Waiting

6 pm

Smoke swirls around my face, I inhale another nicotine-saturated breath. Dogs bark in the distance. Samara howls, as if re-calling her long-lost wolf heritage. Button joins in, higher pitched, the soprano to Sammy’s tenor. The shriek of a redtail quiets them. I picture them, noses in the air, searching olfactory clues, on the hunt. Sometimes they’ll bring me their spoils, a mangled rat or stunned bullfrog, carefully dropped. Other times they return victims: muzzles bloodied, oozing the sick-sweet stench of death.

My hand shakes, bringing the cigarette up for another puff. It’s a nasty habit, but it’s a vice I’m allowed. Especially now. He smokes too. Think that’s what drew him to me. Knew I wouldn’t hassle him about it.

What do I tell him?

7 pm

My tar-stained fingers tremble, sucking more Marlboro, my lungs burn and beg for another hit. I sip ice water. It clears the fog upstairs. I like the tinkle of ice clinking in my glass, even if it’s just water. Reminds me of my mother, every evening at five. Only she wasn’t drinking ice water. Dogs are still far-off, occasional yips and barks tell me they’re trailing something. Maybe a fox or a raccoon. Lots of wildlife in these piney woods. Deer graze in the early morning hours, leaving little mounds of pellets the dogs find fascinating. Rabbits emerge late evening after pups are locked inside. A sweltering rush of hot air blows in from the west, as if the sinking sun released a final gasp before dropping from view, leaving the sky watercolored in rainbow sherbet.

Do I have to tell him?

8 pm

The first flicker of stars emerge as color bleeds the sky into a deepening indigo. Ursa Major, Cassiopea, Andromeda, Orion, the Pleides… the celestial heavens waken, as I search for her star, Vega. She’s part of Lyra’s constellation, the fifth brightest star in the northern hemisphere. I look for her every night. I pray to her and beg forgiveness. How could I have been so reckless? When I find her, a slight twinkle, somewhat yellow to my weary eyes, I’m able to breathe again. She fills my lungs with crystalline breath, scraping tar and chemical residue from my pulmonary cavity. She’s my inhaler, freeing my airway from micro-dust and soot.

What if I don’t say anything?

9 pm

I named her Myrtle Mae, after my grandmother Myrtle Nabors, the only person to truly understand me. I spent weekends with Grammy Nabors as a child, when I was too much for my parents. I was too much for them, often. We gathered wildflowers and herbs and made art, pressing flowers between the pages of a worn-out King James Bible. She sewed me dresses, dirndls that swirled when I spun. I liked spinning. We baked together, kuchen and strudel, relics of her Polish and German heritage. She never talked about Grandpa Nabors. He died before I was born. Cirrhosis. There aren’t any pictures of him in the house. None of them together, even on their wedding day.

Just a black hole.

10 pm

He's away, working on the railroad. Not like the song. He’s a track laborer. Nothing romantic about that. Hours of hard time, not too different from prison. Made him stronger than an ox. And I’m the wagon he pulls, mercilessly. I used to like the ripple of his muscles under his shirt, when his arms would wrap around me protectively. Now those ripples mean something else. I gently rub the knot on my forehead.

He'll be here soon.

11 pm

What if I leave? Maybe he wouldn’t notice. He’d notice. He likes my cornbread and soup beans. I could leave a plate for him. I stare at Vega, asking Myrtle Mae what to do. I betrayed her once. I won’t do that again. The dogs run up, smelling of garbage and pond water, tongues flapping from their mouths. At least they haven’t brought me any surprises. The rumble of a truck coming fast alarms. Our beat-up Ford has a distinctive whine. My heart settles.

It’s not him.

Midnight

I’m torn. There’s nothing here keeping me. Myrtle Mae’s with her maker. I think she’d want me to go. I remember the shock in her eyes that morning. Unspeakable rage because she was playing with his tool kit: hammers and wrenches scattered in the dirt and a little blonde girl giggling, pretending to be working on the railroad, just like her daddy.

Dogs need to come with me. He won’t be kind to them. Sammy’s feral and doesn’t take well to strangers. Button doesn’t know a stranger.

Like Myrtle Mae.

6 am

The phone rings, startling. I ignore it and grab my bag. It’s been packed for weeks, hidden in the broom closet, a door he’s never opened. I find the coffee can of our savings and leave $5.00 behind. The phone rings again. I’m tempted to answer it, but want to disappear, just like Myrtle Mae did that day. Took me weeks to find her. Just a patch of freshly turned soil, dirt I ultimately dug up. Strands of blond curly hair, matted with mud and blood…. I made a wood cross from sticks and buried it with her.

I couldn’t get out of bed for days. Made him madder. My ears still ring from that episode.

Sirens wail in the distance.

7 am

Time to go.