Last Meal with Mary Jane

Wayne’s last words to Mary Jane as she walked out of their house were, “I don’t ever want to see your stupid slut face again.”

He hadn’t meant it. It was a silly little fight that began over a grocery store clerk hitting on her, as if she had had any control over it. They had never fought before and he was taking out a hard day on her. It escalated before he could get a handle on his emotions.

She walked out the door, got into her car, and he watched her drive away. He went back to the kitchen to eat the lasagna she had painstakingly made for their anniversary, but couldn’t stomach it. He tossed the entire casserole dish into the trash. The dish shattered.

Twenty years had passed.

Twenty regret-filled years since he had watched Mary Jane walk out their front door.

Now here she was, on his doorstep, like nothing had happened.

“Janey, I’m so sorry. I never meant,” he started.

“Shh, I know,” she held a finger to his lips.

“I missed you,” Wayne said.

When she kissed him it was like twenty years had been washed away clean. It was as if nothing had changed at all and he was his old, young, self again.

They made passionate love like newlyweds. He slid his hands up and down every inch of her smooth body, caressing the love he had lost. He pushed himself inside her at the same time as he kissed deeply. They were connected like they had never been.

When they finished making love for the second time Mary Jane put on the pink robe that Wayne never had the heart to get rid of. She looked beautiful as their wedding night in it.

“Where are you going?” Wayne asked her.

“We never got to finish our anniversary dinner and it’s going to be dinner time soon, I’m going to go make lasagna. I know it’s your favorite,” she said.

Lasagna was his favorite. He hadn’t had the heart to eat it since he tossed hers away so many years ago.

“I love you, sweetheart,” Wayne said.

“I love you, darling,” Mary Jane said.

Wayne put his own robe on and lit a pipe. He puffed a couple times and took the newspaper down to the couch to read while Mary Jane finished the dinner.

Before long there was a knock on the door.

“Now, who could that be?” Wayne asked himself, setting down his smoldering pipe. He and answered the door, just a crack.

“Hello Wayne,” said the city sheriff.

“Sheriff, I didn’t expect to see you all the way out here. What’s going on?”

“It’s Mary Jane,” said the sheriff.

Wayne looked to the kitchen and then back to the Sheriff, “what about her?”

“Can I come in, son?”

Wayne hesitated, but opened the door for the Sheriff.

The Sheriff took one step inside the house and stopped. He raised his eyebrow at Wayne, “Son, what’s happened here?”

The room was splattered in mud and rocks, clumps of grass were tossed about from a trail of streaking dirt across the wooden floors. In the center of the room was a large pentagram drawn in red chalk. Candles burned at every other point with animal skulls and small bones scattered throughout. Wayne himself was covered in dirt from his bare feet to his hips.

“Mary Jane came home, Sheriff.”

“No, son. That’s what I came to tell you. Someone desecrated your wife’s grave. Someone… Wayne, your wife died in a car accident 20 years ago.”

The timer on the kitchen stove started to beep.

“Dinner is ready, Sheriff. It’s our anniversary or I’d invite you to stay. We’re having lasagna. I’ll tell you what, it feels like our first date. I bet the lasagna tastes as good as the first time too.”

The sheriff glanced into the kitchen and pushed a button on his radio, "Jeanette, send backup to the Wilson place. Let them know I've found the missing corpse. Send the mental crisis unit too."

THE END