Main Character Vibes

A country song of a man

She finally unlocked the door and was immediately taken aback by what she saw. Darkness. An empty house, bare and naked with no signs of life. No Francis, no kids. How bizarre this all was to her already culpable subconscious. Especially at this late hour. Straightaway, Marie took out her phone and began dialing for Francis as she flicked on the solitary lights in the living room and kitchen. The phone kept trilling unremittingly until Francis's voice came on.

"Babe..." Marie began before she immediately stopped. The prerecorded voicemail message in Francis's robotic voice interrupted her.

Francis had never before missed her calls. He would even go out of important meetings at work just to eagerly answer his wife. Marie was the one who screened calls and she did not like sharing the throne of that privilege. Screening calls took guts that Francis's beer belly lacked, or at least she thought.

Vexed by the dubious whereabouts of her children and her husband, Marie suddenly remembered that Francis had strangely called her earlier in the day, offering his sister to babysit for them so they could go out for dinner. Still clutching her phone tightly, Marie called his sister.

"Hi, Mathilde. You wouldn't happen to know where Francis and the kids are?"

"The kids are right here with me, but I thought Francis was out having dinner with you..."

"Ah, yes, no, something came up, we took a raincheck."

"Ok, I'll bring the kids right over."

Marie was standing in the kitchen mindlessly fiddling with her phone. Way past their curfew, the kids were still watching television in the living room as they distractedly nibbled on night-friendly snacks that Marie had tossed up for them. In the absence of their strict father, and any semblance of authority he conferred, the kids had exploited the leniency of their mother.

Although she was endlessly scrolling through the pages of her social media, something was preying on her mind. Marie found it bizarre that Francis had not come home yet. Suddenly her phone began ringing with an unknown number.

"Good evening. Is this Mrs. Lacroix?" asked a stern and unfamiliar voice.

Marie hesitated for a few moments before she was able to answer.

"Yes, this is Marie. Who is this?"

"This is Officer McKenzie from the Toronto Police Department. I'm sorry to disturb you at this late hour, but this is concerning your husband, Francis Lacroix."

"Is everything OK, Officer?"

"Your husband is OK, Mrs. Lacroix, but there's been an incident that's best to be discussed in person. Your husband is being held at the downtown precinct and we need you to come right away."

Marie pulled her car into the gravel-laid parking of the Toronto Police Department in the heart of downtown.

Although the walk from her car to the Toronto Police Department did not demand it, she released her umbrella before even setting a foot outside of her car. Her unfolded umbrella wedged itself in the narrow door frame before she wrestled it out while shoving her frustration onto it. If she was to get wet, it would solely be on her own terms. Marie pitter-pattered through scattered puddles on the streets. The wet mushy pebbles crunched under her heels as the height of anticipation began blooming in her eagerly excited mind.

In the monotony of what she had been accustomed to over the past ten years, day in day out, her husband being held in police custody in the middle of the night was shamelessly filling her with devilish pleasure peppered with the more mature response of adult concern. But every time her pragmatic mind would plunge into a pessimistic admonition of whatever her husband had done the fact that it was a fresh aberration to an otherwise reticent night of perhaps yet another session of tedious sexual lullabies to which sleep would be more preferable in comparison, her heart would thump with the thrill of it. "I can't believe he got himself arrested...on a weeknight no less!"