Polished Messes: Short Stories

The Good Man

His obituary lied. The basic facts were true enough. Martin Howard was a successful lawyer and community pillar who died in a car crash, leaving behind his pregnant wife of five years.

But Martin Howard was not a good man.

And she is no longer pregnant.

"And now we will hear from Martin's wife, Patricia," the minister says, his heavy robe a sparkling white against the blood-red tapestries hanging from the church ceiling. He gestures to where she sits alone in the front pew, legs crossed demurely at her ankles, and black long-sleeve designer jacket clinging to her sweaty arms.

The deep bruises scattered throughout her body ache as she stands, her high heels clicking against the worn hardwood floor like quick sucker punches. Click, click, click.

Up the steps.

To the podium.

Her hands shake as she turns to face the crowd of mourners. At least three hundred faces stare back at her. Golf buddies. Lawyers. Business associates. Family members dabbing tissues to dry eyes and his high school pals, who remember him as the jock, the class president, the all-around hero.

And his friends.

The ones he drank with nearly every night, toasting to their manhood, flirting with other women and sending him home to her, drunk. Aroused. Mean.

Traitors.

They knew. They knew.

Hot July sunlight pierces through the tall stained-glass windows etched with Biblical scenes, Jesus unable to look at her. Tiny motes of dust and mold dance in the direct beams before being sucked into lungs, festering and toxic. Patricia presses a shaky hand against her now-empty womb, glancing with wide eyes at her husband's coffin that holds his cold, dead body.

But there's nothing he can do to her now.

No more reprimands, no more demanding schedules that must be followed with precision, and no more punishments when she failed. Patricia clears her throats, turning back to the crowd. She didn't need to write a speech or rehearse. The words have been brewing in her heart since he broke her nose after their honeymoon.

The truth.

Exposure.

Her redemption without punishment.

She reaches up to unbutton her suffocating jacket in order to reveal the fresh crop of bruises along her arms and lower stomach, the ones delivered in a drunken rage moments before Martin decided to drive to the liquor store for more vodka.

Someone catches her attention.

Martin's elegant mother sits ramrod straight, her shoulders trembling and perfectly-made up face pale and stricken.

Patricia freezes.

She knows. She knows.

And she, too, wears a long-sleeve dress

Please, she begs with her eyes. Not here. Not now.

Martin's father stiffens beside her with clenched fists—the influencer, the teacher, the reason why shamed truth boils angry and hot in Patricia's stomach. Words press against her closed lips, all of her pain and suffering, desperate for release, but not here, not now.

Because there will be punishment afterward, just not her own.

She buttons her jacket.

"Martin Howard was a good man."

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Thanks so much for reading! This is another story that I might enter in a local Maryland Writer's Associate Flash Fiction contest, one that makes me thankful to be married to a kind, sweet husband. 

Take care and happy reading and writing!