The woman opened the door and immediately spotted the box in the middle of the floor. It was an old, rustic box with the top cemented on and it had been inside the bedroom for 16 years.  She tiptoed inside, with her long, thick braid being dragged on the floor. She stared at the box for several minutes, not wanting to get close to it just yet. She walked across the room and stared out the window which overlooked a pond and several acres of land. Through the window, she could see both the moon and the sun in the sky and within an hour, the moon would dominate the night sky. Tonight would be her last night as Hilda Henderson.

She sat on the floor and attempted to open the locked box without any tools . The key had been misplaced long ago, but given the box’s fragile condition, she believed she could break it open with her bare hands. She tried wiggling the top off. When that didn’t work, she stood up and jumped on it. After a few jumps she cracked the box open. She looked inside and saw what she had placed there 16 years prior, on the night of her wedding. A pair of gold scissors.

Without thinking twice, she grabbed the scissors, grabbed her braid and cut her hair right above her shoulders. It took almost a minute to cut through all the hair she had grown over the course of 16 years. When she was done, she looked at the braid with a blank stare and was surprised to feel nothing.

Hilda’s life as Mrs. Henderson was officially over. She looked out the window and saw the night sky rolling in. She looked at her wedding ring and thought of all the memories she’d missed out on by living in that isolated house with her husband–all the things he never allowed her to do, and all the ways in which she could finally get her revenge. I’m going to let these nails grow, she thought to herself. Indefinitely.

She would tend to her nails and be like the lady on Guinness World Records who grew her nails until they curled up and hardened into the shape of a garden snail. She would care for them; wash them every day, put a fresh coat of wax to strengthen them, manicure them, polish them, and massage them. I should even let my toe nails grow, she thought and gave herself a small chuckle. If she could endure 16 years of walking on eggshells around Mr. Henderson, she could find a way to let her nails grow the way she wanted.

“This is a disgusting idea,” she heard Mr. Henderson’s voice saying from beyond the dead. “I forbid you.”

Mr. Henderson forbid everything. And even in death, Mr. Henderson was attempting to sabotage any plans that did not involve him. She laughed his comments off and walked into the next room where he resided in his eternal sleep. His body had stiffened over the course of 2 hours. Hilda’s first task was to take out his eyes and put them in the box, that way he would not be able to watch her anymore. Her next task would be to dispose of the box containing Mr. Henderson’s eyes and her braid, that way she would not be reminded of her 16 years as Hilda Henderson. Lastly, she would need to find a way to speed up her nails growing so that if investigators ever found her she would have a story to tell them, How could I kill my husband? Look at my nails. Does it look like I can commit a crime in these?

When I apologize and she looks at me with those doe eyes—that’s when I love her the most. When I tap her belly and she gives me a Pillsbury Doughboy giggle—that’s when I remember why I chose her, my sweet Caroline. I just want to eat her up like a warm, freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. But when I see her laughing at her phone, those warm feelings instantly disappear. Who is she laughing with?

“Caroline, who are you texting?” I snatch her phone, hoping to catch her in a lie. I look at her phone and oh. It’s her father.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m a little drunk, honey. You know how alcohol makes people act sometimes.”

——  

I was such a jerk to my poor little Caroline last night. I don’t know how she puts up with me sometimes. I know what I’ll do. I’ll bake her some cookies. From scratch. The way my mom used to bake them when I was a little boy, with extra chocolate chips because she had extra love for me. I was my mom’s favorite, and favorites always get extra.

I’m waiting for my chocolate chip cookies to bake in the oven. I look out the kitchen window and what do I see? None other than my wife, Caroline, smiling at the new neighbor. Why is she smiling at the new neighbor? What business does she have with him? We only have two friends—each other. And the way she’s staring at him, like she’s looking at a full moon for the first time. And the giggles that are coming out of her mouth, and that inflected pitch in her voice…

 She’s cheating on me. She must be. This bitch is cheating on me.

She now walks into the house and tells me that the new neighbor noticed I like to drink beers. He’s seen me out on the patio drinking my stouts, so he bought me a pack.

“I don’t want those beers, Caroline. Throw them away. That man is just looking for an excuse to talk to you. How can you not see that?”

Sometimes I think my wife is a fucking idiot. And sometimes, I think she thinks I’m the fucking idiot. Like when she’s texting all the men she’s ever known during the wee hours of the night. And then tells me she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. She tries to act all innocent with her eyes and her fake concern. What she doesn’t know is that I have her password and I can access her phone anytime I want. I did it last night. After slipping her a sleeping pill, I went through all her texts and tried to decode her messages. Now, before you judge me, let me tell you why I did that. Every morning, before going off to work, my wife gets all happy and giddy for no goddamn reason. She tells me it’s because she is about to see her wonderful students. Well students my fucking ass. I think it’s because she’s off to meet with her secret lover. Why else would anyone in their right mind be singing at 6 am in the morning? For that reason, I decided to look through her phone and what did I find? Well let’s see here:

Sally…Is that code for Steven?

Annie…That must be code for Alex.

 “How are you?” Is that code for “When do you want to meet?”

She thinks I don’t know what she’s up to when she’s laying next to me, in my own bed, with her phone in hand. But tonight, I will catch her in her lies.

[10:01pm]

Oh. Here she comes, she’s about to get into bed and she’s telling me she is texting Annie about plans they made this weekend.

“Is that so, Caroline? Well, why don’t you call Annie. Yes, call her right now….No, do it on your phone. I just want to say hi. Stop asking questions and just call her.”

[Caroline calls Annie and hands the phone over to her husband.]

“Oh. Annie. Hi. No, don’t be alarmed. Everything is fine. Caroline and I just wanted to say hi. Yes, I just remembered that your birthday is this weekend. Happy early birthday. Enjoy your day and talk to you later.”

Wow. Well what can I say? This time I caught Caroline telling the truth. But you know what, it’s good to surprise your wife like this every once in a while. Just so she knows that at any moment, she can be caught in her web of lies.

My life would be so much easier if I were invisible. Then I could follow her throughout the whole day and see how she hides her secrets so well, or rather where she hides her secrets. One of these days her tongue is bound to slip, whether voluntarily or by this truth serum I recently bought. One way or another, I’m going to get the truth out of her.

I drove into the Walmart parking lot on the most humid day of the year. From inside my car, I could see water evaporating from the ground. I saw the 2001 Toyota Corolla with its “COEXIST” bumper sticker and decided to park right next to it, on the passenger side. I got out of my car. I reached for the passenger door and almost burned my hand off. I opened the door and stuck my head inside the car. I could smell melted Hot Cheetos and old Ramen Noodles coming from the cup holder. It was an oven. The first thing to completely dissolve inside the car was a red gum on the floor. I unlocked the rest of the doors and opened the back door where I saw an oversized tote bag with various watercolor paintings. I reached inside the tote bag and pulled out a random one. It was a purple sunset with no sun. There were pink and purple clouds and a thin layer of water, which could have been an ocean, at the bottom of the painting. The condition of the painting was excellent. I put the painting back inside the bag and took the bag out with me. As I closed the back door I heard an annoyed muffled voice, “Rebecca, what are you doing here?” My body froze. I didn’t think he would come back to his car so soon.

“Rebecca. You know you can’t be here. If you put the bag back in the car and go on your way, we’ll pretend this never happened.” I stood face to face with the man. The man I had been married to for almost 12 years. I took a good look at him, his hair and shirt drenched in sweat. He’d always been a sweater. The first memory I have of him is him walking uphill to senior seminar during the winter semester, with sweat rolling down the side of his face. Back then, I found that endearing.

The decision to take the tote bag was an easy one, especially when I thought about the fact that the purple painting was painted for me. Actually, all the paintings in that bag were painted for me, why should he get to keep them? I took one last look at the man and got inside my car. Three months later I was in Cell Block B in State Prison, learning to live with women who were criminals. True Criminals. Women who had committed unthinkable crimes.  The type of crimes I would have liked to commit against my ex-husband.

Sometimes, I lie awake all night in my cell, dreaming up scenarios that could have occurred that day at the Walmart parking lot. I could have gone for a misdemeanor, maybe destroy his car. Or I could have gone for something much bigger. If he was going to send me to jail anyway, I might as well have done something to deserve it. And while I’m here, I might as well spend the rest of my life here. Because 10 years is an eternity. That’s the amount of time my little Alex got to live on Earth. And a life without him is really not a life.  

When I spend too much time fantasizing on the top bunk of my bed, Jaime, my cell mate, tells me to shut up, “I can hear you thinking,” she says. “You only been here 8 months and already turning out for the worst. I been here 18 years and I only get better and better every day,” she says. She’s the only normal one in this Block. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t get on my nerves. When I want to block her out, I just stare at the opposite wall, the one with my son, Alex’s, watercolor paintings. When I look at those, I know what Jaime is talking about. About getting better. So I just look at Alex’s paintings. And eternity doesn’t seem so bad.