Future Portraits of the Unhappy Dead | Part 2
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My eyes slivered open to a headache. Every inch of my body throbbed. From Mason's beating and from the violence with which I'd returned the favor. My jaw, my shoulder, my stomach. Everything was bruised and groaning. After rolling Mason's body under the truck,

I ran the entire way home, taking back roads and alleys, making sure to steer clear of any streetlights that might illuminate the bright firework of blood spattered across my shirt and torso. Had anyone seen me? Had anyone seen Mason? Had anyone seen his corpse? I didn't think so, but they would soon enough. I rolled out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom, and retched. "What have you done, RJ?"

killed Mason, that's what. The thought ignited a round of dry heaves. I puked until it felt like my stomach would tear and then limped into the shower and pulverized my skin with hot water. My mind ran in a loop, Mason's knee rising toward my chin, falling to the asphalt with the taste of copper on my tongue. Mason crouching down to give me his little sermon about spreading rumors.

The rage, whooshing to life in my chest as my hand curled around the rock and brought it, hard, into his temple. The horrible crunch of his skull as I connected. The sensation of pottery breaking as I turned his face to pulp. Jesus. I forced the image from my mind, dried off, and flung myself onto my mattress and lay there the entire day. I didn't move once.

A cold wall of air conditioning socked me in the face as I pushed into tech zone, the bell dinging cheerily at my entrance. Avery was at the counter, where a customer stood with his back to me. Not a customer, I realized with a chill, but a cop wearing a set of dress blues. "Morning, RJ. How are you feeling?" Avery asked, peering around him. I wanted to say, like shit, "Fine. Thanks for the time off."

My gaze remained on the officer. I was ready to bolt. "Hey, RJ," the man said, turning with a smile I recognized. One corner of his mouth tugging slightly higher than the other, light gray eyes, a time-wrinkled forehead and a mustache that belonged to the '80s. Slow to anger, quick to laugh. Frank Cullen, my mother's one-time fiance and now long-ago ex. I hadn't spoken with him in over a year,

but of all the losers she'd dragged home during my formative years, Frank was by far the best, and too good for her by a mile. "Hey Frank," I said with a smile of my own, my nerves jangling a little less. If he was here to arrest me for Mason's murder, he would have done so by now, and with a healthy contingent of cops in tow to back him up. "What brings you in?" "Don't say Mason, don't say Mason, don't say Mason." "Mason Brennan."

My knees hinged. Light danced through my eyes. I felt like I'd been punched. "You knew him, right? Knew him?" I echoed, lamely. "Yeah. An old classmate of yours, if I remember correctly. He's dead." I mimed surprise, which wasn't hard with the amount of adrenaline spurting through my veins. "You're kidding. What happened?" "Someone beat him to death at the crow's nest."

"Holy shit," I mumbled. I didn't know what else to say. "That's not even the craziest part. Turns out the guy's been dealing painkillers to his players. Can you believe that? Percocet, Dilaudid, Valium, all kinds of opiates. A bunch of students came forward over the weekend." His eyes narrowed. "How do you not know this? It's been all over the news." I tapped my temple. "I had a seizure last week.

The doctor told me to avoid screens for a few days. "Oh, right. Avery mentioned that. I'm sorry to hear they're back." "It's okay. They, uh, know who did it? Killed Mason?" "Nope, not yet," he said as he snatched a phone from the counter and placed it in a clear plastic bag. "But I'm hoping this might help. This town has sure taken a turn for the worse, hasn't it?" Avery said. "I'll say."

"Still, if you ask me, whoever did this, did those kids a favor. Sounds like the guy had it coming. Damn shame what happened to that Miller kid." The way Frank said it, the way he looked at Avery, with so much heat for a moment. I wanted to tell him it was me, that Jeremy himself had clued me in. But then the look faded, and Frank marched toward the door, stopping next to me long enough to squeeze my shoulder. "Good to see you, RJ."

"Say hello to your mother for me the next time you talk to her, will ya? Sure thing, Frank. Let's do lunch sometime." He nodded and I watched him go, then turned back to Avery, who was gazing at me with something close to genuine concern. An expression that set my blood fizzing. To have her clear green eyes so squarely focused on me stole my breath. "Are you sure you're okay, RJ? You look pale. If you need a few more days off, it's no problem.

"I'm fine," I said, forcing a smile. "Just fine." I focused on work, wiping operating systems and reformatting hard drives like my life depended on it. Which, in a way, it did. The job was the only thing that kept my mind off the memory of Mason's face buckling beneath the rock like wet cement. I still couldn't believe I'd killed him. Christ. It was only a matter of time before Frank returned with the SWAT team to arrest me.

I half expected them to burst in at any minute, only they didn't. Eric did. Over and over. Every. Single. Day. Sometimes with flowers. Sometimes with boxes of cheap grocery store candy. Always with his dopey meathead smile. And an invitation for Avery to join him on some quick excursion for lunch or coffee. Or to duck out early for a drink. You don't mind, do you, RJ?

No, of course not. By all means, go ahead. I'll handle things here. I hated every minute of it. I couldn't understand what she saw in him. I mean, sure, he had money. But he also loved football and beer, and had an unhealthy obsession with protein shakes. Avery enjoyed photography and Steinbeck. Didn't she know I'd read East of Eden not once, but twice? That I'd practically memorized The Grapes of Wrath?

Didn't she care that I liked photography too? Because I did. Taking pictures helped me make sense of the world, to slow it down and process it one frame at a time. The only difference between her photos and mine was that I preferred to analyze people over nature, and of all the people in the world, I preferred to analyze her. The days bled into a week, the weeks into a month, and I marveled at my luck.

I grabbed that lunch with Frank and tossed him a few questions about the case. His answers set me at ease. The cops seemed far more focused on Mason's drug dealing than his death. And not only the cops, the entire town did. Pictures of Jeremy were splashed on the local news and over the papers and the web. A primetime warning show picked up the piece and interviewed his sister, whose name it turned out was Kelly.

She sat stone-faced as she spoke about Jeremy's descent into addiction and how he'd deteriorated after joining the team. She agreed that what had happened to Mason was wrong, but, hey, bad decisions carried consequences, and Mason had certainly earned his. I didn't disagree. Time passed. Summer slipped into fall, and no more pictures spoke to me, not that I expected them to.

I chalked up what had happened with Jeremy to the storm of electrical activity in my brain after the seizure. Sure, Mason had been an asshole, and an arguably evil person, but that didn't change the fact I'd taken the life of a husband and, as I later found out, a soon-to-be father. His wife had been three months pregnant the night I'd bludgeoned him to death. Apparently, she'd just picked out the crib. That, more than anything, fucked me up.

I knew what it felt like to grow up without a father, and I swore I'd never hurt anyone again. Then the computer arrived. "Hello?" A voice called. "Is anyone here?" I poked my head out of the back office to find a slender, middle-aged woman shuffling into tech zone with a laptop in her hand. "Yes, hi, how can I help you?" I said, swinging into full view. She set the laptop on the counter. It looked ancient and boxy.

A relic that should have long ago been tossed in the recycle heap. "This is... was my father's. He died recently and I don't have his password. I meant to ask for it, but it all happened so fast." She trailed off, her voice cracking on the last few words. "I'm sorry to hear that," I offered. "Can you help me log in? I need to access his estate information." I glanced at her PC.

It was an HP, which meant a Windows operating system, and one that was likely out of date, a good sign I could gain access. "Shouldn't be a problem. When do you need it back?" "Sometime this week would be great." "Sounds good," I said, pulling it closer. "Check in with me in a week. If I get it done sooner, I'll let you know." She scribbled down her information, left, and I went to work.

Packing the thing in 15 minutes, using a newly created administrator account. I would have done it faster if it weren't for the processor speed, or more precisely, the lack thereof. The thing hummed with heat, whirring away like it was going to explode before the display loaded. The wallpaper resolved into a grainy photo of a man I pegged to be in his late 70s or early 80s. He wore glasses and a smile, holding what I guessed to be his grandson.

a plump-cheeked toddler with blonde hair framing a pair of cobalt eyes. Though it was hard to tell through all the files and folders cluttering the desktop, I set my hand upon the lid about to close it when the screen rippled. "Shut it," I told myself. "Now." But I didn't. And the man's eyes ticked to the side toward the corners and came back to rest on me. Static filled my head. Time slowed. When I didn't move and didn't speak or breathe,

It happened again. His eyes flicking right, toward a file, which I opened. Photos. Jesus. My stomach boiled. My blood turned to glue. Not again. I sat there, battling with myself. "Don't do it, RJ." My arm paralyzed. My finger frozen a millimeter above the mouse pad. My heart hammered. Dread hung in my chest like a weight.

Every cell of my being begged for me to close the laptop, to go outside and soak up the warm Texas sun and leave the pictures right where they were, forever unopened. But I didn't. I clicked instead. The first photo was of a dog and a red kerchief tied around its neck, wagging a pink tongue at the camera. Cute. The second, a group of children playing in a backyard sandbox. I could imagine them laughing as they made mud pies.

It wasn't until the third picture that my pulse really started to hum. It was a gathering of sorts. In a quaint living room bedecked with floral curtains and striped wallpaper, and at its center, on an olive green sofa, sat the man from the desktop. He stared at the camera with eyes that were clouded with cataracts, and a mouth that hung slack. His cheeks were wrinkled like parchment. Next to him, with her hands folded neatly in her lap,

sat a woman who appeared nearly as old as the man, maybe a few years younger at most. I would have guessed her to be his wife if it weren't for the look on her face as she looked at him. This flat, callous expression told me she'd rather be anywhere else than next to him. Why I stared at her for so long, I don't know. I was about to click the next photo, ready to move on, when the man's eyes sharpened and focused.

His mouth opened, but only the left half moved. The right half was frozen in a waxy droop. "Makes me hoot." The sentence wobbled through my head in a stroke-addled stutter, the last word turning to slush as I attempted to untangle it. "Hut, herd, hood," I muttered. The man nodded, tilted his head back to the cushion, and resumed his drooling station. I sat there, motionless,

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One benefit of living in a small town is that it's easy to track someone down when you put your mind to it. My customer, Grace Simmons, had left me everything I needed to do so. A quick scan through the PC settings and I discovered the name of her father, Levi Simmons. A Google search then yielded an address, 11834 Kirby Lane.

When my lunch hour rolled around, I grabbed my keys, stood to lock the door, then hesitated. The guy was dead. Why go to his house? I sat back down, typed in another search query, Levi Simmons death, Oakfield, and an obituary appeared. There was a memorial date, two days from today, at St. Luke's Episcopal, along with a picture of the man who'd spoken to me moments earlier.

And even though I told myself there was no way in hell I'd go to his funeral, why? What good would it do? I knew I'd be there. The church stood perched atop a set of concrete steps, basking in a spray of gory evening light. A somber-faced man greeted me near its mouth and placed a memorial card into my hands before sweeping his arm to the side in a grand invitation to enter, which I did, unsteadily and with great effort.

I hadn't been inside of a church in the better part of a decade. The formal atmosphere and ritualized movement always left me with a vague sense of disorientation upon leaving. I chose a pew near the back, far enough from Grace and her family that I wouldn't be noticed, and I turned my attention to the pamphlet. There, Levi stared back at me. A different man. Gone were the muddy eyes, slack expression and the rubbery, drooping neck.

In their place was a gentleman clad in a sport coat and tie, with a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. He looked poised, both dignified and alert. A man in full. A celebration of life, the card read in looping gothic font beneath the picture, dead at 76 years old. "A shame, isn't it?" I blinked and turned toward the voice. A woman sat there, staring at the card in my lap.

I hadn't registered her entrance, but I knew her eyes. They were an opaque brown, set deep within a fleshy face that swallowed the stained glass light as she raised them toward mine. My pulse slowed. My blood clotted in my chest. "Sorry?" I said to the woman from the photo. She inclined her head toward the cardigan. "That Levi passed. A shame. He was such a good man." She folded her hands.

From the front of the room, an organ pumped out the first few notes of a song. "You knew him?" I asked, a stupid question, I realized, as it tumbled from my mouth. "Oh yes, I was his caretaker. He had ALS. It's a terrible, terrible disease." I nodded like I knew what she was talking about. I nodded like Levi and I were good pals and we spent Saturday afternoons together, running around town to pick up his pills.

"And how do you know Levi?" the woman asked, impaling me with the terrible weight of her gaze, which for some odd reason seemed familiar, and not just from the photo. It's like I'd seen it, her before, somewhere else, a brief snatch of deja vu I couldn't place. "No, I, he was a customer of mine, a friend." The corners of her mouth tugged lower, her brow angled inward,

"A customer? Where do you work?" My mouth opened, but before my tongue could form the words, the pastor cleared his throat and asked us to rise. I did so with a shrug, then snapped my attention forward as fast as possible. I didn't want to look at her for another second. The service lasted 40 minutes, the pastor summarizing the high points of Levi's life, a father of two and a Navy veteran, a husband of 40 years.

A selfless man who helped those in need and relished the small but sweet things in life. A morning sunrise or an evening spent with family. The first smooth cast of the line on a weekend fishing trip. Sobs of grief punctuated the pastor's words. Kleenex was in no short supply. I might have needed one myself if it weren't for the woman sitting next to me. My skin itched with her malignant heat the entire time.

When the service ended, I forced myself to reach out and touch her wrist. "I'm sorry, but I didn't get your name," she said, before turning toward the aisle. "Edda Dumphy. Pleased to make your acquaintance." Edda Dumphy. Twice married, once divorced, once widowed. Another internet search. A LinkedIn profile. She worked as a nurse at Madison House, a palliative care agency offering at-home services for the terminally ill.

The Google reviews were glowing. I can't say enough about Etta. Her care and compassion with my husband Joseph in his time of need was a true gift. Etta helped my daughter's transition. She was so considerate and respectful. When my mother passed away, I was devastated. But nurse Etta ensured her last days were ones filled with love and comfort. I tilted back in my chair. Considerate, respectful, love and comfort.

Maybe I'd misjudged the woman. I mean, what did I really have to go on? Another talking picture and a hunch? And whatever she'd done, I sure as hell wasn't going to do to her what I'd done to Mason. Killing him had been stupid. A rage-fueled impulse ignited by years of high school abuse. A crime I'd somehow been lucky enough to get away with, for now. This woman who, by all accounts, seemed like a gift to society, didn't deserve a rock to the skull.

Rather, it sounded like she deserved a trophy and a medal from the mayor instead. "Mornin' Tubbs!" Eric's voice pulled me from my task. I hadn't noticed his entrance. He stood in front of me in a robin-egg blue polo, his hair freshly tousled with product, a few pink slivers of scalp showing through. Was it thinner? It looked thinner, and his skin didn't seem to shine with its normal health insurance glow. A shade or two paler at least.

"Is Avery here?" She had to run to the bank. "Did she say when she'd be back?" "No." "Go away. Leave." "Hmm." He ran a hand over his stubbled chin. "Hey, can I show you something?" He dug into his pocket and retrieved a small velvet box that he placed on the counter, a ring box he opened before I could tell him to stop, revealing a carat-sized diamond that sparkled horrifically in the antiseptic tech zone light.

My mouth went dry. I couldn't speak. Nice, right? I ground my teeth together. Well, don't leave me hanging, RJ. That's two months of salary right there. What we do for the ladies, right? He reached across the counter and bro slapped my shoulder hard enough to sting. Right? Yeah. I had to force the word out. It felt like a sliver stuck in my throat. He didn't even need a job to afford it.

Anyway, I figured it was time since she moved in and all. His mouth kept opening and closing, but I didn't hear a single word of what followed. Avery had moved in? With him? What the fuck? I knew she liked him and all, but I figured it was more of an in-lust rather than an in-love thing. A temporary fling at that, like a pile of kindling, would burn bright before burning out. I liked to imagine it.

How she'd come into the store in tears, gently dabbing at her swollen eyes as she informed me what had happened. How I'd console her, tell her another guy like me would come along and see her for who she really was. A deeply intelligent and compassionate woman, rather than how I knew Eric viewed her. Just another nice ass wrapped in pretty packaging. I mean, there was no way he noticed all the small things about Avery I did.

Like how she left a bowl of milk outside the tech zone entrance most mornings for the stray cat she named Doug. Or how when she asked a customer how their day was going, she really meant it. She actually wanted to know.

He didn't listen to her the way I did when she spoke about photographing a Texas green jay. Didn't see the way her eyes lit up when she described its feathers and the way it sang right before she snapped the picture. Like it had been waiting for that very moment to unleash its morning symphony. And I was willing to bet my life he'd never once noticed how she hummed when concentrating on something in this adorable tone that "She'll say yes!"

I realized Eric was still talking. His forehead now dappled with sweat. Sorry, what? Come on, dude. What's with you this morning? Are you high? I asked if you think she'll say yes. Uh, yeah, sure. He smiled, and I hated that he smiled. You really think so? I rubbed the back of my neck.

Well, maybe, but... He cut me off with another bro slap. Thanks, man. I owe you one. I'm going to do it this weekend. And keep this between you and me, will ya? No ruin in the surprise. With that, he winked at me. Actually fucking winked. Then turned and strode through the door, leaving me reeling in his cedar and pine-scented wake. I would have fallen from my chair if I didn't have the laptop to anchor my vision. If I didn't have Etta...

let it drop, forget about her. But as much as I wanted to, and as rattled as my conversation with Eric left me, I couldn't shake Levi's words from my mind. I couldn't erase the way he'd lifted his head from the cushion and stared at me with those milky eyes of his. So much pain there. So much need. So, I told myself I'd do what I'd do best. I'd spy. No harm in that, right?

Besides, I needed something other than Eric and his god-awful news to focus on. And if I discovered anything off with Etta, I'd simply slip the cops an anonymous tip or two. No more confrontations, no more deaths. Just an arrest and a bump in my cosmic karma. And this time, I'd need to drive. I have a car, if I haven't mentioned it. A late 2000s Toyota Corolla my mother left me when she fled Oakfield.

"You'll be fine, RJ. And now you can come visit us anytime you want to, see?" she told me. A token gift to assuage her guilt for condemning me, the family fuck-up, to a solitary life smack dab in the armpit of Texas. Not that I hadn't long ago condemned myself. Her move simply stamped the period on the sentence I'd already written. A thin layer of dust greeted me as I opened the driver's side door and climbed in.

A desiccated yellow pine tree swayed from the rear view mirror, long sapped of its lemony scent. I turned the keys and prayed the thing wouldn't start. An excuse was all I needed to head back inside. But with a few clicks and whirs, it did. I hadn't driven the car for six months and here it was, the engine purring like butter as I eased it into gear and backed out of the apartment parking lot. Two days had passed since the service.

I'd spent them formulating a plan, running the scenarios through my head, and shooting them down one by one. Stroll into Madison House and see if I could get my eyes on Etta's schedule somehow. Maybe chat with the front desk attendant and wrangle up a few details. No, too many eyes, too many people. I'd call instead and ask what exactly? For the names of Etta's patients? Maybe a reference or two? What would that get me?

More glowing reviews and my number in the phone company's records? Nope. In the end, I decided on some good old fashioned stalking. Finding her address didn't take long. She lived on the north side of town, on Lenore Avenue, in a brick house planted in the middle of a picturesque block dotted in cedar elm and Texas ash.

I parked several houses down near a stretch of greenbelt where I wouldn't easily be noticed and got to work watching absolutely nothing happen for hours on end. I tore through my stash of Funyuns and Red Bulls with alarming speed. I listened to way too much NPR. For most people, the weekends meant two days off, but for Etta, I figured that wouldn't matter much. Death doesn't operate on a 40-hour work week.

She came outside exactly once, at 2:30, to get the mail and to squint up at the sun like its rays were a personal affront before shuffling back inside. I threw in the towel around 4:00 and drove home, then returned bright and early the following morning and resumed my green belt station. The garage door cracked open promptly at 8:00 AM and spit out a gray Buick sedan. Showtime. I eased from the curb and kept my distance.

I tailed her to a house downtown, and then to another. I made sure to stay several cars back, never getting close enough that she might spot me or grow suspicious. I followed her all morning to six different homes and watched the same scenario play out over and over. Etta knocking on the door, a family member, or in some cases the patient, swinging it wide with a smile and a wave.

"Come on in!" greeting Etta with a hug like she was some long-lost relative. No one seemed bothered by her presence or even annoyed, and absolutely no one seemed scared. I slunk back to my apartment defeated, once again questioning myself, wondering just what the fuck I was doing. Had I misjudged her? Would this lead anywhere? Just because Jeremy's case had, didn't mean this one would. Not that it mattered.

The talking photos had given me a sliver of meaning in an otherwise meaningless life. So, I kept at it, burned my lunch hours and weekends, and took a few vacation days, trying to uncover even the slightest bit of impropriety related to Etta, of which I found none. The woman was a fucking saint. Everyone loved her. The grandma you'd never had but always wanted, at times bringing her clients cookies or even pies.

I watched her laugh through living room windows. I stared at her as she administered pain pills with the care of a mother, offered gently with a glass of milk and a warm smile. Basically, I hadn't found shit. Look, spying on someone isn't like the movies. All dark sunglasses and car chases. In practicality, it sucks.

You have to alter your routines and patterns and make sure you stay on the periphery of someone's life. Not so far away you make zero progress, but not so close you blow your cover. And it's boring. God, it's so boring. I wanted to quit. I wanted to stay in my apartment, comfortably numb, swaying gently in a THC-fueled breeze of my own making. But I didn't. I kept at it for two reasons.

The first was that Levi Simmons and his cataract-glazed plea wouldn't let me throw in the towel. He haunted my dreams and clung to the edges of my days like a senile ghost bent on revenge. He woke me in the still, quiet hours to whisper that Etta had hurt him somehow. Had done something. But that something was, I hadn't a clue. I only hoped that, if I stuck with it long enough, I'd find out.

And the second reason? I couldn't shake the feeling that I knew Etta. That I recognized the shape of her face. The curve of her eyes. The fact I couldn't place from where was maddening. It grated on me. A missing memory that refused to slide into place. Something about it felt like a warning. A countdown to some awful outcome I couldn't unearth.

call it a hunch or divine intuition. But I knew if I took much longer to figure out what the fuck was bothering me about her, shit would hit the fan. And then on a cool fall day in late October, I met James Keegan. James Keegan, 83, lived with his twice divorced bartender daughter, Nicole, who provided his daily care and relied upon Madison House to assist during the evenings.

Because someone in the family had to work, and work she did, until 10pm most nights, when she arrived home looking beleaguered and worn, stalling for a quick cigarette before going inside. A habit I didn't begrudge her for. James had dementia, and I could only imagine that watching someone you love slip away, little by little, every day, required a certain amount of chemical assistance.

Other than his marathon daytime TV sessions, James Keegan spent most of his time on the front porch, staring at the family of sparrows who called the persimmon tree in his front yard home, and seated beside him every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening at a dumpy, with her knees folded to the side in prim fashion, sipping a tall glass of sweet tea while feeding James bites of a turkey sandwich.

For the last four weeks, I'd mapped their patterns and movements. I'd watched them through my phone, zooming in on Etta as she reached over to pull strands of James's hair from his head like dead blades of grass. I watched as she smiled when his face registered the pain like a ripple in a pond. There one moment and gone the next, only to lap against the shoreline of his jaw a minute later, in a grimace, as Etta pinched his arm or quickly scratched his hand.

Hers was a subtle violence, hidden in the small bruises she left on this elderly man, lost in the fragmented memories buried deep in the smoking ruin of his brain. She moved with sly intent, slowly, as though to give him a reassuring pat on the hand, which she sometimes did before she sank her nails into the meat of his arm or quickly twisted a fold of skin between her fingers.

She kept her attention squared on his face, waiting for that slow eddy of pain to rise before taking another pull of her sweet tea and staring out at the setting sun in satisfaction. It made me sick. These little atrocities made me want to get out of my car, stomp down the street, up the steps and onto the patio, and rip free every strand of hair still sewn into her skull. But I forced myself to remain calm, to think of a better, smarter way.

and one that wouldn't plant me in the middle of another murder investigation. They took walks, 20-minute strolls down the street to the park, sometimes 25 if they stopped near the pond to feed the ducks, which they were doing more of late. Plenty of time for me to slip inside, plant a couple of motion-activated spy cameras, and get the hell out of there before they returned.

Then I'd simply record her handiwork, create a burner email, and drop Frank and the rest of Oakfield's finest a nice little video that would put an end to Etta's reign of terror once and for all. After clocking out of tech zone half an hour early, I arrived at the Keegan residence and parked three blocks away, behind a privacy fence, where I could see the yard and a sliver of the front porch.

Etta and James wouldn't come out for their evening saunter until around 7.15 or so, which left me with 20 minutes to kill. 20 hot, stagnant, empty minutes with nothing to do but peruse Avery's Instagram feed. Don't, I whispered to myself. You need to focus. Like if I said the words out loud, it would somehow stop my hand from reaching across the console to retrieve my phone, which of course it didn't.

it only made me reach for it faster. My thumb hovered over her profile and then clicked on it. There it was, the picture I'd stared at no less than a thousand times since she'd posted it. Avery raising her finger toward the camera with her starlight smile while flashing the ring. "It finally happened, ladies!" the caption screamed. "He's all mine! Say hello to Mrs. Van Horn!"

Avery hadn't just moved in with Eric and said yes to his proposal. They'd actually fucking eloped, in Vegas of all places, as evidenced by a series of appropriately tacky, neon-soaked photos. Eric wearing a white tuxedo and Avery clothed in a sequined cocktail dress, the two of them looking infuriatingly perfect together as they wagged their ringed fingers at the camera.

I stared at the pictures for what had to be hours now, memorizing every curve and line of Avery's face, snapshotting the pure joy baked into her dimples and the adoration etched across her face. I didn't understand how Eric could possibly make her this happy, but she was happy, humming more than ever during work.

sneaking off for phone call after phone call with her giggling girlfriends, uttering phrases like, "Can you even believe it?" "And I thought he'd never propose, and now we're married!" "I know, right? Right?" Ugh, the thought of Eric forever by Avery's side made me sick.

I could already picture their children, obscenely beautiful with Avery's waterfall eyes and Eric's symmetrical face. I could envision the sleepy sex they'd have on Saturday mornings before making coffee and heading out back to watch the sunrise together. I could see it all because those were supposed to be my slightly less attractive kids and my slightly less indulgent weekend mornings, not his.

The only thing about the photos that brought me even a millimeter of satisfaction were the ones that followed. Eric and Avery, lounging at a bar a few days later. Eric looking thinner than usual, perched on his bar stool with his loopy expression smeared over his face, like he might fall off and shatter on the floor at any moment.

Eric and Avery on a bike ride through Oakfield, with Eric's cheekbones looking like a pair of buried razor blades as they cut against his flesh. The skin beneath his eyes black with exhaustion. The two of them heading into a movie. Eric's hair most definitely looking thinner now. His smile weary, like it took a great amount of effort to stretch it over his face and keep it there. I didn't know what the hell had happened to him, but the dude didn't look well.

It looked like he had a tapeworm infestation, or had gone overboard on a keto diet. He even moved differently. The few times he sauntered into Tech Zone for a surprise lunch or an afternoon happy hour, walking gingerly, like his joints were ripe with gout. He still had the muscles, sure, but they were smaller and certainly not as well-defined.

Watching him waste away was just about the only thing that brought me joy and the otherwise painful existence I'd endured since finding out he'd proposed. And if he kept it up long enough, I thought, I might just get another shot at Avery after all. A slash of motion pulled my gaze from the phone toward the yard, where I spotted Etta pushing James in his wheelchair down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace. Showtime.

I waited for them to round the corner, then slipped from the Corolla and crossed the street with my shoulders hunched beneath a loose-fitting UPS jacket and a box under my arm. I wore a matching UPS ball cap low on my forehead and took measured steps in case any of the neighbors happened to be watching. I wanted to look generic in case any neighbors were out for a stroll or playing peeping Tom through a window.

Down the street, I walked up the driveway and onto the porch, telling myself everything was fine as I grabbed the doorknob with my gloved hand and pushed inside. A shotgun blast of color greeted me. An entryway slathered in pictures, all of it amateur photographer snapshots of trees and hillsides, farms and ranches, mountains and lakes, some of them blurry and none of them good.

I moved past them and into a living room sporting all the normal accouterments: a beige sofa and worn lazy boy pointed toward a small television set, a pair of side tables, one speckled in orange pill containers, the other in dust, old carpet and even older air. The stench of medical ointments and herbs filled the air.

I grabbed a chair from the kitchen, placed it in the center of the room, and got to work, fishing the first of two smoke detector spy cams from the box. Sure, you can hide cameras in clock faces or stuffed animals, bury them in desk plants, or conceal them in electrical outlets. But in my experience, not that I'd admit to having any, you got the best results placing them where no one looked, and no one ever looked at the ceiling.

With a grunt, I stepped onto the chair, applied the adhesive to the mounting plate, and froze. "Cannot believe you did this again, Jim!" At his voice, "Shit!

Frantically, I leaped from the chair and pulled it back into the kitchen. Then I grabbed the box and dashed into the coat closet, pulling the louvered door shut an instant before she pushed inside with James. That's when I saw it. My spy camera smoke detector lying in the middle of the floor like a voyeuristic calling card. And I knew I was fucked. You filthy, filthy thing, Etta said as she wheeled James past the closet. You know better than to do this on our walk.

I peered through a closet slat and saw Eda jerking his slacks down one leg at a time, ripping them off roughly, along with his shoes. "Here you are, a fully grown man pissing yourself again," she snickered and shook her head, then bent forward and snatched something from his hips and waved it in front of his face. His diaper, I realized with horror, soaked in urine.

And now you've gone and ruined our nice evening together. She flung the diaper onto the couch with her lips curling down in disgust. I should let you clean yourself up for once. See how you like it. But you wouldn't, would you? You'd just sit there moaning. Here, she contorted her mouth and gummed a few syllables. Mwah, mwah, mwah. Like the baby you are.

So, I suppose it's up to me like always. Then she turned and stepped on my smoke detector with a dry crack. What's this? My heart contorted. Specks of light filled my vision. She bent over and picked it up, like it was a cockroach or a spider, holding it between her thumb and forefinger as her eyebrows slanted into a V. I knew what the label read. Caution. Not an actual smoke detector. And I knew she'd be calling the cops shortly.

But she didn't. Instead, she shrugged and set it on the coffee table, then breezed past the closet so close I could smell the powdery soapiness of her perfume. It took every ounce of willpower I had left not to bolt from the closet and out the door. But I couldn't. Not with James, sitting in front of me with his penis lying gray and wilted on his leg. James, who I realized with great alarm, was staring through the half-open slats of the closet.

Right at me.

These ads do not represent my own political viewpoint. So if you hear a political ad play on the podcast and it's not in my own voice, then it has absolutely nothing to do with me personally as a podcaster. Thank you again for being a dedicated listener of mine, and I can't wait to have another amazing year with you guys. I'll see you in the next episode.