It was really a very fine mattress. That is, if one discounted the finger-sized hole in the plush fabric. ***<\/p>\n I\u2019d seen the mattress on a Friday. That meant I had the entire weekend to look out the window and pray for the garbage truck. ***<\/p>\n The garbage truck never came. It seemed I\u2019d have to endure all the \u201cwhat-ifs\u201d for the weekend. ***<\/p>\n \u201cAmelie, dear,\u201d I said from my special place on the couch. We were on the final episode of The Bachelor. Only two girls remaining, Cece and Sarah. Amelie wanted Sarah. I thought Cece was prettier. Not that my opinion counted for anything. ***<\/p>\n Sarah won, just like Amelie said she would. I was hardly watching. Suicide, suicide.<\/i> This word replayed in my mind, filling and emptying, filling and emptying, like our coffee machine churning in the mornings. ***<\/p>\n Amelie was a quick sleeper. It didn\u2019t take long for her breathing to slow. Sometimes, when I really couldn\u2019t sleep, I timed my breaths to it. I\u2019d watch her, her long nose gleaming in the moonlight from the window, the last bit of lipstick staining her full lips. I had enjoyed kissing those lips, once. ***<\/p>\n I dreamed that night. After I\u2019d run home and stashed the pistol and ammo in the safe, I slipped back under the covers and fell into a fitful doze. ***<\/p>\n \u201cCoffee, honey?\u201d ***<\/p>\n Amelie watched me all day. I thought she would make an effort to talk before bed, but she kept to herself. Her rosy silk gown shimmered against her thighs. She was beautiful, my wife. I didn\u2019t notice it enough. [Image Credit : Photo by Galina Nelyubova<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a>]<\/p>\n
+++++<\/span>I\u2019d already planned it out in my head.
+++++<\/span>Amelie, dear. That woman Mrs. Landry down the street\u2014she has a very fine mattress. Certainly less than 15 years old.<\/i>
+++++<\/span>She\u2019d quip back that a week\u2019s worth of back pain wasn\u2019t cause to spend a fortune on some cushions, and we\u2019d drop the matter entirely.
+++++<\/span>But this<\/i> had turned into something else. Most people would\u2019ve overlooked a black hole in a mattress as some sort of installment error. Especially when one happened to see it drooping beside a mailbox on their neighborhood run. But it was not the hole that drew my eyes\u2014rather, the liquid spreading from it. Dark like the pinot noir Amelie and I had sipped last night.
+++++<\/span>I could hardly think a few drops of wine were to blame. Especially when I learned that the owner of the house, Mrs. Landry, had suffered a \u201cgreat tragedy\u201d the previous day.
+++++<\/span>It wasn\u2019t an unpleasant conversation that started it. Amelie and I had just sat down to dinner. We\u2019d been gossiping about my daily woes as a technical analyst, while she remained as reticent as ever about the extravagances of clinical psychology (\u201cdoctor-patient confidentiality\u201d) when the words slipped in, as casual and unassuming as just about everything my wife said.
+++++<\/span>\u201cI saw in the news that Thomas Landry died last night.\u201d She picked at a morsel of her baked potato, setting a piece of skin on her tongue. So posh. Who ate the skin anyway.
+++++<\/span>Thomas Landry. The name alone had me breathing in the brisk October air again, the pleasant waft of laundry detergent down the block, the smell of Lydia Dabne\u2019s carefully cultivated flower garden next door.
+++++<\/span>And, of course, the mattress leaning against the Landry\u2019s mailbox.
+++++<\/span>I shifted in my seat, twirling my fork between two fingers\u2014an annoying habit I\u2019d promised to give up. I resorted to tapping my knee instead.
+++++<\/span>This was news. Thomas Landry. I could imagine his wife clear as day, the braided hair, the lopsided grin, the pink lips that disappeared into her teeth when she spoke. Her daughter too, auburn hair like autumn, floral dresses, and the same braid in her hair. Always the braided hair.
+++++<\/span>Amelie was staring at me. I cleared my throat. \u201cLandry, that\u2019s right,\u201d I said flatly, tapping my fork against the ivory. \u201cI\u2019d\u2026forgotten the woman was married.\u201d I was, among other things, a remarkable liar.
+++++<\/span>Thankfully, Amelie was too interested in her baked potato to pay me much mind. \u201cIt couldn\u2019t have been more than a year ago. He was much older than her.\u201d She readjusted her headband against the golden line of her scalp.
+++++<\/span>I settled back in my chair. \u201cHow\u2019d he go?\u201d Spoken with the vague enthusiasm of someone who had nothing better to do than wonder about the death of a man four houses down.
+++++<\/span>\u201cThey haven\u2019t said. Might\u2019ve been some sort of illness.\u201d She shrugged and continued picking at the potato skin. \u201cHe was getting on in years.\u201d
+++++<\/span>I contemplated mentioning what I had seen today on the Landry\u2019s curb. A mattress in and of itself was hardly of note; people discarded old shit all the time (even weightless, body-conforming, mid-condition memory foam mattresses). But a hole<\/i> in the mattress? Right in the middle too, where a back pressed into it.
+++++<\/span>A bleeding back. A back that had been shot.
+++++<\/span>That\u2019s not entirely true. Realistically the bullet would come from the front and, depending on the range, slip just past the spine and into the\u2014
+++++<\/span>\u201c\u2014listening to me?\u201d Amelie\u2019s fork nearly blinded me as it waved in front of my face.
+++++<\/span>My mouth was open. I hurried to close it. \u201cWhat?\u201d I mumbled.
+++++<\/span>\u201cI asked if you went for a run today.\u201d
+++++<\/span>This woman had a way of lingering right on the cusp of what I was thinking. I blamed the PhD. Despite our unspoken pact that she would never use her clinical skills on me, I got the feeling she had to restrain herself. Like clamping down on your knee to stifle an itch.
+++++<\/span>\u201cHmm?\u201d I asked, playing off a daze. \u201cOh. Only a walk today.\u201d It would\u2019ve been the perfect time to mention my back and beg for a new mattress, but I didn\u2019t want to argue. I was too busy fantasizing about pinot noir and old men and holes in mattresses.
+++++<\/span>I was an older man myself, come to think of it.
+++++<\/span>\u201cEat your potato before it gets cold,\u201d Amelie said, popping another piece of skin between her red-stained lips.<\/p>\n
+++++<\/span>When the truck comes, all your delusions will be gone.<\/i> This was one of Amelie\u2019s rare tactics that I actually employed: projection. Imagine bad thoughts on a whiteboard you erase or parchment you set on fire. Or even as the mattress on the Landry\u2019s curb that\u2019s about to get taken to the garbage.
+++++<\/span>But my imagination wasn\u2019t good enough. I needed to see the truck to believe it. I\u2019d always been a terrible Christian for that very reason. I needed evidence<\/i>.
+++++<\/span>I stood at the sill and waited. Checked my watch (an Apple watch\u2014yet another of my wife\u2019s silent attempts to improve my health). 7:18 am. We were both early risers, even on weekends.
+++++<\/span>\u201cYou were up again last night,\u201d Amelie said while she brewed her morning cup of coffee at the counter. Decaf. She treated her body like she treated her patient\u2019s minds. Very carefully.
+++++<\/span>At her comment, I sighed. I\u2019d been diagnosed with sleepwalking for the past year. Sometimes it was harmless, but there was one particularly brutal night where I had woken up on the floor of the garage with a nasty scrape on my hand. Since then, Amelie had taken precautions.
+++++<\/span>It\u2019d gotten better these last few months, up until about a week ago. Evidence of a troubled mind. Amelie never said this, but we both knew she was thinking it.
+++++<\/span>Sometimes I really hated that stupid pact.
+++++<\/span>I accepted her offer for my own cup of coffee\u2014decaf was not bitter enough for my taste, but I needed something to distract myself\u2014and closed my eyes.
+++++<\/span>Maybe I\u2019d ought to tell her. Amelie,<\/i> I\u2019d say. Have you noticed that mattress by the Landry\u2019s mailbox?<\/i>
+++++<\/span>She\u2019d roll her eyes until I could see the whites. If this is your way of telling me we need a new mattress, I\u2014<\/i>
+++++<\/span>There\u2019s a hole in it. And a red stain. How do you figure that?<\/i>
+++++<\/span>She\u2019d blink once. Twice. Wondering if I was being serious or only humoring her. Once she had decided on the latter, she\u2019d unleash a sigh too big for her body. I figure someone stained their mattress and decided to trash it<\/i>, she\u2019d say stoically. Now hurry and drink your coffee, dear. It\u2019s getting cold.<\/i>
+++++<\/span>The perfect deflection. Drink your coffee before it gets cold. Eat your bacon before it gets cold. Denis, for God\u2019s sake, won\u2019t you eat your baked potato before it gets cold?<\/i><\/p>\n
+++++<\/span>I couldn\u2019t help thinking there was a reason. In that way, I suppose I was a good Christian. One strike for \u201cseeing is believing\u201d but one back for believing in fate. And if this was not fate, what was it?
+++++<\/span>Amelie was right. I needed to get out more.
+++++<\/span>We watched football on TV. Amelie is not a connoisseur of sports, but she thinks I like it, and in her mind sitting through a sporting event is the kind of noble sacrifice a good wife makes. She doesn\u2019t know that I like football in the way all old men seem to like football.
+++++<\/span>Giving you back the testosterone you don\u2019t have<\/i>. I heard the words in Amelie\u2019s voice and stifled a chuckle. There was no denying I had what many would call an \u201coveractive imagination.\u201d
+++++<\/span>As our home team worked their way down the field, I wondered how the bullet entered his body. The ribs or the chest? Did it skirt the lungs or bust them completely?
+++++<\/span>How about the shooter? Was he standing over Thomas or in front of him? I imagined Thomas startling in the night. His gray combover all askew, his eyes rheumy as he stared at the door. Thinking it was his stepdaughter getting a drink in the kitchen. Or Rebecca\u2014Mrs. Landry\u2014shuffling with some papers at the table. Valid rationalizations.
+++++<\/span>Then he\u2019d sit up farther and notice the shadow in front of him. He\u2019d squint at the hulking shoulders and ski mask, and just when he realized he was about to be shot, bang!<\/i>
+++++<\/span>No, no, no. White board. Eraser. Wipe it away.
+++++<\/span>Though I hurried to eradicate it, even I couldn\u2019t deny it was a compelling narrative, if an unrealistic one. If Thomas had been shot by a thief, surely Mrs. Landry would\u2019ve said something, not to mention there\u2019d be loads of evidence to prove it. Likely she\u2019d have been killed herself, along with her daughter. So then, how did it happen?
+++++<\/span>I realized I was chewing my nails. I stopped immediately. My cuticle was bleeding. I watched the crimson drip down my thumb like ink on parchment. Like pinot noir, only darker. Thicker.<\/p>\n
+++++<\/span>Amelie would kill me if any of her work friends knew she watched The Bachelor. Apparently it was in poor taste considering her profession. I didn\u2019t understand it, but I reveled in this one thing that no one else knew.
+++++<\/span>Now though, we had hit a lull in the drama, so I took the opportunity to ask, \u201cHow much blood comes out of a bullet to the chest?\u201d
+++++<\/span>I wasn\u2019t looking at her, but I could feel the way she shifted, her grip tightening on tonight\u2019s second glass of pinot noir. \u201cWhat\u2019s prompted this?\u201d she said.
+++++<\/span>Those three words shuddered through me, wrenching open the floodgates of my regret. I recognized that tone, usually muffled behind her office door. Her doctor\u2019s voice.
+++++<\/span>\u201cNothing in particular,\u201d I replied insouciantly. I didn\u2019t so much as blink. As I said, I was a skilled liar.
+++++<\/span>I don\u2019t know if she bought it or thought it was better to indulge me anyway, but she said, \u201cWell. I suppose that would depend on a variety of factors.\u201d
+++++<\/span>\u201cSuch as?\u201d
+++++<\/span>She saved herself an immediate answer by taking a sip of wine. A small sip. Constrained. \u201cWhere the bullet entered. In the upper chest or lower chest. There are a lot of extremities there. And if the bullet went through cleanly or lodged somewhere inside.\u201d She feigned an impassive shrug. \u201cYou forget, I\u2019m a doctor of the mind.\u201d
+++++<\/span>I shrugged it off and pretended to lose myself in the drama. Cece and Jim were preparing for the fantasy suites. I could sense Amelie watching me, but I kept my gaze forward, perfectly nonplussed. In reality, my earlier regret had been replaced by disappointment. She\u2019d provided no new information.
+++++<\/span>Worse\u2014now I\u2019d given her a reason to worry.
+++++<\/span>We came to a commercial. Before I could press the skip button, she said, \u201cThey mentioned Thomas Landry on the news earlier.\u201d
+++++<\/span>The news. The news! I\u2019d been so distracted, I hadn\u2019t even thought to calm my mind with the proof. How could I have missed it?
+++++<\/span>My pulse quickened, but I pretended to fumble with the remote as I asked, \u201cWho again?\u201d
+++++<\/span>\u201cThomas Landry down the street. It was a suicide. I guess he\u2019d been separated from Rebecca for a while.\u201d She shook her head in that slow way people did when speaking of tragedy, only harsher when you remembered these were the type of cases she dealt with on a daily basis.
+++++<\/span>Unless they reconciled,<\/i> I wanted to say to her most recent comment. Unless they were in the same house and he died on that mattress.<\/i>
+++++<\/span>Unless he was murdered.<\/i>
+++++<\/span>\u201cA real shame,\u201d I said instead, hoping my deflation wasn\u2019t visible on my face.
+++++<\/span>I jammed my finger on the skip button.<\/p>\n
+++++<\/span>How did he do it? An overdose? A knife? A gun? What else could account for that hole I\u2019d seen in the mattress?
+++++<\/span>The mattress that was still sitting on the curb of the Landry house. How had no one else noticed that little splotch of darkness?
+++++<\/span>I didn\u2019t believe my own assessments. I needed to test it. I needed to be bold, like Sarah when she confessed her love to Jim.<\/p>\n
+++++<\/span>I slipped out from under the covers and crossed to the closet. There was a safe buried under old tote bags and clothes that had fallen off their hangers. Code 1216. Amelie\u2019s birthday. We\u2019d been meaning to change it to something a little more original.
+++++<\/span>The safe was far too large for the small stash it held. A pair of diamond earrings belonging to Amelie\u2019s late mother, some old financial documents, birth certificates, passports from our trip to Jamaica nine summers ago. Amelie must\u2019ve been in a hurry to pull something recently because everything was in disarray. I pushed it all to the side.
+++++<\/span>Glock 19, 9mm. Standard home defense weapon. Needless to say it\u2019d never been used. I fumbled for the ammunition and stuffed a few rounds in my pocket.
+++++<\/span>Ever so slowly, I slipped out the bedroom door and into the foyer. If Amelie asked, I\u2019d say I went for a late-night jog. Say I felt guilty about falling into bad habits. Or that I\u2019d been sleepwalking again.
+++++<\/span>I slipped into the frigid autumn air. My flimsy t-shirt offered little in the way of warmth, but my mind was too scrambled to turn back now.
+++++<\/span>I made the short journey to the Landry\u2019s house. The lights were off. If Thomas and Mrs. Landry were separated, he\u2019d likely croaked somewhere else. Maybe Mrs. Landry had taken her daughter somewhere. To forget. Or to distract themselves from aching memories.
+++++<\/span>I went immediately to the mattress. Relief flooded me as I noted the hole, exactly where I\u2019d first seen it. I dared to come closer. In the glow of moonlight and distant street lamps, I could make out the slime-shaped stain.
+++++<\/span>I pushed my finger into the hole. Then I fished in my pocket for one of the bullets and slipped it out of the casing.
+++++<\/span>A perfect match. No. Just another of my delusions. In truth, the hole was slightly wider than the bullet, but this was to be expected of a gunshot. Memory foam was durable, but a bullet would tear even the most marketable material.
+++++<\/span>I took a few steps back and cast a few glances behind me. My watch read 2:04. A faint wind stirred the leaves over the sidewalk to my right. Deep breath in and out.
+++++<\/span>I aimed the gun. Took a step forward. Then back. If someone was laying flat, with their head a few inches below the top of the mattress, the hole would be in the upper left portion of their chest.
+++++<\/span>Right under the heart.<\/p>\n
+++++<\/span>I saw myself like a movie. My thinning ginger hair. My scruffy beard with the bald patch on the chin. 39 years old. This was one of those depressing movies about a shitty man realizing he\u2019d never really lived at all.
+++++<\/span>But then he did something drastic. He stood at the foot of a master bed. He felt the memory foam against his knee. So soft. He would\u2019ve loved to sleep on it.
+++++<\/span>But the real<\/i> Denis was only watching from the sidelines.
+++++<\/span>A faceless man wheezed in the bed. He stirred at the sound of the pistol cocking.
+++++<\/span>Denis raised the gun and shot him in the heart.<\/p>\n
+++++<\/span>My head throbbed. I turned on her. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/i>
+++++<\/span>Why did she have to look so done up? It was a Sunday afternoon. She was working on our taxes at the kitchen table. Her reading glasses had slipped down to the end of her nose, but it only accented her professionalism. As usual, her lipstick had been applied with a careful hand. She\u2019d even braided her hair. She never braided her hair.
+++++<\/span>My hands balled into fists. I unclenched them slowly. \u201cYes, coffee,\u201d I said.
+++++<\/span>She watched me. The lines on her face deepened, like the crumpled pages of those magazines she liked. Her mouth opened to say something, and for a moment all I could see was the potato skin on her tongue.
+++++<\/span>I barely noticed when she set the coffee in front of me.
+++++<\/span>\u201cDrink before it\u2014\u201d
+++++<\/span>\u201cGets cold,\u201d I finished. \u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
+++++<\/span>We laid back against the pillows. A few minutes passed. Perhaps an hour. My heart pounded. Yet still, her breathing did not slow.
Amelie\u2019s hand reached out to squeeze my shoulder. Slowly so as not to spook me, she leaned closer. Her breath smelled minty and fresh, and her chin grazed my beard.
+++++<\/span>I love you.<\/i> That\u2019s what she would say. I prepared myself for it in a way no other man has prepared himself for a declaration from his wife of 13 years.
+++++<\/span>But she did not say she loved me. She said, \u201cI know.\u201d
+++++<\/span>I know.<\/i> Know what? Sweat moistened my palms, and I had the urge to bite my thumbnail again. The dream kept creeping back. Me. The gun. The perfectly-shaped hole in the mattress.
+++++<\/span>Or was it something else?
+++++<\/span>It was a long time ago,<\/i> I reminded myself. It must\u2019ve been what, a decade by now? It didn\u2019t mean anything.
+++++<\/span>They say it doesn\u2019t matter how these things start. But you have to understand. Amelie\u2019d been away on a retreat. It was a Friday. The bar was open. I\u2019d seen the woman\u2019s dark braid from across the room.
+++++<\/span>She\u2019d been getting over something too. Except it wasn\u2019t the painful mundanity of a man with no prospects, but the very real struggles of a young mother who\u2019d just lost her husband.
+++++<\/span>And I. Well. Amelie had her gripes with me, but I was good at providing comfort. That night, I\u2019d overestimated what Rebecca\u2019s form of comfort was.
+++++<\/span>Mrs. Landry. I called her this in my head ever since she married Thomas Landry. A sort of mental reinforcement, a shield to the intimacy of what she really was to me. No, not what she was. What she had been. Once.
+++++<\/span>More than once. In my heart, it had always been more than once. And if that was true\u2026
+++++<\/span>I did not realize I had gone back to the safe. My movements were rehearsed. I had done this before. Perhaps several times.
+++++<\/span>I checked the time. 12:16. The night was black and the moon was a fluorescent glow in the clouds. And there in its faint light was the mattress.
+++++<\/span>I didn\u2019t realize until I had reached it that the moon was not the only light. 1612 Mulberry Lane was illuminated from the inside out.
+++++<\/span>My hands shook. Everything shook. The bullets in my pocket felt heavy.
+++++<\/span>But I needed to be sure.
+++++<\/span>How long did they watch me before I noticed them? Mrs. Landry\u2014Rebecca\u2014had come out to the porch in her rose-pink robe. Her young daughter lingered in the doorway behind her, and Rebecca spoke harshly. I filled it in myself. Go back inside.<\/i>
+++++<\/span>I couldn\u2019t look away from her. Her beautiful brown eyes dropped to the pistol.
+++++<\/span>It was me,<\/i> I wanted to say. I don\u2019t know how but it was me.<\/i>
+++++<\/span>It\u2019s okay,<\/i> she\u2019d say. She\u2019d run to me, fold me in her arms. Make me stop imagining, for just a moment, like she had all those years ago.
+++++<\/span>I closed my eyes. In and out.
+++++<\/span>\u201cDenis,\u201d she said. A whisper that sounded like a scream.
+++++<\/span>Had I heard her speak since that night? I must\u2019ve. But surely I would\u2019ve remembered that.
+++++<\/span>I opened my eyes and stared at her. Tears glowed against her cheeks.
+++++<\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d she said, and I could not tell if it was her or me.
+++++<\/span>But we both shared the same thought: I was the one with the gun. The one with the motive.
+++++<\/span>The sleepwalker.
+++++<\/span>I held those deep brown eyes for as long as I could stand. My hand tightened on the grip.
+++++<\/span>Then I did what I had grown quite good at over the past few years, in my own small way. Amelie would\u2019ve been proud.
+++++<\/span>I ran.<\/p>\n![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.close2thebone.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/facebook.png\"\/ "\\"Share")
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