Bram
They say you remember the first time you lay eyes on the love of your life forever—deep down, there is an intrinsic connection that indelibly etches the moment into your psyche.
I stroke my wife’s honey-blond hair while she sleeps beside me and marvel at how soft it is, how soft she is, how perfect in every single way. The early morning light baptizes her with its luminescent fire and her body glows like a flame. I remember the first time I laid eyes on my wife. I was seated in a bar where I had all but taken up residency. The Boar’s Tavern was a seedy kind of a bar where you could lose your sanity and your soul if you wanted, and I was indeed on the verge of losing the latter. I had already lost the former. It was one of those nights that I was busy with the task of taking inventory on whether or not I needed to hang around on this planet for another day, and Ree walked in, smiled my way as if we had a date, and just like that, something switched on inside of me and I knew. I knew that Ree was the one. Her toothy smile was so brilliant it almost knocked me right out of my seat. That’s what I have etched in the recesses of my mind. She gave me a brand new reason to live right at that moment.
“What’s your name?” she asked after landing on the stool next to me. She cited she was waiting for a friend, but that friend never did show. I remember thinking this woman is so bold. First of all, to set foot in this dive with that face and that body, and second of all, to crack the ice without any pretense. But I came with pretense, guns blazing.
My mind wandered for a moment. It was close to Halloween, and the place was laden with cheap cardboard cutouts of witches and ghosts, but it was the cartoon vampire with his spiked fangs that caught my eye.
“Bram.” And right then, I spoke my first lie to the woman who would be my wife. It’s important to note that the very first word out of my mouth to Ree was in fact a lie. Straight to the deceit—no chaser. And just as I was about to ask for her name, reciprocate her boldness right back into her lap, I opted for something far bolder. “My name is actually Peter.” My own smile dissipated. There was nothing funny or even fun about being Peter anymore. Peter was about to step off a bridge. Peter was a downer just about every way you sliced him, and a majority of the nation had enjoyed doing that for the better half of a year.
“Peter?” Her brows hiked a notch, and I couldn’t help but note that it only magnified her beauty. She had a clean, open face, clear amber eyes that mesmerized me right off the bat. A face you might see on the cover of a health magazine for women. Her lips were slicked with a blush of color, but everything about her screamed natural beauty. It made me think of Simone, her thick layers of creamy foundation, the caked-on powder that sank into the creases. Grocery store bleached hair. Everything about Simone was hard, unyielding, and my stomach knotted up for having the thought. You shouldn’t think bad things about dead people. You should especially never think bad things about your wife who was brutally murdered less than nine months ago. It is a bad, bad thing to harbor hatred in your heart for the mother of your two dead children. They say a tragedy like that has the power to tear apart a marriage, but the floor to ours had rotted out long before that.
“My name is Aubree.” She held out a small pale hand, and I glanced to it as if I didn’t understand the mechanics of what she was asking. “You can call me Ree.”
“You must be a reporter.” I gave a quick shake. I will admit, there was a twinge of relief to have solved this puzzle, and to think for a moment I believed she had wandered in here, this fabulous woman, and things might have actually started looking up for me once again. “No offense, but I proverbially gave at the office.” In reality, I gave up my office. My thriving dental practice hit the shitter once word circulated that I had taken a hammer to my wife’s face. Of course, I did no such thing, but the jury of public opinion didn’t see it that way, and what they chose to believe quickly became my reality. No, not many patients visited the office after Isla and Henry had drowned. There was a dark cloud that hovered over my once blooming medical practice—even I could see it, feel it touch it, taste it. But after Simone was killed so very brutally, not even a mouse dared traipse across my office floors. A majority of my staff quit, citing every excuse under the sun, and the last few stragglers I had I ended up placing in my competitors’ offices. There were still a small handful of people who believed me, who would testify under a grand jury if I asked them to on my behalf.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m not following. I’m not a reporter. I work at the DMV part-time.” Her lips twitched, cherry red, and I couldn’t help but dip my gaze to them every now and again, wondering what they might taste like. I shook the thought out of my head. I’d stepped out of my mind if I thought this woman, this beautiful healthy young work of art would ever want anything to do with me once I spilled my truths like a jar of marbles. A hardened part of me, the one calloused by life, saidDon’t breathe another word. Get her loaded. Take her home. Get some relief for once.But I didn’t have it in me. “I just finished up at the community college.” She wrinkled her nose, and something about the sweet action assured me she just might be blissfully clueless as to who I was, what I had done, and the things that I had been accused of doing as well. It’s a clusterfuck of truths and lies, all stewing in a bubbling brew, and not even I could see where the forgery began and the truth ended.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Something in the air between us loosened, and she laughed, exposing twin rows of perfectly straight teeth, not a filling in sight and, believe me, I would have spotted them. Simone’s teeth were made of chalk. We used to joke about them. She said she married me for the free dental care and we would share a laugh. We knew better, of course. Simone married me for reasons unknown, but the regrets on both our parts kept coming. I don’t think there was a human on the planet Simone could have married that would have made her happy. Her favorite catch phrase wasI can do anything better than you. She sang that taunt, and it became her mantra. Our every move had become a competition. A part of me wondered if in that moment, when she realized she was going to die, if she felt some sense of relief that it would all be done with, the arduous race she related life to. There was evidence of a struggle before it was over for her. If Simone knew how to do anything, she could put up a fight. And she would not fight fair, but that wouldn’t matter. What mattered was she was going to win and she would. There was never any disputing the fact.
I think back to the day I met Simone. Fresh out of college at a friend’s graduation party to be exact. I didn’t stand a chance.
“A drink? Of course.” Those telling brows of hers dipped with concern, and when the bartender took our orders, a scotch for me, a virgin daiquiri for her, I saw where the concern truly lay. She didn’t drink. Another red flag spiraled up, but I refused to heed it. That had always been my problem with women. I was too waylaid by their beauty, their intellect, to heed any harbingers that might be thrust my way. One of the first things Simone told me was that she always got her way. I thought it was cute. Something to tuck away for later. What I should have done was dive straight into the swimming pool we were lingering near—drowned myself and saved everyone a heck of a lot of heartache. But when you meet someone new, you truly don’t know how to gauge the future. Those tremors in your stomach could just as easily be butterflies as they could be a warning of deadly things to come.
Ree told me about her time at the junior college, her ambition to write children’s books. How she passed all of her classes with flying colors but had no plans to further her education.
“That whole classroom setting wasn’t for me.” She bit the cherry off the stem and moaned, her shoulder touching mine a moment, and my insides pulled tight with lust, something that I hadn’t felt in years. “I didn’t go to traditional school.”
“Homeschooled?” I was intrigued.
Her eyes flitted to the ceiling. “Something like that. My mother”—she sighed and took a breath—“she needed my sister and me at home.” Her shoulders turned in toward me, and the smile faded from her face. “I hope you won’t think less of me for what I’m about to tell you.” And just like that, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, protecting her from whatever seeming regret would pour from her lips.
Simone slapped through me like a car jackknifing through the freeway of my mind. They say you’ll remember the first time you laid eyes on the love of your life forever—that deep down, there is an intrinsic connection that indelibly etches that moment into your psyche. The day I laid eyes on Simone, I was more than halfway drunk, my good senses already abandoned, and with Simone they never did recover.
The room around me takes shape as I sink back into reality. I take in Ree’s vanilla-scented hair before slipping downstairs to make her favorite breakfast, buckwheat pancakes with a cup of fresh coffee. Of course, I’ll be a hero in the kids’ eyes. They love pancakes as much as their mother. Isla and Henry did, too. A forlorn smile twitches on my lips as they come to mind. As horrible as it sounds, I’ve trained myself not to look directly at their pictures as I head out of the bedroom. Too sad. Too morbid. Too furious of a way to start off the day or end it. Each time I look into my sweet angels’ eyes, I hear them cry out to me from the grave.Daddy, why weren’t you there to save us? Why couldn’t you protect us?
My bare feet hit the cool travertine as I breeze into the kitchen. As soon as I spot the maleficence, my heart stops, the breath is knocked right out of me. Bearing their footprint over the top of the stove sits three blood red cast iron pots, the best in cookware. I should know. I just may have bought them. My legs carry me numbly over to them, and I run my finger over the lid. Could these be one in the same? If Ree asked for them, I was going to suggest she pick another color. I would never want the reminder. Simone loved them.
“I bet you recognize those,” Ree calls light and cheery from behind, and I force the hint of a smile to grace my face.
“I do. How did they get here?”
Ree swoops in and wraps her arms around me. “Builder found them in the bottom drawer of the stove and shipped them. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
The knot in my stomach loosens just a bit.
“Yes. Very nice.”
“You don’t mind if I keep them, do you? These things cost a fortune, and I’ve been dying to give them a try.”
Dying. I can’t help but frown at that one.
“Absolutely. Keep them. They’re yours.” The knot ratchets right back up again. “Did he send anything else?”
Her mouth opens and closes. Ree gets thatI love youandI’m sorry for youlook in her eyes that she wears every now and again for me.
“No. Nothing else.” She winces. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I pull her in close and dance her in a slow circle until those pots are glaring at me, red-faced and angry as if they were personifying their last owner. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
I do.
