Heart Half Emptied

A thick blanket of snow covered the Henderson’s two-story cottage in Bristlewood, New England in what was the first of many cold days and even colder nights that would plague the winter of 1999. The mighty pine trees of the Green Mountain National Forest engulfed the marshmallow fields like an army of poleman in the Middle Ages gearing up for one last battle.

Frank Henderson sat at the kitchen table plucking the white hairs above his wrinkled lips like there were no razors left in the world. His steely eyes were fixed on the window above the sink between two red-oak cabinets where a white-tailed deer danced around the backyard like a professional ballerina sucking up the last rays of sunlight. Must be nice to be so young and nimble, he thought.

As the deer galloped farther away in the fields, Frank rose from his wooden chair and heard a shotgun blast erupt from his left knee. With a winced face, he hobbled closer to the frozen glass. “Hey Martha, come here, you gotta see this deer!”

He grabbed the sink with both hands and turned slightly to his left side to see if his beloved wife of fifty-five years was coming, but her presence was severely missing. When he turned back to the window, the wild animal was nowhere to be seen. “Darn it, Martha…you just missed a wild treat!”

The small pleasures in life were never taken for granted in the Henderson’s home. With no neighbors for miles, they couldn’t afford to miss out on the happenings of the world around them. Going into town every six months for supplies left little time to mingle with the citizens of Bristlewood, so the local gossip was lost to them. With a population of just under five-hundred people, there probably wasn’t much to go on about anyway.

Frank turned his bristly lips downward and looked at Lexi, their yellow lab, and said, “Well, girl… It’s late, so I guess we’d better call it a night and join Momma in bed.”

Lexi followed eagerly as Frank led her into the dark bedroom by patting his right leg. Careful not to wake Martha, Frank climbed into bed and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Lexi flopped into her brown wicker basket and closed her eyes without a second thought. The stars twinkled outside like a flashing slideshow and the wild animals stirred with delight as the moon drank the darkness away.

The next morning, Frank opened his eyes and was greeted by Lexi’s wet tongue. “Oh, come on girl, I’m up already!” he gruffed. “You know I don’t like you licking my face.” He turned to Martha’s side and found it empty. “Well…how do you like that,” he said with twerked lips. “She’s already up and at ‘em!”

Frank got dressed and made his way to the kitchen. He half expected to find Martha fixing breakfast, but there was no food on the table or dirty dishes in the sink. A quick glance out the window revealed a fresh coat of snow had fallen last night and there was no sign of that majestic deer.

With a soft whimper, Lexi lifted her brow and looked at the silver dog bowl sitting next to the white refrigerator. It was empty. “Hungry, girl?”

Frank grabbed a cup of Purina and poured it into Lexi’s bowl. “Here you go, eat up.”

She wasted little time and dug in. Frank curled his lips upward as he grabbed the egg carton from the refrigerator. “You know,” he explained, as if Lexi could talk back to him, “Martha is always so busy with her painting projects… I’ll let her work in the studio and make breakfast myself this morning.”

He wasn’t much of a cook, but he knew how to make scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. The smell of his hard work filled the kitchen with a delicious sensation that tickled Lexi’s nose. “I didn’t forget about you, girl,” Frank laughed. He tossed a piece of bacon and smiled as Lexi ate it in one gulp.

“Martha…breakfast is ready, if you’re hungry!”

Lexi let a hearty gruff escape her snout as Frank placed Martha’s plate of hearty food on the table.

“Ha! ‘Vexi’ already had a taste, and if I do say so myself, it’s pretty good,” he mumbled, stuffing his mouth with eggs and bacon.

After Frank had his fill, he wobbled into the living room and grabbed the morning paper Martha had placed on his padded rocking chair. “Good ole Martha…always making sure I don’t have to slide out to the front porch for my morning news.”

Frank sat down, removed the rubber band from the paper, and unfurled it. Before he could put his reading glasses on, a loud commotion rang out from the kitchen. It sounded like a freight train coming to a crash in their steadfast home. Can you imagine that?!

Despite his stiff legs, Frank threw the paper down and hobbled into the kitchen. The table was upturned and broken glass littered the hardwood floor like sawdust. “Lexi!” he yelled, “how could you do this?!”

Lexi stood next to her dog bowl with her head lowered. Frank thought it was odd because her tail was shaking between her legs. “I’m very upset about this, girl!” he said, waving his clenched fist. He looked at Martha’s studio door and half expected her to run out wondering what had happened just like he did, but it remained shut. “Good. Martha must have her headphones on. She can’t hear a darn thing when she’s wearing them. Ugh! I don’t know how she can focus on those works of art with that head bangin’ music blasting in her ears all the time!”

He turned his attention to one of Martha’s landscape paintings hanging next to the refrigerator. It was cockeyed. The soft oil painting displayed a snow-covered pine tree with a lonely cardinal perched on a limb looking out into the wilderness. “Such a beautiful piece,” he said, leveling out the canvas.

It took Frank an hour to clean up all the broken shards of glass. The table gave him the most trouble. Just when he had it in place to put it upright, Lexi saw a lost strand of bacon calling her name and ran over to snatch it up. In doing so, she inadvertently bumped Frank’s leg and the table came tumbling down once more.

“Criminy!” Frank shouted. He grabbed Lexi by her red collar and shook her like a ragdoll. “Can’t you give me just five minutes of peace!”

Lexi growled and snapped at his fingers. Her teeth nearly tore his flesh and if Frank hadn’t let go when he did they surely would have. The moment rattled his soul and then the reality of the situation smacked him right in the face. He forgot to take his medication when he woke up. That little yellow pill with the imprint, “alg-217.”

When Frank first got the pills, Martha said it was a good omen because the imprint was like an abbreviated form from the class he used to teach—Algebra, room 217.

“How could I forget to take this! Martha would have my hide if she found out.”

He reasserted himself and flipped the table back over. After wiping the sweat from his forehead, Frank grabbed the orange prescription bottle and took his medicine. Lexi had run off up the stairs and he didn’t feel like chasing after her, so he called out, “I’m sorry ole girl! It was my fault. I forgot to take my pill this morning.”

He waited for a reply—a whimper, gruff, or bark, but nothing came.

“Hmm… Just as well I suppose. She’ll forgive me when dinner time rolls around.” He paused and took a deep breath. “At least Martha didn’t see me self-destruct again. I’m not sure she would forgive me for being so harsh to Veexshi.”

He finished cleaning the food off the floor and put it all back in the skillet he had cooked it in. It would be a suitable treat for Lexi later, since Martha didn’t eat anything. A nice treat to be sure.

Frank went back to the living room, grabbed the morning paper and sat down in his rocking chair. Perhaps this time he could finally read the news—a welcome reprieve from the mundane.

After he placed his reading glasses on the brim of his nose, the first headline on page one made him gasp.

“COMMUNITY IN MOURNING FROM THE SUDDEN PASSING OF MARTHA HENDERSON.”

A small spark started a raging wildfire in Frank’s mind. He remembered the argument. The yelling. The tears. The…murder.

“NO. I-I…didn’t mean…it. I-I swear it. I could never do something like that. Not to my dearest Martha!”

An ocean of tears filled Frank’s eyes as he dropped the paper. Could he have truly killed his wife? How could he forget something like that?!

“NO! I won’t believe it! I can’t believe it!”

As Frank’s swollen eyes peered up from the floor he saw the kitchen through Martha’s transparent spirit. Yes. She stood before Frank holding the frying pan. The very same one that he made her breakfast in.

Her voice was mangled but coherent. “How could you strangle me to death?”

“I-uh…I…”

“Be quiet, Frank. You said enough for both of us that night!”

Frank drew his arms inward and clenched his false teeth.

“You’re telling me that you don’t remember the argument over me spending so much time on my paintings…MY WORK?! You don’t remember how selfish you sounded that night? Or how you kicked Lexi so hard she bled out on the back porch?!”

“No!” Frank pushed back. “Lexi is upstairs. I just saw her!”

Martha shook her head. “No, Frank. Check the back porch.”

Frank bit his bottom lip and raced as fast as his old legs would carry him to the back door. He flung it open—damn the cold air, and saw Lexi’s frozen body stuck to the decking boards.

“I-I don’t believe it…!”

“You killed that sweet dog for trying to defend me,” Martha roared. “Then you couldn’t wait to get your cowardly hands around my neck! Isn’t that right, Frank?!”

“NO! Hogwash I tell you…HOGWASH! How could a man forget something like that?!”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk… Come on Frank,” Martha mused. “Let the cat out of the bag. Maybe an old man with dementia and Alzheimer's disease would make it a priority to take his pills! Lord knows I reminded you to take them every day since we found out about it! You had to retire from teaching and I made ends meet by selling my paintings. In the stroke of one bad day, you ruined everything with your bad temper!”

Frank fell to his knees and wept. “My…my…heart is half empty without you, my dear! How can I fix this?!”

Martha clenched her jaw and stared at her dumbfounded husband with an icy glare that would have frozen Hell over. “There is NO FIXING THIS! While your heart is only half emptied, mine is half full knowing that you will never hurt anyone else again!”

“What do you mean by that, my dea—”

BONG!!

Before Frank could finish his tearful question, Martha drew the frying pan back and hit him with it. The force of the blow was so impactful, Frank died in an instant. The leftover eggs, bacon, and half eaten toast fell in the bloody stump where his head used to be.

All the while, a thick heavy snow began pouring outside. A storm was coming.

Indeed…it was going to be a very long…cold…winter.