Slack Tide

The server asks us if we would like anything for dessert, her hair is in a messy bun, she holds the pen in her teeth. Bree looks at me smiling sweetly. I know what that means, she wants dessert. I decline, and she orders tiramisu which seems over eccentric for this place. We are in a desolate town off the coast of Georgia, two hours south from where we both live, a place where nobody can recognize us.

We sneak away on these trips once a month, I tell my wife I am at a writer’s conference. Bree tells her husband she is on a girl’s trip. As far as I know neither of them suspect anything. I like this seaside dive restaurant, with its red checkered plastic tablecloths and picnic-bench-style seating. It smells faintly like weed and failed dreams.

We have been doing this now for almost a year, Bree and I. She is everything my wife is not, spontaneous, lively, and up for anything in the bedroom. My wife is my home though; we have built a life together that is warm and comes with French toast on Christmas morning and Netflix at night before bed.

After dessert, we are strolling along the sea wall. Night has fallen and the tide laps against the rocks. It is cloudy tonight and I cannot see the stars or the moon. Bree takes my hand in hers; it is chilly despite the warm air. This woman looks at me like I am the epitome of the best man in the universe. She must realize that is not true, I am cheating on my wife while she is home taking care of our three children.

“We need to talk,” Bree blurts out like a man's worst nightmare incarnate, “I need a timeline of when you are leaving your wife. I cannot keep doing this. The hiding, the sneaking. I want to sleep in the same bed with you every night.”

This stuns me. I have never once told her I would leave my wife. In fact, I have told her several times that was not an option for me. Bree does not have children. She does not understand what it means to have a family. You cannot just blow up a family on a whim for good sex and tiramisu by the beach.

“Bree, I never said I was leaving her. We are weekend warriors remember?”, I tell her as we slowly saunter out on a jetty. “I’m sorry babe. I think I have been clear with you this entire time.” Bree looks as though I have slapped her. This woman is out of her mind if she thinks I will leave my wife for her. I need to end it, this will have to be our last weekend tryst.

“I love you, Eli.” she softly says, her voice cracking at the mention of my name. “If you do not leave her, I am calling her and telling her everything. On Monday, when I get home. Period.”

I. See. Red.

“Excuse me?, I say to her, dumbfounded. “You love me? This was never meant to be a long-term relationship. It is fun. A break. A vacation from our real lives. When we started talking through Reddit last year you told me this is what you wanted. Now she is blubbering, and through choked sobs, she says “That was before I fell in love with you!”

Bree wipes tears from her face and reaches for my hand. That is the thing that does it. The entitlement of it all. The assumption that she still gets to touch me after threatening to detonate my entire life.

My Netflix?

My taco Tuesday?

No.

Suddenly, I can see Monday morning with horrifying clarity. Missed call. Missed call. Answered call. It is Bree on the other end of my wife's line as she packs lunches for our kids. Bree telling her everything, all the details of the last year, the hotels, romantic dinners, and sightseeing. Lazy days in bed. I cannot let this happen.

“Bree,” I say, “please calm down and be reasonable. Neither of us ever said we wanted to leave our marriages. I have kids. I have a dog and a mortgage.” She replies, “leave her or lose me, Eli.”That solidifies it.

At the end of the jetty, it happens so fast. My hands are around her throat, and I am forcing her backwards towards the end of the rocks. She fights, and for being a small woman she puts up a battle. She claws at my hands trying to break my grasp from her neck. She tries to punch and kick me, but I am much taller than her, she is just swiping at air. I can tell she is trying to scream but nothing comes out. Her eyes start to blister red.

I tighten my grip around her throat and life starts to fade from her eyes. My heart is pounding, I can feel it pulse through my entire body. Meanwhile, hers starts to slow. I can feel it in my palms. Hers was once a rapid-fire beat, now a slow drum. It is like a rhythmic cadence of my heart versus her. Practically a race of hers withering and mine ready to explode from my chest. The moment she is dead weight in my grasp I push her backwards into the ocean off the jetty. Her body bobs against the rocks for a minute and then starts to sink. Her blond hair floating around her face, her eyes still open staring at me.

Fuck.

Before I even take the time to process that I have just literally killed a woman, and likely left behind troves of evidence; I know this because every single night my wife talks about the latest true crime case or has Forensic Files on while she folds laundry, I sprint back to my black Audi. I flee. Taylor Swift screams something on my radio, and absolutely not. I frantically hit the seek button for the radio on my steering wheel. The first station it picks up is a staticky jazz station. Background noise for a murderous fugitive is ideal. I will head back home. I have two hours to figure this out. What to tell my wife, and how to manage this.

Nobody knows I was seeing Bree, I am hours away from home. I have never even run a red light before, I am not in any system, my DNA is nowhere. Did I just commit the perfect murder? My wife would be proud.

As the jazz music fills the Audi, I start to panic. This is really bad. Should I go back? Would I even be able to find her body? I should confess. Why did that bizarrely feel good? No, Eli. That did not feel good, you lying cheating murderer. It is always the boyfriend. It is always the husband. Bingo! It is always the husband. They will never suspect me. I start to relax and think rationally. I tick off all the things working in my favor as the jazz music ping pongs through my car.

“Bingo,” a soft voice from the radio says. The voice sounds like Kelsey Grammar from that show Frasier. My eyes dart towards the radio display in my car. That was weird. I change the station to just an AM white noise station. I am driving the speed limit; I do not want to be caught on any traffic cameras or get pulled over near the scene of the crime. It is only another two hours until I get home. I will tell my wife I missed her and I am done with these writer's retreats now because I want to be home with her. Netflix, and chicken parmesan. No more tiramisu by the beach.

There are headlights behind me, is that a silver sedan? I cannot tell with the darkness and a non-moonlit night. What if that is a police officer, they drive white sedans down here right? What if he knows? He flashes his high beams at me. I guess going the speed limit here is discouraged by the locals. I presume an officer would not flash high beams at me for going too slow.

High beams in my rearview.

Static.

“You strangled a woman with your bare hands and your first instinct is to obey the speed limit? Human beings are incredible.” Fake Kelsey Grammar croons.

What is that! I glance behind me, this jerk with his high beams riding my tail is gone. There were no turns along this stretch of road. I quicken my pace, seven miles over the speed limit is okay. Only an hour and forty-five minutes left. I can stop along the way to catch my breath.

High beams in my rearview.

Static.

“Hey man. You left before checking her pulse. The tide comes in early this time of year” Fake Kelsey says. Oh. My. God. Is he mocking me? Who is this? What does he know! “Fake Kelsey, get out of my car! Get off my radio!” I scream into the night. I turn my radio off; I am exhausted and have just killed a woman.

Killing a woman is exhausting.

Silence is better. My panic level rises exponentially but the weird thing about it is, I feel relieved the affair is over. I guess I did trade one horrible secret for an even worse one, but I did not like Bree much anyway. She was a mistake. Obviously. She was crazy. You saw it right, Fake Kelsey? She was crazy. She loved me?

High beams in my rearview.

Static. On my turned off radio.

“You know the interesting thing about drowning victims Eli? Sometimes they don’t drown right away. Love isn’t crazy Eli. Love is love. Love makes accomplices of us all eventually, Eli,” Fake Kelsey says in a low melodic voice. I swerve my Audi to the side of the coastal road and throw it in park.

Nope. Absolutely not. We are not doing haunted NPR right now Fake Kelsey.

I just need to breathe. I grab the giant Owala filled with water out of my cup holder and get out of my car and leave the driver's side door open and the ocean air hits me over the dunes. I want to vomit. How does Fake Kelsey know what is going on? Did the silver sedan hear him too? Wait. Where did that sedan go now? I do not see any taillights on the road ahead. I chug the water and do ten jumping jacks right there on the side of the road. Better now. Back on the road. Only ninety more minutes. I can shower. Sleep. I will feel better in the morning. I see a sign for a rest area thirty miles ahead. I can stop for coffee.

Static. (No).

High beams in the rearview (you have GOT to be kidding me).

Fake Kelsey, “There is lice in the sea, Eli. Do you remember when you had lice? Your mother used kerosene once, remember, to kill them? Kerosene and flame destroy evidence better than water. Do you even watch the Forensic Files episodes? Would your wife be more angry about the affair or more angry with your ineptitude to clean up a crime scene?”

Enough. If I get pulled over, I will tell the officer I am having a medical emergency. I think I may actually be having a medical emergency. We are speeding, we being Kelsey and I. I scratch my head. Why am I suddenly so itchy? I do remember having lice once. Out loud to the darkness I tell Fake Kelsey, “Where were you with the sage advice about two hours ago? Maybe you could have come through with a don't murder your mistress on the jetty.”

Peeling into the rest area, I am relieved to see I am the only car here. I slam my door shut and see a coffee vending machine; it only takes coins. I think my wife keeps coins in the Audi for Aldi trips. Finding her stash, I stab at the coffee button on the machine with my pointer finger and welcome the smell of stale grind. With the coffee burning my hand through the cheap cup, I head to the grungy bathroom. I search my scalp in the mirror. I cannot stop itching. The door shifts open in the breeze which startles me. It is ajar just enough that I see headlights in the bathroom mirror. Now that someone else here, it is time to go, but when I walk out of the bathroom, nobody is in the parking lot. No headlights, no cars. Scratching my scalp, I notice blood under my fingernails. Is that from Bree? She wasn’t bleeding, was she?

Driving.

High beams in the rearview.

Static.

Fake Kelsey sniggers, “Eliiiiii. You know most men spend their whole lives wondering if they’re capable of murder. You solved that little mystery rather efficiently.”

Fake Kelsey, actually, fuck right off. Have I lost it? Is Bree haunting me? I deserve that I guess. Should I get an Uber the rest of the way, I wonder, while scratching my head. Speeding now. I do not care if I get pulled over.

High beams in the rearview.

Static.

Fake Kelsey, again, “Fourth grade, Eli. Mrs. Harper’s class. You cried when they dissected the frog, and then your Dad told you real men don’t panic. Funny timing. Not ha-ha funny Eli, but funny none-the-less.”

Fake Kelsey is in my head. This cannot be real. How does he know that? I had forgotten about Mrs. Harper and that frog, all those kids laughed at me too. I wish I could meet them at the end of a jetty. This time, the headlights stay blinding me. They do not flicker off. Fake Kelsey keeps rambling like we are friends now, having an actual discussion, and are we? I am talking back to him after all.

“Eli, take the next exit, it is faster” Done, thank you Fake Kelsey “Also, don’t forget to take your shoes off when you get home you don’t want to be a murder AND a slob. The horror of that” Good call, I think.

Forty-five more minutes Fake Kelsey. Then I will sleep and wake up, and my brain will be normal again and this will be over, I say to myself.

“But don’t forget to wash that blood out from under your nails. Maybe burn your clothes. You won’t look good in orange,” Fake Kelsey announces. Is he laughing? His tone is almost jovial. How did he know what I was thinking?

I am drenched in sweat, and I can barely grip the steering wheel. I just need to get home. In this moment I truly do miss my wife, what will she think of me if she ever finds out? Fifteen minutes from home.

High beams in the rearview.

Static.

Fake Kelsey, “The terrible thing about good women, Eli, is that they make monsters feel like men.” I scream to Fake Kelsey, “I am NOT a monster. You are the monster. I had to kill Bree. She was going to blow up my life, man. It was her fault. She knew the rules.”

I turn into my subdivision, clawing at my scalp now. A shower sounds like the most magical thing in the world. Pulling into my driveway, I want nothing more than to get out of this car. Slamming it into park, I do not even bother grabbing my overnight bags from the trunk. I stand up and see a reflection in the tiny opaque glass garage windows, headlights. I turn around and am ready to jetty murder whomever is in this silver sedan, but nothing is there. No car, no person.

Sprinting into my front door I stop and remember Fake Kelsey’s advice, take your shoes off Eli, you do not want to be a murderer and slob. It is still dark outside; my house smells like vanilla and lavender candles. The lamp on the entryway table emits a soft glow and there are three backpacks lined up on hooks next to the door. My wife is asleep on the couch with an endless loop of Forensic Files playing on the TV.

This is perfect, I quietly make my way upstairs to not wake her. I turn the shower on as hot as I can and I feel my adrenaline start to slow. As I am scrubbing my hair for the third time, the bathroom door opens and the steam escapes. My wife enters and sleepily asks me how the writer's retreat was. She opens the shower door and gives me a soft kiss. I glance down at my nails hoping the blood is gone from underneath them. To her question, I answer, “It was boring this time. I think that will be my last one with that specific group. I missed you and the kids and my own bed and decided to come home early.” Wearing one of my oversized tee shirts that says ‘cheer dad’ on it, she says, “We will be happy to have you home more often. I am going to go downstairs and start breakfast. Are you coming down or are you going back to bed? Oh, also, Jenna has lice. I have been washing everything, but I bet the other kids get it too. Didn’t your mom once use kerosene to kill lice you had? I remember her telling me that before.” She closes the door behind her.

To the room, I announce, “See Fake Kelsey, I am not crazy. I just have actual lice.”

The Alexa in my bathroom glows a soft blue.

“Welcome home, Eli.” My blood runs cold.

Static crackles softly.

“You forgot your wedding ring at the jetty.” Alexa blinks a blinding white light.

“I love the inscription. Eli and Maddy. 7/15/2015.”