Many of you who follow my work have read this one. It's been in circulation for about four years now, but it remains probably my favorite of my own stories after all this time. I decided to dredge it up from the archives and share it here. Enjoy some dark marriage humor, an absurd murder, and a little bit of a ghostly chill! 









I’m
staring at another bad hand in another losing round of Canasta with my wife,
and I can’t remember if I cut the deck. The memory is buried somewhere in my
beer-soaked brain, but all I see when I try to find it is Priscilla shuffling
those worn out Bicycles in her fancy bridge style that sounds like dead leaves
blowing across a cold November road.

She
knows I hate that racket, but she does it anyway because it’s part of her
“winning ritual,” as she calls it. Fourteen bridge shuffles. Always fourteen,
because “thirteen is unlucky and fifteen is too many,” she once explained, as
if seven, ten, or twelve weren’t enough.

Ordinarily,
she’d slap the shuffled deck in front of me to cut before handing us each
fifteen cards, flicking them out in a blur like someone who’d missed her
calling as a Vegas dealer, but I somehow missed that part on this last deal. I
look over at her now, the score pen tucked behind her ear, her shoulders
square, the corner of her mouth tucked into her trademark devilish smirk
revealing a dimple that was never there when she smiled out of happiness or
good will, and something clicks into place. She had asked me to get up and stir
the stew as she shuffled a couple minutes ago, and my cards were waiting for me
when I sat back down. I’m pretty sure I didn’t cut the deck.

Still,
maybe I’m wrong. I’m on my sixth beer and feeling pretty sour. I’m also not
thinking so much about playing cards right now. Instead, I’m thinking that if
she wins this next hand, I’m going to kill her. And I don’t mean it in a
playful way either. I have murder on my mind for the first time in forty years
of marriage, and it doesn’t trouble me a bit. The idea of choking her or
bashing in her self-righteous skull is dancing in my head like Gene Kelly and
Cyd Charisse.

She
flips over the top card on that uncut deck, revealing the two of clubs. A wild
card. That means the pile is locked to anyone who wants to pick it up, unless
either of us has a pair of whatever’s on top. Of course, I never have that magic
pair when I need it, but Priscilla always does. I can’t see her hand to know
for sure, but it’s how the game always goes once the cards are in someone’s
favor. And when it comes to Canasta, the cards are always in Priscilla’s favor.

“Look
at it this way, Bernard,” she says as she fans out her cards, sorting them with
her nimble fingers and her gimlet eye. “I need a hundred and twenty points to
go down. You got a better chance than me to pick that up.” She tries to soften
the blow, but all the while that dimple in her smirk grows deeper and I know my
takedown is imminent. Meanwhile my heart’s pounding in my eardrums to the beat
of the ticking grandfather clock in the front sitting room.

My
cards are shit. Small junk, no wild cards to help me out. I’m already over two
thousand points behind, and there’s little use in playing anymore, but she’d
gloat all damn night if I bowed out early. If I play till she breaks five
thousand, she’ll drop the smirk sometime after dinner. Then we’ll watch 60
Minutes—Priscilla loves that damn show—and head up to bed. And if she’s in
a good mood, which she always is when she wins, she’ll probably even put out a
little. This has been our routine so long, I can hardly remember a Sunday when
I wasn’t holding these cards in my hand.

Tonight
is different, though. Maybe it’s the beer talking in my head, or that damn
smirk of hers, or that bridge shuffle echoing between my ears like the fleshy
wings of a busy bat colony, but my dust is up and I’m pretty sure there isn’t
going to be any 60 Minutes or humping
tonight.

It’s
only after she draws her second red three, one of those “death by a thousand
cuts” moves that always makes me hate this damn game, that I decide to confront
the issue blaring in my mind like the horn of a semi truck. “Did I cut the
cards?”

Priscilla
glances up from her cards and then back down again. “Yes, of course.”

She’s
lying. You don’t spend forty years with someone and not pick up on the little
tells. The flick of an eyelash can betray an entire affair, and her clipped
“yes, of course” just exposed her disappointment over being busted.

“I’m
not so sure I did,” I say.

She
heaves a sigh, like I’m a whiny toddler instead of her husband. “Oh Bernard, if
it’ll make you feel better, we can re-deal the hand I guess. But I was just
about to go out. Don’t you want to get this over with and have dinner?”

A
bitter taste enters my mouth. “So you admit you didn’t have me cut the deck
then?”

“Can’t
you remember cutting the deck, or is the Budweiser making your brain foggy?”
She’s going for the insults, hoping to distract me. It’s a typical Priscilla
technique when she doesn’t want to admit she’s wrong. But I’m not having it
tonight.

“You’re
the dealer, Priss. You’re supposed to make sure the cards are cut before you
hand them out.”

She
rolls her eyes. “It hardly matters, does it? We’re almost done here. Let’s just
play this out and eat our dinner.”

That’s
easy for her to say. She’s winning. She’s always
winning. But I know if the tables were turned and she was down after a misdeal,
she’d be screaming for a do-over. I’m fed up with her attitude.  I’m fed up with losing. It wasn’t just when
we played cards either. She was the same way when we argued over politics or
when she twisted my arm to go to mass at St. Mark’s every Sunday. Priscilla’s
always keen on beating me down to get her way.

“Since
you didn’t see me cut the cards, and since I don’t remember cutting the cards,
I think you ought to re-deal them then,” I tell her. “What you got there is a
bad hand.”

Her
cheeks flush red and I know she’s pissed off. “It’s just like you to turn into
a real foo-head when you’re getting beat.” Foo-head.
A classic Priscilla-ism, that. She folds her cards and slaps them down on the
table hard enough to rattle the flamingo-shaped salt and pepper shakers. “Would
it make your behind feel less chapped if you shuffled them then?” She shoves
her cards at me. Several of them sail off the edge and onto the floor. I notice
three wild cards in the bunch. One of the jokers stares up at me with malice
painted on its face. I can see why she’s mad, but I feel nothing but
satisfaction as I collect the cards.

“Fine,
I’ll deal. But I ain’t gonna wait all night to eat dinner either. We can eat
and play.”

“Isn’t
that just typical? Throwing off the game and our whole evening because you’re
losing.”

I
ignore her dig and go to the cupboard to grab a bowl. They’re the heavy
crockery kind. Ugly as hell too, the color of overripe cantaloupe. Priscilla’s
choice, of course, only she calls it “sunset coral.” They’re part of a set with
teal coffee mugs and yellow dinner plates. We live in central Iowa, but
everything in this house says we live in a Florida Keys flea market. “I don’t
plan on throwing any game. I just want to play fair. And I’m hungry.”

She
sighs again. Oh God, that sigh of hers. If she did it any harder, she’d spit up
a hairball. “I can’t believe this. We’d both be having a peaceful dinner right
now if you weren’t such a damn baby. Pour some into the tureen while you’re up.
Might as well bring enough for us both.”

I
slop a mess of stew into the big tureen sitting beside the pot. Priscilla
always insists on using her fancy serving dishes, even when it’s just the two
of us.  To me it’s just another thing to
wash. The stew looks like dog food with a few pieces of carrot and potato
floating in it, and it’s probably heavy on the salt. One time I asked her to go
easy on the seasoning as it aggravates my acid reflux. She went to the bathroom
and came back with a bottle of Pepcid and said, “Good cooking won’t take a
backseat to your picky digestive system, Bernard.”

With
the tureen, bowls, and silverware on the table, I grab a loaf of bread, a tub
of margarine, and another beer out of the fridge before I sit back down.

As
I deal the cards, I wonder if I should’ve just let her keep that bad hand. The
game would be over, and we’d be eating ice cream in front of the TV. But I was
bothered. Maybe she didn’t set out to cheat, but she lied to me when I asked
about the deck. She lied. And now I
see this nasty creature crouched inside her that I didn’t notice before. It’s
petulant and dishonest, and I can’t un-see it now no matter how hard I try.

I
shuffle the cards and after she cuts them I deal out fifteen a piece. She fans
out her hand and her trademark smirk all of a sudden becomes a frown, then a
pout. My hand, by contrast, is the best I’ve had the whole game. Hell, in months. The joker’s face that had
earlier been grinning at me from the carpet is now sitting next to two others,
along with five queens and a few other pairs. It’s a concealed hand. I could go
out now and be up a few points and take her down a few pegs while I’m at it,
but I decide to draw it out a little longer so I can close the gap some
more. 

 Over the next few turns, I pick up two more
queens from the draw pile, which is almost enough for a natural canasta—seven
pretty ladies all in a row. All of it hinges on whether I can draw that seventh
queen or whether Priscilla discards one. Meanwhile, she hasn’t put down
anything, and she’s huffing and groaning with every draw.

 “I suppose you’re feeling pretty good about
yourself now.” She glares at me with icy blues that snuff out any remaining
warmth between us. It reminds me of what my Granny said when she always used to
kicked my butt at Gin Rummy: there ain’t no such thing as two friends
playing cards. And right now, with a stare that could freeze over Lake
Erie, Priscilla is no friend of mine.

Each
card I pick up is the right one, and I wallow in her sighs and complaints.
After one draw, she even punches the table, and I have to swallow an urge to
giggle. My poker face is a whole lot better than hers. But then she draws one
more card and that goddamn dimple comes back. I feel a cold, black pit open up
in my gut and my heart drops right into it.

 “So sorry to do this, Bernard.” The sweetness
of her tone is about as artificial as the pink packets of stuff she likes in
her tea. She lays down a natural canasta of jacks along with the rest of her
hand in a meld of aces, tens, and wild cards. And then she puts her final card,
the queen of diamonds, on the discard pile. It looks like a bloody dagger.

Right
then I feel a tectonic shift in our marriage. “It doesn’t matter how the deck
is cut, I guess,” she says with a whimsical lilt to her voice. Her eyes fill in
the rest: I beat you, Bernard. I’ll
always beat you. The only reason I play this game with you is because I like
you better when you’re emasculated and broken. Your balls never could produce
me a child, but they fit perfectly in my hand.  

Seconds
tick away as we stare each other down across the table. No one moves to count
scores or dish stew out of the tureen. My six queens still sit in my hand
waiting to be joined with their long lost sister on the discard pile, but now
they and the wild cards have become my enemies, subtracting themselves from my
already paltry score in a final blow to my whimpering ego. And those queens,
they’re trembling with my rage. “You evil cunt.”

Priscilla’s
eyes widen with shock and her jaw drops into a perfect O.  “What did you say?”

“I
said you’re an evil cunt.” I never swore in such a way in all our years
together, much less to her, but now the words slide from my mouth as if with
practiced ease.

Priscilla
gasps. “Bernard! What has gotten into you? It’s just a game!”

She
looks genuinely hurt, and is that fear I see in her eyes? Yeah, maybe just a
little. Like someone who realizes she might have teased a hungry dog just a
little too much. I should stop, but my fury has me in its grip and it has no
intention of letting me go yet.

“It’s
just a game, is it?” My voice raises another octave and I stand up, the legs of
the chair scraping against the tile. She leans back as if pushed by invisible
hands. “It’s always just a game when you’re winning. Only you don’t know how to
just win, do you? You have to… to assert yourself as better.” I round the table toward her and she struggles to back up
her chair, but it’s fetching up against the buffet behind her. At some point
during the game, I must have moved the table back against her, as if
subconsciously I had planned to block her in the whole time. In her fear, which
is no longer just a hint around her eyes, but now a boldly painted rictus, she
keeps knocking back against the teakwood instead of pushing the table forward.

“Bernie,
stop this. You’re scaring me!”

It’s
exactly what I want her to be. “You tried to cheat, you bitch. Just admit it.
You probably stacked the deck when my back was turned.”

“I
don’t know what you’re talking about!” Her voice cracks on the shrill high
note.

My
fist crashes on the table, making the dishes and silverware jump and shiver.
The stack of cards with the queen of diamonds on top falls over. “Shut up! You
had me get up to stir the goddamn stew just hoping I’d forget about cutting the
deck, and when I came back to the table, you’d already dealt them out. You
think I’m too stupid to notice you cheating?”

Priscilla
is shaking her head in convulsive little jerks. “Bernie, you’ve gone crazy. I
have never cheated you. Never!” Tears
begin to spill down her cheeks, taking streaks of her mascara with them. But
the tears aren’t soothing my rage. I only get madder.

I
arch over her like a bogeyman. “You lied to me and I can tell. So goddamn
sanctimonious. Always trying to beat me down and bust my balls, thinking I’ll
just keep going along with it. You push, push, push.” I poke her hard in the shoulder every time I say that word
and I savor each accompanying wince on her face. “But you pushed me too far
this time, Prissy. Dumb ol’ Bernie ain’t as dumb as you think.”

 The rapid rise and fall of her chest signals
oncoming panic. Her eyes dart around and then her arm flashes out to snatch
something from the table. I look over and see the silver butter knife, which
I’d brought to the table to spread margarine on the bread, gleaming in the
chandelier’s light. “You get away from me right now, or I’m going to use this.”


Her
threat is genuine enough, but her weapon is so absurd it makes me laugh.
“That’s a nice knife you got there. What’re you going to do, cover me in Country
Crock?”

She
grits her teeth and next I hear a meaty thunk. My head jerks down to see
the butter knife standing erect between the first and second knuckles of my
left hand, its tip buried in my flesh. There is less blood than I would expect,
and for a minute both of us stare at it like it’s some kind of novelty hand
from a gag shop. But then I finally register the pain and the truth of it—I’ve been stabbed, by God!—and I scream.

Before
I lose my nerve, I grab the knife handle and pull. Blood wells up in the ragged
gash and spills over in little rivulets. My fingers feel like they’ve been
shoved through with rusty nails, but I resist bending them. Priscilla pushes
back the table and stumbles out of her chair, scooting out of my reach, as if
my touch would burn right through her. “I’m sorry, Bernie! I’m so sorry! I
wasn’t even thinking. You’re just scaring me so badly!”

I
know I should relent now before this gets worse than either of us can imagine.
Any sane and reasonable man would have backed off long before the butter knife
incident, but I’m not behind the wheel anymore, and I realize that the same
ugliness I’d seen in Priscilla earlier must also be living in me. I dive across
the table and snag her by the shoulder of her green “lucky” cardigan with the shamrock
buttons. She yelps, trying to wrench it out of my grip, but I have her with my
unhurt hand, which also happens to be the stronger one.

I
work my way around the end of the table until I’m on the same side as her and
grab hold of her from behind, one arm wrapped around her neck and the other
around her arms in a half bear hug. She struggles to pull free as I try to
choke her, but I can’t quite get the angle right because she’s digging her chin
into my forearm. I scan the table for something I can knock her over the head
with instead. One of the “sunset coral” bowls seems the best option until I spy
the tureen of beef stew and have a better idea. With my hurt hand, I reach out
and lift the lid. Steam thick with the smell of bay leaf and thyme fills my nose.
My sanity knows what a grotesque sideshow this is turning into, but it just
sits back horrified and fascinated.

I
grab her hair and shove her face toward the steaming pool of stew. “Bernie no! What are you doing oh my
Go—!” Her final syllable is more of a burble as I press down on the back of her
head with both hands to submerge her face and hold her there.

“Eat
it! Eat your goddamn slop!” I scream, not recognizing my own voice.

She
thrashes around, but I press my weight against her, sandwiching her against the
table like I’m trying to do her from behind. I learn something in those sixty
or so seconds it takes to drown my wife in her over-seasoned beef stew, and
that is anyone who’s on the verge of suffocation will do whatever it takes to
keep breathing. They exhibit superhuman strength as their bodies dump a gallon
of adrenaline into their bloodstreams. I have to ride Priscilla like a cowboy
trying to break a wild horse, pinning her down as she bucks her hips and arches
her back to throw me off.  I hear the
sound of ripping cloth and realize the arms of my shirt are tearing at the
shoulder seams, and I can smell the stink of my exertions wafting out. The
tureen slides around on the table with her struggles and some of the stew gravy
sloshes out and down the sides, but I hold her head steady because I want her
dead even more than she wants to live. I guess that’s the equation behind every
successful murder.

Finally,
she stops bucking and her body gives one final shudder. I imagine that’s the
moment the stew fills her lungs, though I don’t know exactly how these things
work. Either way, I count to a hundred and twenty. Only a Navy Seal could hold
in a breath that long.

Once
I’m sure she’s dead, I remove my hands and step away. Her limp body sags to the
floor, her chin overturning the tureen as she goes. Brackish meat gravy with a
dull confetti of carrot, potato, and herbs floods the table, running down the
vinyl tablecloth in a wide stream that looks like diarrhea. My stab wound
doesn’t even hurt now, probably from my own glut of adrenaline that’s making my
eyes bulge.

The
enormity of what just happened doesn’t hit home until I look at Priscilla’s
face, which is puffed and brown-black with stew and asphyxiation. My gorge
rises, burning my throat with soured beer, but I swallow it back. She looks
like some kind of racist caricature. But Priscilla had been no racist. She’d
been an elitist bitch, a dyed-in-the-wool bleeding heart liberal. Then it
occurs to me that she and I would never argue about politics again. I wouldn’t
have to hear about how I should vote for her guy, and then suffer her disdain
when I didn’t. Along with breathing, cooking, and playing Canasta, Priscilla
would never vote again.

Part
of me—the snickering demon that took pleasure in holding my wife’s head in a
pot of stew as she thrashed for her next breath—is enjoying this. But the human
part of me, the coward that stood aside and watched with horror as I drowned
the woman with whom I sometimes shared cheese and crackers in bed, is screaming.
And the screams echo through the two-story brick house we bought brand new in
1972 intending to fill with kids that never came due my low sperm count. I
suppose that alone should have proven we weren’t very compatible, but I’d loved
her and she’d loved me. And I killed her over a bad hand of cards, like some
Old West outlaw, but with none of the honor or flair.

I
can’t exactly call the police and report an accidental beef stew drowning. Even
if I clean her up, they’d want to do an autopsy, and thyme-flavored brown sauce
in the lungs and throat isn’t what any coroner would call natural causes.
Stashing her somewhere until I can think up a plan seems the best option.

After
putting the cards and score pad on the buffet and carrying the tureen and other
dishes to the sink, I remove the soiled tablecloth and spread it next to
Priscilla’s body. I wrap her up tight and tuck in the end close to her head.
Her feet, clad in her favorite white Keds, still stick out, but that’s fine.
It’s her face I want to hide.

The
basement is the best place to put her. Though the thought of her dead body
anywhere in the house gives me the chills, it’s cool, dark, and out of the way.
I sling her over my shoulder and carry her down the steep, creaky stairs she’d
been on me to replace for years, sweating buckets under the strain. She was
always petite, but I remember reading somewhere that dead people are damn
heavy.

There’s
a storage cabinet under the stairs, and I prop her up in there on a couple
cases of bottled water. Closing the cabinet, I stop cold when a white rectangle
on the floor catches the corner of my eye. It’s the queen of diamonds, its
corner covered with a dollop of stew gravy. It must have stuck to the
tablecloth. I don’t want to touch it—the card’s presence here just seems wrong,
or rather too right—but I pick it up so I can put it with the others.

The
dining room is a mess—streaks of stew on the tile, a crooked table, an
overturned chair—but no one would ever guess a murder had taken place here.
First, I go to the bathroom and inspect my hand. The wound between the knuckles
hurts like hell, but it has clotted at least. That I can still feel and move my
fingers must mean nothing important was severed. I dab it with some antibiotic
ointment from the first aid kit and wrap it with gauze before moving on with
the rest of the clean-up.

As
I mop the floor and wipe up the spatters of stew from the walls, I think of
what happens next. What would a real murderer do? Cleaning his tracks, thinking
of a good burial site. Maybe I can create the illusion of a man whose wife up
and left him after forty years, and in the morning I’ll pack her clothes and
other things in some suitcases and make them disappear too. There wouldn’t be a
note, though. They have handwriting experts for that. There’s also the question
of money. Cops will wonder why she hasn’t used her bank card since
disappearing, but I guess any decent defense attorney could find an argument
around that. “Can’t have a murder without a body, so I have to hide her good,”
I say to the empty room. My voice is steely and cold.

I
pull another tablecloth out of the buffet and spread its white lace across the
table. It had been my mother’s and Priscilla had hated it, referring to
anything that looked traditional as dowdy. I think it looks the way a dining
room table in Iowa should look. Opening another drawer in the buffet, I pull
out the heavy brass candlesticks that had also been Mom’s. I can already see
Priscilla spinning in her as-yet-determined grave.

That
last thought is overwhelming enough that I decide to sleep on it a bit.
Deciding against the beer in the fridge, I go for the good stuff in the cabinet
above: a bottle of Basil Hayden’s. Before I leave the dining room, I dig the
queen of diamonds out of my pocket and place it on the table.

I
dream of Priscilla beckoning to me from a shroud of rotting silk and jerk awake
just before she can touch me. Her side of the bed is still cold and made up, as
if waiting for her to turn down the covers and slide in beside me. It isn’t until
I turn over and hear the half-empty bottle of bourbon slosh by my side that I
remember why that will never happen. My head is as heavy as a cinderblock, and
my tongue feels like a bloated lizard in my mouth.

I
can’t escape the feeling that something brought me up through all those layers
of liquor and bad dreams. A sound of some kind. I’m not sure what it is until I
sit up and hear it again: a fluttering rasp that makes my stomach clench and my
bowels turn to water. My skin prickles in a million tiny bumps. It’s the sound
of Priscilla’s bridge shuffle.

Or,
my mind tries to convince me, just a trick of the wind outside. But one glance
out the window into the still September night convinces me that just isn’t so.
I swing my legs out of the bed and stand up, swallowing back the taste of sour
bourbon as my stomach knots into a noose.

In
the bathroom, I empty my bladder first and notice Priscilla’s white terrycloth
bathrobe hanging from the door hook. It doesn’t know she’s dead. As far as the
robe is concerned, its owner will step out of the shower later this morning and
shrug it over her still-wet shoulders before moving over to her vanity table
near the linen closet, where all her creams, powders, and perfumes are lined up
like soldiers awaiting orders. Now it’s not dread I feel over the act of
killing Priscilla. I’m grieving over the loss of my wife. I want her back,
smirk and all, and I can feel a painful lump rising in the back of my throat
that I push away with a swig of water from the tap.

The
sound comes again as I wipe my hands on the flamingo hand towels. That goddamn
rustling sound, the one I hated most in the world. I race over to the bureau
and open the top drawer. Beneath my folded t-shirts is a Glock automatic
pistol. I slide in a fresh magazine and then flick off the safety. I’ve never
pointed it at anything other than a paper target, but its weight feels right in
my hand. I’m ready to face whatever’s coming.

The
shuffle of the cards comes again as I cross the threshold of the bedroom and
step onto the landing. With each step I take down, I hear the flapping of the
Bicycles echoing off the dining room walls as they have every Sunday with few
exceptions for the last forty years. We even played on our wedding night and
the first night we spent together in this house, sleeping on the living room
floor because the movers were a day late with our things. Thinking back, I can
mark almost every momentous occasion between Priscilla and me with a deck of
cards. And we always walked away from each game we played without a scuffle.
Maybe a little irritated, sure, but we never came to blows. I don’t know what
made tonight so different. It’s like the tightrope of our marriage carried us
over an abyss and, so near the end, we just slipped.

“Into
a vat of beef stew,” I mutter to myself as I reach the foot of the stairs. The
shuffling sound stops. I’m too scared to look around the corner into the dining
room to see if my dead wife is sitting in her chair again, her swollen,
oxygen-deprived face coated in dried beef gravy, with chunks of carrots and
potato in her matted hair.

I
stand and listen for any noise. Another shuffle of cards, perhaps. Or the
rattle of beef stew in her throat. But I only hear the regular tick of the
grandfather clock in the front sitting room. Sighing, I realize Priscilla is
just as dead as she was when I wrapped her up in the tablecloth and stuffed her
into the closet under the basement stairs, where she’s now growing stiff atop
the cases of Poland Spring. The sound of the shuffling cards must have come
from my fevered brain. Looking at the loaded Glock in my hand, I think of how
easy it would be to end it all either before I go crazy or before I get caught.
I’d just need to write a note explaining everything. And maybe call 9-1-1 first
so the cops will find us before one of our neighbors does. Dying was not on my
agenda for the day, but neither was murder. Funny how life can turn on a dime
like that.

I
round the corner and creep toward the dining room, which is just as I’d left
it. My mother’s candlesticks and tablecloth gleam in the bluish-white moonlight
and the only other object on the table is the last thing I left on it before
heading upstairs: the queen of diamonds. The one with the smudge of beef gravy
on the corner, like an accusation.

I
reach out my finger and touch the card. A thump comes from somewhere below me.
In the basement. Placing the gun on the table, I go over to the buffet and
gather the remaining cards and the score pad. I give the cards another shuffle.
Not a bridge shuffle, though. I never could do those.

Another
thud from down there, followed by the slap of the door under the stairs flying
open. Soon she’ll be heading back up here. I realize now there are fourteen
stairs leading up from the basement. Fourteen stairs for fourteen shuffles.
It’s as if she always knew.

We
have a game to finish, my wife and I. The score is definitely in her favor, but
maybe I still have a chance. I glance at the gun sitting here on the table, and
I’m not sure if I have the courage to use it just yet. But maybe when I see her
face again, and the whites of her staring eyes contrasting with her black-brown
face, I will.

Behind
me, I hear the basement door swing open and hit the wall. My nostrils fill
again with the smell of thyme and bay, and I shiver at the icy draft that
follows it. I place the shuffled deck down on Priscilla’s side of the table so
she can cut them. There won’t be any forgetting this time.