A Little Salt

Trigger Warning: hints at physical/mental abuse, mention of death

The sunlight streams into their bedroom.

The wife, Margaret, always wakes up before her husband just as she did today.

“Paul, darling?” she turns towards him, as he is unmoving in his slumber. “You look quite pale, dear. I’ll let you rest, alright?” she whispers, “Let me just open the windows for some fresh air.”

Margaret, or as he likes to call her, Maggie, steps into the bathroom. Paul must have been very exhausted from work to suddenly fall sick like this, she thought to herself as she routinely brushed her teeth. He has been working late all week, which has made him so irritable, Maggie sighs as she walks into the kitchen and places the ice pack from the freezer on her wrist. Paul always complains about how I put not enough salt in the food, but yesterday he was particularly agitated. The stress must have gotten to him…

Maggie places his breakfast on the bedside table. Toast with bacon and scrambled egg. She was careful to make it salty this time. “Eat it once you feel well enough, alright?” Maggie tells him, as she caresses his cheek, “Oh my, you are so cold, dear, let me close the window”.

He had seemed confused lately, not just angry. Forgetting things. It is honestly no wonder he was like that and suddenly fell sick like this, if he was so stressed at work, and then he also barely drinks any water! I’m sure he barely drank two liters of water this whole week, she remarks to herself, partly angry at him but also herself. I should have been a better wife and reminded him to drink more. She has to work on being a good wife to him, as he always said. He had high standards, Paul. He always said a wife should at least try to be an obedient wife if she couldn't manage to be pretty.

Maggie takes the heap of laundry with her as she leaves their bedroom. She falls into the repetitive routine of being a housewife. First, she does two loads of laundry, then cleans the kitchen and both bathrooms, and shortly after 11 am, she starts cooking lunch. But not before she goes up to their bedroom to check on Paul. Maggie knocks softly on the door and opens it, “Paul, dear?” she asks before she registers the untouched plate of food. Oh, Paul, he must really need the sleep, she thinks to herself as she takes the plate and draws the curtains closer. Maggie carefully closes the door and expertly avoids every creaking floorboard and staircase, a craft she perfected because he would never like it when she accidentally made too much noise during his afternoon naps.

Once in the kitchen, she places the untouched food in a container. He can eat it tomorrow.

Maggie makes herself a delicious salad with various greens and some tomatoes. Paul does not like salads; he finds them to be meager, with no real sustenance like meat. Since Paul will not eat lunch today, I can treat myself, Maggie realizes with the unfamiliar feeling of joy, or perhaps excitement, growing within her at the thought.

She sat down at the dining table and slowly thumbed through the weekly newspaper, occasionally stopping to read a story.

After reading through half the newspaper, Maggie lifts an empty fork to her mouth, only to realize she has finished her salad, so she puts the bowl in the dishwasher and turns it on. Quietly. To not disturb his sleep.

For the rest of the afternoon, she busies herself with menial housework. Dusting off surfaces, particularly the bookshelves in the living room, changing out the tablecloth on the dining table, and tending to the potted plants. Maggie realizes it is already well into the evening when she needs to turn on the light in the kitchen to see the plant’s leaves properly. She hastily puts away the plant and fumbles with a pot to make dinner. Maggie stops herself, Paul needs sleep right now. If I wake him, he’ll get angry…he would tell me if he was hungry, she hesitantly puts the pot away, as if the motion is entirely against her being. Can I just eat his breakfast? He won’t know, right? Maggie slowly reaches for the fridge, almost in a trance, and takes out the container. She places it in the microwave and watches it spin hypnotically. The bing of the microwave startles her out of dissociation.

Maggie could barely hear the voice of the news anchor as she turned down the volume to almost whisper level. Paul should get his sleep. She followed the images on the television while she guided the scrambled egg to her mouth. The news segment ends, just as she had finished her plate, which she places in the sink and immediately cleans up.

Maggie trudges tiredly into the bathroom and starts brushing her teeth.

She presses down on the doorknob and carefully pushes the bedroom door open. Maggie thought she could see his chest moving, just slightly, the way it always did. She puts on her nightgown in the dark and crawls onto her side of the bed.

The sunlight streams into their bedroom.

It is 10 AM, four hours beyond their usual wake-up time.

Still, Maggie wakes up before Paul and turns to him. “Oh, dear, still so pale, and look at the time!”

She jumps out of bed and opens the curtains just slightly, enough for the window to allow fresh air in. “I will let you sleep for just a few more minutes; you’ll have to wake up for breakfast today at least.”

Despite waking up so unusually late, she easily falls into her routine. Brush teeth. Wash face. Change clothes. Put an ice pack on the bruise on her wrist. Make breakfast.

Maggie is in the midst of flipping the thirteenth pancake when the doorbell rings.

The mailman is rather early, she thinks as she unlocks the front door.

“Hello, ma’am. I’m Officer Derrick. A colleague of your husband asked to do a wellness check. He did not come into work today or yesterday-”

“Oh my! Officer, sir, I’m terribly sorry you had to come all this way. You see, Paul, my husband, is quite sick. Probably from stress at work.”

Officer Derrick nods emphatically. “I would still like to see him, you know, to do my job properly and confirm that he is actually here.” “Of course, sir. He’s upstairs, probably still asleep.” Maggie steps aside to let him inside. “For your troubles, Officer, would you like some pancakes?” “I’d love to, ma’am, if it’s not too much work.” “No. Not at all! Just go upstairs. The last door is our bedroom. I hope he’s awake now. He slept all day yesterday. I’ll just see to it that the pancakes don’t burn,” she gives a friendly smile before turning her attention to the pancakes.

Officer Derrick heads up the stairs. The closer he gets to the bedroom door, the more the faint sweetish scent fills the air. A stench he knows all too well after twenty years on the force.

Death.

Derrick’s pace quickened without him deciding to. His hand came down on the doorknob.

The smell hit him the moment the door swung open. The open window had done nothing.

On the bed, Paul, still as ever and long gone.

“Do you like your pancakes with chocolate or with syrup, sir?” Margaret calls from the bottom of the stairs.

Derrick lets out a strangled sound, something between a sigh and a cough. “Dispatch, this is Officer Derrick. I was called to do a wellness check. I have a deceased male, around thirty-four years of age, at Fourth Avenue. The wife…”