The Widow

"I wish you were dead!" Those were the last words I said to my husband after he refused my request for a divorce. Who knew that my innocent words would come back to bite me in the apple bottom?

After I said those words, my head was like a merry-go-round. At some point, I fell to the ground and succumbed to the blackness. When I came to, I was alone in the living room, and the sun was shining. The clock above the fireplace read 10:37 am.

Where was Sam? He needed to understand that I was checked out of the marriage and would conduct myself as such. After all, he had been doing that since he said: "I do."

"Samuel?" I called out, as I searched the bedroom. The bed hadn't been slept in. It was made and neatened, if he had slept in it, it would still be messy. Before I could call out for him again, my mother called. "Hello. Mother this isn't a good time."

"Darling, it never is. However, your sister and I are heading over to your house with the Mayor. We have exciting news for you."

I opened the bathroom door, and Sam was on the floor, butcher knife near him. His throat had been slit. Sam was dead. "Oh my God!"

"I know you're excited to see us dear, but it'll take a few minutes for us to get to you." I clicked off the phone and stared for a minute at the scene before me. Somebody had killed Sam, my husband. And there was a real possibility that I was that person.

The first thing I should have done was call 911, but instead, I checked the house alarm app. It showed a visitor had entered the guest code at around 9 pm. Just after I asked for a divorce.

"What did you do?" I asked as his lifeless remained motionless. I grabbed him by the shoulders and began dragging him out of the bathroom, where would I take him? Maybe the garage. Nobody would look for him there. He weighed more than I remembered. Of course, he hadn't heaved himself on me in a while. "I get no pleasure in this you know. I may only have gotten half in the divorce settlement, but you would have been alive. I didn't hate you, you know. I just wanted to be with Ernesto. And you wanted whatever bimbo you were with this week."

As I slowly moved his body out of the bathroom, memories flooded me. "I know you only married me because I told you that I was pregnant. You were so excited to be a daddy. When you broke up with Trish, I should have come clean, but I loved you. I still do." A stabbing pain pierced my heart. I had hurt him when I revealed after three months of marriage that I wasn't having his or any child. He had threatened an annulment but didn't have the guts to go through with it. Mostly because by that time he had already cheated on me a half dozen times.

He Was a cheater but he was a cheater, but he was my cheater. Who could have killed him? It seemed silly to try and figure out who murdered Sam since I was the most likely suspect.

Sam's cell phone let out a chirp. I had only moved his body to the hallway and stopped. After I laid his body carefully down, I dug into his pockets and looked at his phone. There were a dozen text messages, one of them from my sister warning that she was coming to see him. The message had been sent the night before!

Why would Mary want to see Sam? It was possible that they were having an affair. Sam would sleep with anything that offered it up to him. Plus he knew that it would hurt me the most, which would be even more reason for him to do it. That sealed it, he must have done it because he knew it would hurt me. And Mary did it because she wanted whatever I had. Always had.

Adrenaline and anger washed over my body. I pulled Sam's lifeless body to the bedroom and laid him on the bed. It wasn't a great plan, but in that the moment it seemed to be the most efficient.

"Hello!" Mother called out. Why couldn't she be most parents and wait for us to go visit her? The answer was because she knew we never would. "Where are you dear?"

"Just checking on Sam, Mother. He's not feeling well."

"Well, of course, he's not. I slit his throat last night after I drugged your whiskey. You know you really should get help for your drinking problem."

"Alison, you killed your son-in-law? Why? I don't understand." The Mayor asked, his boyish charm gave way to more adult concerns.

"It's not that sordid. You're running for Senator," Mother turned her attention to me, the continued. "Which you would have known if you answered your phone ever. Mary is going to marry him to help shore up the more conservative votes. The last thing we needed was for his philandering to derail a promising career."

"Why did you text him last night, Mary?" I asked.

"I didn't."

"I stole her phone and sent those messages. Sam would never have agreed to meet with me, he thought I was crazy." Tears formed in my eyes. My crazy mother had taken the life of my husband, my sweet, adoring husband. My sweet, adoring, cheating husband. "Don't you start missing him. We have work to do. We need to bury the body and figure out what to tell people."

"I'm a widow because of you."

"You'll get used to it."