Now You Do Mine
She told me she was going to kill me. The barrel of the automatic pointing at the center of my body mass was big, maybe a.45 or a.357 Magnum. I don't know guns, but it was a serious piece of iron, big for her hands, but steady, implacable. The look on her face told me she was absolutely serious, and she wasn't threatening me.
She was promising me.
Saturday morning, and my wife Amanda would be out of town until Sunday evening. I only knew in very broad strokes what her plans were, and she knew I loved her. Twenty years of marriage taught us both to be worthy of each other's trust, accepting and forgiving even the most minor of trespasses. Our daughter Elise had left for college over a year ago, which left me alone in our house both days.
A minute earlier, I'd heard a knock, soft, almost timid, three quick raps on the door. After a moment, the three quick raps came again, harder and faster, authoritative, but uneven, not at the same tempo between the first and second, and the second and third knocks. I considered waiting to see what the third round of knocks would be, whether they were harder, suggesting desperation, or the law, at my door, or more quiet and measured, polite but enthusiastic.
I decided it would be rude to keep my caller waiting, and strode to the door, unlocking it and swinging it open as her right hand was poised to knock again. She was middle-aged, wearing a mid-length dress, the hem just below her knees, very ladylike. The fabric was a paisley pattern of cerulean blues and sea greens on a cream colored background. Her hair was long, straight and blonde, hanging past her shoulders to her sides, and probably to the middle of her back. The lenses on her face were set in a wire frame the color of rose gold, squared in the style of granny glasses, matching a rose gold chain whose pendant was hidden below her neckline.
She had been crying, not weeping or bawling, but the genteel grief of a woman who has been hurt deeply, the latest in a sequence of offenses against her dignity, this last one putting inestimable strain on the back of the camel, not quite breaking it. That would happen shortly, it seemed.
She wore little makeup, and her pale skin and hazel eyes were regal without being imperious. A small spray of freckles spattered her nose and high cheekbones, and her face had few wrinkles, either from frowns or laugh lines. It seemed to me she usually kept her emotions tightly reined in, letting only a hint of her feelings leak out, regardless of what she felt. What little I could make out of her figure was slender, toned if her arms were any indication. The brown leather purse on her shoulder was huge, doubtless filled with the items she needed daily, for work and leisure, roomy and at the same time dense, heavy. I noticed her sandals, the same color as her purse, and her toes were unpainted, like her fingers.
"Yes?"
"Mr. Langan?" Her voice was calm, scarily calm. I had imagined a sorrowful contralto, but what I heard was strained, husky.
"Yes. How can I help you."
"Let me in. Please..."
She looked upset, and I wondered who had done this to her, whatever
it
was, filled her with so much bitter rage (there is no such thing as sweet rage, in my experience) and I felt a sudden urge to help her, or at least to listen. I help friends sometimes, but strictly as an amateur. I have no shingle on my door, but I can read people. It's a skill developed over a long career in contract negotiations, being able to understand others, their motives, relative honesty, basic intentions.
I backed up and let the door swing open, waving my right hand to show her it was okay to enter our home, which she did without looking at me. I closed and latched the door, then turned to face my guest.
"Are you home alone?"
I told her I was.
Her eyes closed for a moment, and a single jewel-like tear squeezed out of her eye, trailing down the side of her face. "Of
course
you are."
"How can I help you?" I emphasized the word
help
to reduce any threat she might imagine, and signal I was truly interested in navigating through whatever personal tempests had brought her to me. It wasn't a business matter, clearly. My work is with companies large and small, manufacturing or heavy industry, fields with little direct connection to the man or woman on the street. There were no lawsuits or legal threats looming over my personal or professional horizon, so she was here for herself.
She reached into her bag with her right hand and withdrew something big and heavy, the shape of death and the color of gunmetal, a faint sweet whiff of oil on the frame of the automatic. Grasping it in both hands, barely a tremor, she pointed it at the center of my chest, and another tear broke loose, following its fellow down her alabaster cheek.
"I...I think I'm going to kill you."
It occurred to me that two minutes ago would have been a good time to be rude.
She motioned me to the couch, and I sat with all the dignity I could muster, my body barely quaking in the beginnings of fear.
This is so...odd...
In my forty-some years on this earth, I've been the target of anger and revenge, some deserved, most of it not, but had never had a gun pointed at me, or even near me.
I had to know. "Why?"
"It'll hurt
them
." The last syllable was filled with such vitriol that I knew whoever
they
were,
they
were deserving, in her mind at least, of grave, vicious revenge. And I would be her instrument, her message, but I had to understand the reason for it.
"Who?"
Her lower lip quivered for a moment, and the gun, the pistol, wavered, before it came up again, this time pointed at my nose. Her next words were a snarl, an almost feral expression of anguish and anger, as if it were enough to explain. "That
cunt
, and my husband."
"Okay." As if that explained everything, which it emphatically did not. "What's your name?"
"G-Gretchen." She swore at that admission, as if now she had to kill me to keep me from telling anyone who she was, had been, at the end of my life. "Yours?" It was oddly polite, even in the face of her stated intention.
"It's Douglas...Doug. Gretchen, I'm not at all sure what you're referring to."
"You
have
to know..." Her eyes blurred with brimming tears, but her hands were steady, and it came to me in one of those weird moments of clarity that she was standing in the Weaver position, the way that police officers steadied themselves and their aim if they ever needed to draw down on or shoot a criminal. She was either a cop, or had been trained how to shoot by one.
"Gretchen, I'm sorry, but I'm a little behind here. Can you please explain why you're here?"
