LAURA FUSTER

     

Sarah winces as she rolls over to press the button to the morphine pump. She waits, but relief doesn’t come. She looks at the receptacle containing the pain medication and sees that it’s empty, the wire to the alarm disconnected. Harold strikes again. And so do the tears.

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Will Harold show up this morning? Will he bring a replacement bag of the precious drug?

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Only three days ago, she had still indulged in the illusion that Harold loved her, convinced herself he grieved losing her bit by bit each day. Even the hospital staff had praised his dedication, how he arrived there each morning just after the shift change and didn't leave until 12 hours later when the day nurses could finally go home. What a gem of a husband.

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And oh, how sad he had looked when the doctors said there was nothing more they could do and suggested palliative care. How impressed they were by his rejection of their recommended hospices and his insistence that he would provide all needed care for his beloved wife. An academy award performance that even had her convinced.

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On the precept of saving for retirement, Harold had always leaned to the miserly side of things during their marriage, denying the extravagances other people wasted their money on, like holidays and a television. They'd rarely ventured out for meal together, Harold preferring her 'great' cooking, even when it was only beans and mash.  And she had gone along with it all, believing his lies.  

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But three days ago, after the nurses collected the dinner trays, her doctor discharged her from the hospital.  Harold had driven her home, dismissing the need for a costly ambulance. For appearances sake, he'd let the medical team install the expensive pain pump next to their bed, but only she saw the lost pound notes spinning in his eyes like a London slot machine. It was just after they left, he told her about Beatrice.

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'I'm going to marry her,' he had said.  A nurse he'd met four months ago—the same night she first went to A & E after throwing up blood for hours.  

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Hurt more than shocked, she said, 'I won't let you divorce me! My lawyers will delay it long enough for Beatrice to see the man you really are.'

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'Divorce? Ha,' he laughed. 'You think I'm stupid enough to allow my assets to be split?  No, darling. The doctors say it won't be long now. I have patience enough to wait.'

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And then he was gone. She had feared he wouldn’t come back, but then dreaded he would.. But what if she needed an ambulance or a nurse?  She had no way of contacting them.  The house had no landline—‘a waste of money’—and she hadn’t seen her mobile for weeks. Harold said he didn't want people disturbing her rest or upsetting her with their questions. With the chemo, she'd been too weak to argue.  

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And what about food? After four months, was there anything left in the cupboards or refrigerator she might keep down? She’d spent the night wavering between crying and screaming and sleeping.

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Yesterday morning, after the day nurses went on duty, Harold showed up. He had come to change the feeding bag attached to her IV. It had run out soon after he had left the night before. He said nothing as he entered their bedroom, unhooked the empty bag and replaced it with the new one. And she’d had no words to express the fury, resentment, and desolation that consumed her. Through her tears, she could only manage a squeaky ‘Harold?’ But even that fell on deaf ears as he sought refuge in his office and locked the door. 

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For hours she heard files being shuffled, a keyboard clacking, and a mobile ringtone playing 'Don't stop me now'.  Then, the front door opened and closed, and a key turned in the lock.

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She spent another night alone with her pain and her tears.

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Tortured by a sudden stab of agony, Sarah pounds on the morphine button, hoping to squeeze even a drop into her veins. With desperation screaming inside her head, she barely hears the front door open. Harold appears at the threshold of their room, an IV bag in his hands.

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'You're in luck, darling. Beatrice pushed this bag of morphine into my hands this morning and insisted I bring it to you. Always the nurse, that one.'

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He walks over to the IV stand and replaces the empty bag.

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Sarah presses the button and seconds later feels its cool liquid entering her arm, her body already relaxing in anticipation.

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She expects him to go into his office, but he doesn't. She hears him in the kitchen, opening the refrigerator, then closing it again. He returns with a fresh bag of liquid food and hooks it up to the IV as well.

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'Lunch has to be a bit early today, my dear,' he says as he walks towards the door. 'Busy day.'

 

He smirks, then turns to walk away, but stops with his hand on the door jamb.

 

'Oh, and by the way,' he says, 'you've signed over your entire estate to me. Very generous of you, my darling. Now, there's nothing for you to worry about in your final days.'

 

He pats the jamb with a smile, then disappears. The front door opens and closes. The key turns in the lock.

 

The morphine is working its magic, and she can now concentrate on more than her pain. Her husband's last words finally sink in, and her anger grows. He's forged her signature on the documents, ensuring he gets every penny of her rightful property, denying her the privilege of leaving any part of her estate to another.

 

Then she remembers Harold keeps the papers in his office safe. He would have sent a copy to his lawyers, but if she scratched out a codicil rejecting the changes Harold made, the latter document would take precedence. Her estate would go through probate, resulting in Harold getting a lot less than he thinks.  

 

Sarah smiles and, despite her pain, pushes the covers away. She shuffles from the room, rolling the IV pole beside her. She first checks the safe, but Harold must have changed the combination, and the handle refuses to turn. Frustrated, she staggers to the desk and, leaning on the ink blotter, begins opening the drawers. 

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She finds nothing of interest until she opens the top drawer on the right where a pile of papers lay neatly stacked. By the title on the first page, she knows it's not what she's looking for, but pulls it out anyway. A rifling of the pages confirms it's an early draft of a novel Harold has been writing. The title, 'How to Murder your Wife', entices her to read further. By the time she finishes, she's formed a new plan.

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She retrieves her old dress gloves from her bureau and slips them on. She then lumbers to the bathroom and removes the bottle of sleeping pills from the medicine chest, having to grab onto the sink until the pain and dizziness subside. Using the bottom of Harold’s whiskey glass, she begins crushing several pills, but has to stop often to regain her strength. Finally, she has sufficient powder to make sure she never wakes up. In a medicine cup, she measures 30ml of sterilised water and dissolves the crushed sleeping pills in the liquid—just as described in Harold’s book. In an old syringe she has flushed with water, she draws up the entire 30ml contents. After shutting off the feed pump, she sits on the bed, unclamps it and injects the mixture into it. She reclamps the tube, then closes her eyes, mustering enough strength to complete her act of revenge.   

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After returning the pill bottle to the medicine chest, she tosses the syringe into the trash can, returns the whiskey glass to Harold’s desk, and replaces her gloves in her drawer.

 

Exhausted, she sits on her bed and fumbles to find the washing instruction label on her nightgown. She finds it and rips it from the cloth. On the back of the label, she writes, 'Harold has injected something into my feeding tube.' She crumples the note in her fist, then lays on the bed, smoothing out the bedclothes before tucking them lovingly around her. She reaches over and turns on the feeding pump. 

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                                                       THE END