Maryellen Hess Cameron spent most of her career leading nonprofit agencies that served marginalized people. She works now as a freelance grant writer to allow more time for her fiction, much of which reflects the stories of people facing enormous challenges. She earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of North Carolina and an M.P.A. from the University of Akron (Ohio) in the U.S. She has published human interest and news stories in periodicals such as Midwest Living and the Canton Repository. She is thrilled that CommuterLit has chosen one of her short stories to share space with many talented writers on its website.