A Very Expensive Error

Twenty thousand dollars is a small price to pay to have someone kill your husband.

Last week, I found my husband in bed with Sloane, his secretary. I always heard that attorneys had egos and wandering eyes, not to mention dangerous levels of confidence. People warned me that marrying someone like Brandon - a tall, handsome, charismatic, and successful attorney, would be the harbinger of bad news and misfortune. Cynically, they implied that infidelity was written on the wall, clearer than the words in the legal briefs he filed with the courts.

Of course, I didn’t listen.

I was the child of two mentally ill parents. Neither of them ever had jobs. I grew up poor, and had little hope for anything better. My father reminded me I was useless at every available opportunity. Even after college, which I somehow managed to finish, I accepted low paying jobs and continued on the path frequently traveled, sometimes down the dirtiest path possible. My parents never achieved much, and I continued their legacy of failure, either out of guilt, or self-loathing, lack of confidence, or all of the above. I spent a short time in jail after a fight with an ex got out of hand, and then months in therapy.

A few years ago, I was hired as a clerk at Brandon’s law firm, kept my head down, and spent week after week alphabetizing and shoving paper into who knows where. I had no hope for anything better. This was my life.

My job was tedious and dull, and eventually, I grew listless. I took hour- long breaks, chatted with colleagues, even smoked pot in my car while listening to Rage Against the Machine to calm the critics in my head. I no longer cared if cases were opened, cases were closed, cases were cancelled, or I had a job or not. Life had screwed me, and I was screwing it back with apathy.

Eventually, my behavior caught up with me when my backlog came to management’s attention. Brandon put me on an improvement plan. The professional “cone of shame.” As one of the conditions of the plan, I had to meet with him once a week to discuss my progress. Our conversations drifted from the professional into the personal. He began telling me about his life, his family, and his hobbies. We shared laughs, then eventually, lunches together. One afternoon, he surprised me with a kiss.

I’d like to think that Brandon saved my life. He taught me to love myself, and that I deserved happiness. With his support, I went back to school and began teaching art. I started painting again, and pursuing my passions. I left the legal world, where I never belonged.

No one would believe that this man so far out of my league could love me, a struggling artist and a 7 on the looks scale at best, and I didn’t believe it myself. If there was a God, he took mercy on me for once in my life, though I could not figure out why or what I had done to deserve this windfall. Brandon’s love rescued me from my family’s legacy, and myself. Our wedding was a rebirth, and for once, the angry critics in my head were silenced. The first two years of our marriage were the first time in my life I found peace. Like a baby, I was shiny, new, and untarnished.

Like anything good that has happened in my miserable life, the other shoe eventually dropped. Brandon became distant, and bored. He no longer laughed at my jokes. He’d come home, go into his office, and close the door for the rest of the evening without so much as a word. If I asked him if anything was wrong, he would smile and tell me he was busy. I chalked it up to an upcoming trial for a big case, but deep down, I knew I was losing him.

Last Tuesday, the worst was confirmed. I came home early from work, and heard moans coming from the bedroom. Not the kind after one indulges in too much Indian food. The other kind. I knew it was over.

I proceeded towards the bedroom, and found Brandon and Sloane. I had met Sloane at a few of Brandon’s office parties. She was good at her job, put together, and knowledgeable. Like Brandon, she was passionate about law. She was everything I wasn’t. It didn’t surprise me that Brandon would develop an interest in Sloane. It didn’t surprise me that my marriage had failed. Nothing surprised me, but I was angry nonetheless.

Brandon and Sloane stopped what they were doing and looked into my eyes. I felt like I had walked in on a married couple, rather than walking in on my husband and his secretary. I saw the sweat on their naked bodies and the way their forms looked suited to each other. As an artist, I almost wanted to sketch them. Even in my anger and shock, I saw them as two puzzle pieces that fit effortlessly. Once again, I was the outsider, even in the story of my own life.

I went quietly. I took my things from the apartment, and checked into a hotel. I haven't said a word to Brandon since that day. He called, he texted, and reached out to some of my friends. I can’t bring myself to articulate my rage. I’ve been quietly plotting my revenge against the man who gave me hope for once in my life, then took it all away so carelessly.

Last night I paced about my hotel room, and eventually called a friend I knew from my time in jail. She called a few friends, who called some of their friends. Then she gave me a name. He went by “Edward,” and he could carry out exactly what I was thinking. He’d done it before, and it would be quick and effortless. All he needed was some cash.

Twenty thousand dollars is a small price to pay to have someone kill your cheating husband.

I didn’t have the money, but I had a feeling Brandon did. He stored things in a safe in our home, hidden behind a painting of a shark, which I realized was appropriate considering his profession. I always respected that it was his personal domain and this safe was off limits, but after he had violated the sanctity of our marriage, I felt the safe was mine for the taking.

Early this morning I slipped into the apartment and opened the safe. The combination was his bar number, just as I had guessed. I found the green stacks among other things. I took what I needed. I stuffed the bills into a sack with a dollar sign on it. Kidding. A plastic grocery store bag. He was about to fund his own murder.

Edward agreed to meet me in a local park at night where I would pay him the money inconspicuously. Tonight, I spotted him sitting alone on a bench, smoking a cigarette in a gray hooded sweater. This man had a quiet and unnerving calm about him. He didn’t have a sign that said “I would kill someone” but I got the sense he was the kind of man who’d taken a life before, and enjoyed it. I sat down next to him, and turned my head.

“Are you…?”

He looked at me with cold, lifeless eyes and smiled a small smile.

“Edward? That’s me. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

I didn’t know that hitmen could be so polite. We shook hands, and his hand felt as cold as his eyes. Perhaps this man was not human. But an animal who reincarnated as a person. I imagined him as a lion in a past life, stalking his prey. Or a lizard, sunning himself on a rock lazily, waiting for a fly. Maybe I was the fly. Maybe Edward would kill ME.

Nervously, I handed Edward the bag of money. He took it and casually stuffed it into a messenger bag next to him like I’d just handed him a sandwich. He promised to do what he needed to do before the end of the evening.

“Now where does this… Brandon… live?”

There was no going back. I opened my mouth to give him the address. He took out a little black notebook to write it down, then closed the book, and with a nod, he walked off.

My phone vibrated. It was another text from Brandon.

“Baby, I love you. It was a mistake. We can work this out.”

Brandon sent me a picture from our wedding. I was feeding him cake. The image reminded me of the day I felt most loved. Tears flooded my eyes. I instantly regretted everything. I had just sent a man to kill my husband. I was a murderer. What had I done? It was all wrong, and suddenly I realized it. I needed to call the whole thing off. I was delirious with the sting of betrayal, and I had been pushed to do something crazy. This was crazy, and so was I.

I dialed the cell number Edward gave me, but the number had been disconnected. Frantically, I got up and ran towards the parking lot. There were no cars to be seen. No people around. I looked in every direction, but I couldn’t see a lone figure in a hooded sweatshirt.

I thought of calling the police, but I’d have to admit what I’d done. I couldn’t go back to jail. I remembered the way the rough sheets felt against my skin, the bareness of the shiny walls, and heard the sound of my cell door shutting on all my dreams.

Edward had disappeared into the night.