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“Honey, I’m going on a stroll in the woods. Would you join me?”
Marie stood in the doorway of the giant living room, in front of expensively velveted cushions and ugly, soulless wallpaper. Her dark hair was swept up out of her face in a chic but practical cloth bandana, and a casual collared dress the color of the blue kitchen wall behind her swayed as she shifted her weight to her right foot.
Teddy didn’t even turn around from his pose hunched over rambly, hastily scribbled speech notes and cherry-picked, out-of-context Reaganite statistical data when he addressed her.
“Kinda busy here, hon,” he said dismissively, crossing something out. “Did you get started on fixing dinner, yet?”
Marie contemplated if this was even all worth it. If twenty years of suffering in this gilded cage, this patriarchal prison of a marriage just to keep a roof over her head, money in the bank and food in her baby boy’s mouth was a fair trade. There were many nights she imagined leaving. Cursing herself for not choosing the streets over this domestic humiliation ritual. She wouldn’t have been able to see her parents or her sister again, one of the few small blessings of this life, but at least she’d be living in truth. At least in a shelter she would’ve been given a fair chance to keep her dignity, her pride, and her name. Those went out the window in this reality the second she caught Teddy alone at school mid-September and spun a lie no one smarter or less narcissistic than him would have believed. His father was certainly skeptical when Teddy brought home some townie girl he’d never seen before with a hasty marriage proposal.
“Can it wait, Teddy Bear? I have a surprise for you out there. One I think you’re really going to like.”
No other person would have suffered this. No other person would have been crazy enough to attempt a long con of this magnitude. Every other person would have bailed at the wedding because there was no way marrying Teddy Gallows Jr would have been anything other than direct, senseless torture.
Teddy turned his head over his shoulder, looking up over the maroon couch at Marie.
God, she hated that fucking face. The snotty unpleasantness he had as a teenager had only amplified with age. The slowly receding line of fine hair just made his ice blue eyes seem smaller and beadier. He looked just like his father. Blonde, sinister, corrupt. The kind of corruptness that just stood back while others suffered, too busy benefitting to even pretend to be upset. She could not find even the smallest hint of George’s doe-eyed gentleness in him if she tried. And she did.
Marie didn’t care to guess whatever it was that came to Teddy’s mind that made him smirk and put his pen down.
“What’s gotten into you?” He asked mischievously.
Marie smiled briefly, a soft puff of air escaping her nose.
“Nothing. I just thought we could do with a nice conversation somewhere quiet and peaceful,” she said with a shrug. “Things have been so busy, after all.”
To her, being busy was a blessing. More time helping Henry pack for and get ready for college while her husband fussed over campaign strategies and speeches meant less time having to be in the room with him. Having to exist in the same vicinity as that horribly uninteresting, affluent leech. She would rather vacuum a hundred rugs, scrub a thousand dishes, reorganize a household of closets than have a conversation with someone both so evil and so utterly uninteresting.
“All right, you’ve twisted my arm,” Teddy relented with that same smarmy expression. “Let’s go for a walk, then.”
“So how much farther, honey?” Teddy asked. “You got your walking fix yet?”
He doesn’t know, Marie said to herself, less in reassurance and more in genuine realization. He genuinely does not care enough about what happened to know where we are.
“Oh, shouldn’t be too much farther now,” Marie answered.
She knew the way. Of course she knew the way. Every chance she got she was here. The cemetery was on the other side of town, but the woods were close enough where she could convincingly lie and say she was just stopping into a neighbors house to watch some silly soap opera and would be back in an hour. So she did a lot of her crying, praying, and begging for forgiveness here.
The dirt they walked on, covered in foliage just beginning to wither with the early autumn season, slowly began to slope upward. It was so gradual, and the foliage looked so dense, anyone happening to run or walk the path Marie was on likely would not even realize they were climbing in elevation.
“I shouldn’t have worse my nice trousers, damn it all,” Teddy mumbled angrily, pulling on a pant leg after the fabric got caught on a bush. Marie mimicked a giggle.
Eventually, the shrubs grew scarce and the ground in front of the pair became clear of debris.
“This is the perfect spot,” she declared, standing in the middle of the clearing. The sun shone through the yellowing leaves to the west as twittering birds played between the branches. Water gurgled somewhere nearby.
“So, what’s the big surprise? What did you drag me away from my campaign to tell me?” Teddy asked, coming to a stop beside Marie as she looked out over the bluff. He snaked a pale hand over her hip, brushing his thumb over her soft belly underneath her cotton dress.
It had been nearly twenty years they lived under the same roof as husband and wife and there wasn’t a single time he touched her that she didn’t silently pray she would magically transform into a wolf or bear or cougar or some other powerful creature and use her sharp teeth to tear his limb from his shoulder. If she closed her eyes and thought about it hard enough she could feel the fangs in her mouth, the long snout, the claws on the fingers of this beautiful monster. Her mind was always desperate to be anywhere else. And certainly no real tears were shed when, after Henry, the cradle never filled again.
Marie took a step diagonally to her left, positioning herself so Teddy was now between her and the edge of the bluff.
With a mischievous, knowing smile, she put her hands on his shoulders and leaned in to kiss him. She pressed forward, sending him staggering to step back with her. Behind her closed eyes her hands were eagle talons.
When she broke their kiss, Teddy was just a few feet from the cliff edge.
She blinked slowly, tilting her head to the side as the tree light glittered in her coffee brown eyes. Marie was more alive than she’d been in two decades.
“Oh, Teddy,” she said in a voice filled with sickly sweet pity. “You still don’t get it?”
She took another step towards him, so close he put another foot behind him.
“Get what? You’re not making any sense, Marie,” Teddy asked, his tone still dismissive, but laced with a bit of genuine concern.
She giggled. Not the stupid ditzy giggle she used to convince Teddy she was totally serious about being in love with him. She genuinely found the situation funny.
“You don’t recognize this part of the woods, do you? Aw, who am I kidding, of course you don’t. You never spent your free time climbing trees out here, throwing rocks in the river, or shooting cans with BB guns. You spent your childhood inside where it was safe from the dirt and the grime and the poors,” she said, chuckling like she was recounting a funny story. “You’ve probably never seen Ellis Point from this angle.”
Wrinkles started to form on Teddy’s forehead.
“Ellis Point? Like, Whistling Point? Why would you take me to Whistling Point? What’s going on, Marie?” Teddy asked sternly, uncomfortably wavering between placing his front foot backward or keeping it planted.
Marie’s hand slid over Teddy’s chest, slowly winding his tie around her knuckles.
“Because I need to tell you something. Something really important,” she said, her voice still sincere and light.
She leaned in again, bringing his neck closer to her by applying gentle pressure on his tie. She looked into his ice blue eyes wide with confusion and concern.
“From the day we got together, to the day we got married, to this very moment, I despised every single second I was with you,” she said, as if she was reciting a love poem.
“What?” Teddy asked, unsure if he heard her right.
Marie continued. “When my dear George passed away, I knew you and your family would never see justice for what you did to him. You lied, you blackmailed, you bought the town’s silence. You thought you bought me, too. I told you I was just with George because I was so intimidated by your good looks and wealth I couldn’t work up the nerve to ask you, and now with him out of the way there was nothing holding me back. What a beautiful, utterly bullshit lie that was. And you were so full of yourself you believed it. You probably thought all of us girls secretly liked you. So thank you for making that part easy for me.”
“What are you talking about, Marie?!” Teddy protested angrily, but Marie gently shushed him.
“There you go again. You’re so clueless. You probably still think Henry is yours,” she teased in a singsongy tone.
Teddy’s eyes went wide with rage.
“What are you-“
“You’ve been raising George’s son for two decades,” Marie whispered. “Some of your dear father’s fortune went to the college tuition of another man’s child.”
‘Raising’ was a very strong word for Teddy’s nonexistent relationship with Henry.
“You lying bitch!” Teddy growled. “It was a fucking set-up?! For what?!”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Marie said, rolling her eyes. Her hand was still gripping his tie.
“You weren’t going to see justice for what you did to George. His family wouldn’t see a dime of compensation in a court of law. Nothing I did publicly would see your family punished for how badly you hurt this town. I knew that then. So I went the old fashioned way and took my own compensation the way I know countless women throughout history have done.”
Marie took another step forward and Teddy took a step back to match, except his toe found the edge of the cliff and a chilling realization set in.
“The inheritance…” he trailed off. “All this time.”
It was a little disappointing, but not surprising, that Marie could tell the money was all he cared about, and despite the pet names and family dinners, he never loved her, either.
Marie smiled. “Best way to get access to a family fortune is to become the family.”
“You can’t have anything I don’t allow you to have,” Teddy spat. “The inheritance is in my name. It belongs to me.”
Marie made a face. “Is it though? Well, maybe for now, but as far as I recall, that money’s got a flow chart. First, it was in your father’s name. Then, in the event of his untimely death, it, as you said, passes to you. But that’s not where it ends, is it? No. In the event of your death, it passes to… let me recall… oh, that’s it! ‘His widow, Marie Campbell Gallows, who will hold it on trust for their son, Henry Theodor Gallows, until he reaches the age of twenty-five. Should that already be the case, the full amount shall be transferred into Henry’s name upon death.’”
That piece of paper was burned into Marie’s mind since Teddy’s father started growing ill and the family began to organize their affairs. This was the first half of the arrangement that made it worth it in her eyes. The money that should have gone to the grieving townsfolk, to sons without fathers, to building protective infrastructure, funeral costs, invested in local businesses, money that was being hoarded by one man and one man alone, finally was to be returned to those who needed it most. The second half of the arrangement was more immediately satisfying, though.
“I didn’t kill your father, if that’s what you were wondering,” Marie said after Teddy’s face contorted in rage. “Nature took care of him for me, before I could muster the courage. I wanted to, believe me. It would’ve shortened the amount of time I’d have to tolerate you. But he did die knowing our marriage was a sham, I’d be taking everything your family was worth, and that your lineage will end with you. He died disgraced, embarrassed, and betrayed. Just like you!” Her voice was still light but there was a severity in her eyes that showed she was far from joking.
“You won’t get away with this,” Teddy snarled. “I own the whole town.”
“Not after today, you won’t,” Marie corrected.
His face shifted.
“Don’t do this, Marie,” he pleaded. “I’m truly sorry about what happened to George. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen, I’m so sorry.”
Marie sucked her teeth. “Twenty years overdue does not a proper apology for murder make, I’m afraid,” she tutted, casually readjusting her grip on the tie.
Teddy shuddered, completely cornered with nowhere to go.
“Oh, Teddy Bear, honey?” Marie asked softly. “If you see him, tell George that Bean said ‘hi’ for me. Not that I think you’ll be going to the same place, though.”
“Marie, wait-“ Teddy sputtered, but it was too late. Marie shoved Teddy backwards, loosening her grip on his tie as it slipped through her fingers and into the air. He only screamed for a moment before his body hit the shallow river rocks with a thud and washed downstream.
Marie looked over the edge, watching as Teddy’s body was pulled downstream and out of sight. As a final send off, Marie pursed her lips softly and blew. Six quiet, ominous tones rode the autumn breeze before Marie turned around and walked calmly down the bluff before breaking out into a dead sprint, impeccably rehearsed, theatrically hysterical tears streaming down her face by the time she made it back into town for the second time in her life.