A Wife's Place

My name is Hannah Hammer, which is pretty ironic. Two weeks ago, on Tuesday the third, you might not have thought so, though. You wouldn’t have known why yet.

I had long blonde hair that cascaded in impossibly thick waves down to the middle of my back, and crystal blue eyes that could hypnotize even the deepest woman-hater. I used to tease that that’s how I tricked Mark into marrying me. I’d tell people that he simply gazed too long into my eyes and fell head over heels.

On Tuesday the third I was wearing a green shawl-style coat with two bulbous buttons catty-cornered at the top left chest. It kept me warm since it was October and my blue dress was thin, even though it was long. It was one of my favorites. The fabric was so deeply blue that it was nearly black. Mark used to tell me that my little black boots didn’t go with that dress, but I wore them anyway. I even had my hair pinned out of my face with a fancy gold clip full of sparkles. I always received so many compliments on that thing.

I had been at the hardware store to get a new box of nails so I could continue hanging shelves for all of my books. I had dozens upon dozens: I was practically living in a small library at that point.

On Tuesdays, Mark worked until four at the feed mill. It wasn’t a fancy job, but it afforded luxuries like my green shawl and my gold clip. On Tuesday the third, however, Mark was already home when I came skipping in at noon with my box of nails.

I had thought Mark and I were relatively happy. I was twenty-two and he was eight years older. We had no kids; just a house and a yard on the east end of town.

But on that day, happy isn’t what Mark was. He didn’t even flinch when I had bounded through the front door to find him sitting in his recliner, upright, with an ominous expression.

“Oh, Mark, you scared me,” I had said, startled by his presence. He hadn’t even glanced up. He just stared at nothing in particular. His face was creased deeply with rumination. I had slowly slinked across the room to my project of shelves.

“You’re home early, is everything okay?” I had asked as I turned away to assess the shelving. Again, he said nothing. I held one board against the wall with pressure and quickly patted around for the level.

“If you’re feeling under the weather I can make that soup you like, honey,” I said as I slipped the end of a nail between my lips. The little bubble in the level danced back and forth until finally hovering in the middle. “Mark, where’s my hammer at? Can you grab it for me, I have two more shelves,” I called.

No answer.

The bubble shifted left. “Shoot,” I muttered through the nail still in my lips. I tipped the board until the bubble floated right again. My biceps were getting tired. “Mark?” I called out again, this time growing annoyed.

When no help was offered, I slid the shelf down the wall and turned around, spitting the nail into my hand.

Just as I did, Mark was standing above me. His face was deranged and pale. He looked unlike himself, full of anger and disgust. His right arm swung high above his head, wielding an old, tarnished hammer with a long red handle. Everything happened in maybe two seconds; my gasp, the realization, and the blow.

That was two weeks ago on Tuesday the third. Today was the nineteenth. Mark hadn’t left me there, though. He had dragged me up to the attic. We didn’t have a basement. He had slung my dead weight, all one hundred and six pounds of it, over his shoulder and hauled me up the folding ladder.

The last time he’d slung me over his shoulder was a year ago when we had gotten married. I had giggled impossibly as he gently kicked the front door of the new house open. When he’d set me down, he’d kissed my forehead and teased, “You made me do this.” I had picked this house one afternoon, a month before the wedding, when we had driven by. He had surprised me with it on the day of.

But on that day, the third day of October, he set me down with a struggle and a groan. He panted, kneeled over my still-warm body, and caught his breath. He sat down beside me to rest for a moment.

Minutes passed before he stood up to stare at me. I lay there, lifeless, blood covering my face and the top of my outfit. My platinum blonde hair was soaked in bright crimson. My hairdresser would have never gotten it out, and I would have never heard the end of it.

The wool of my green shawl was warm and wet against my rapidly cooling skin. I was on my back, my knees slumped together to the side, my arms splayed out, and my head tilted to the left with an empty and wide-eyed expression.

He scuffled in no hurry at all toward the exit. As Mark got halfway down the ladder, he paused, eyes level with mine. For a moment all he did was stare. I stared back at him, utterly shocked that he had done this. Then he disappeared and shut the door, sealing me away in the darkness.

The darkness is where my lifeless body had stayed since Tuesday the third. Each day I listened to him scour around the house and leave for work. Then at night I’d listen to the TV drone on and on as if my husband hadn’t committed murder. As if his dead wife wasn’t lying in the attic, covered in old, dried blood and nips from rats.

I never knew we had rats in the attic. After lying there for two weeks, I definitely knew we had rats in the attic. They’d scurry across me, or chew on my favorite blue dress, or nip at my rotting flesh.

On the nineteenth, something new happened. The door opened at shut, and two sets of footsteps entered.

“Wow, what a collection of books you have!” a woman’s voice cooed, muffled but enthusiastic. Mark said nothing. I could see it now: He probably had a smug smirk on his face, letting this woman believe such a thing.

Really, what kind of ding-bat of a woman would believe that Mark had a collection of books? Mark was absolutely no scholar.

My body lay decomposing and stinking in the attic, as the sounds of dinner and pleasantries and air-headed conversation fluttered in the house beneath it. By ten o’clock there was the sound of a wine bottle cork popping. The ditsy woman I’d heard him call “Bobbi” giggled and cooed at that.

Silence crept in as they sipped their wine. My wine. I knew exactly which bottle he had opened. It was the only bottle of wine in the house, and I knew his piddly feed mill job wasn’t paying for another. It was the bottle of red from our wedding. We had bought it for our 50th anniversary.

Yet there he was, sipping it a year later with some tramp in our home.

The rats scurried and squeaked, stopping to nibble at the tip of my nose, just inches from my foggy eyes.

“Oh, oh no, Mark,” Bobbi’s muffled voice gasped. “Shoot,” Mark hissed. “Oh, go change. I’ll find some new sheets,” Bobbi offered. There was clamoring in the house below as Mark stormed off.

That klutz must have spilled my wedding wine on my sheets. It was probably the same sheets I had put on two weeks ago since I was the only one who cleaned anything. They had little embroidered geese along the edges.

Deep in the house, the sound of water came as the shower started. After several minutes with just the rats and the dusty boards, footsteps shuffled awkwardly beneath the attic. Silence became so loud it was deafening.

Suddenly, the door in the floor popped open and dull orange light beamed up from it. The first light since Tuesday the third.

Feet hesitantly climbed the creaky steps until a head of blonde hair emerged. Bobbi slowly looked around the dark attic. “Mark, I can’t find any other sheets,” she called cautiously. Rats hurried away. Dust floated casually.

I lay, dead and still, cold and rigid.

Slowly Bobbi’s head twisted around, her gaze pausing just short of mine. She glanced down, slapping something against her leg.

A flashlight flickered to life and she reached it up to illuminate the attic. Particles drifted through the illumination and rats dove behind boxes. Bugs snuck between the floorboards as the light cast across them.

Bobbi’s hand shook as she slowly scanned the space. The light lazily fell shy of me as she glanced up in distraction at the dusty rafters. Her eyes trailed downward until locking onto mine. Her tanned skin drained to white as she froze in disbelief. Her sticky pink lips parted in horror but no words came from them.

Bobbi quickly clambered down the ladder unsteadily, her brown eyes never leaving mine.

“You nosy hag!” Mark growled from the bottom of the ladder. Bobbi’s screams were cut short into gurgles and gasps as she met the same fate I had. Blood splattered upward through shadows and the glow of the orange light.

When the commotion had stopped, Mark leaned on the ladder, panting for air. After a few moments, there were sounds of a struggle, cursing, and the creaks of the attic ladder.

Mark emerged, hoisting a dainty and bashed Bobbi over his shoulder as he wrestled with getting both bodies through the small attic opening. He did though, and knelt downward to drop her beside me.

He stood for a moment over his small collection of dead women. After that moment had passed, he knelt down and brushed the hair out of my face. It was dry and old now. He looked back at Bobbi for a few seconds, then turned to me again. His eyes were empty and not at all satiated. He breathed heavily.

“You made me do this,” he whispered.