A woman is most likely to be murdered by her husband.
It took only minutes for the police to suspect that the woman who “must’ve drowned in the bath” (according to her husband, Sam) had been murdered. Sam huddled on the sofa, head clenched between his hands, face blank. Suicide was immediately ruled out due to the signs of struggle, and an accident was obviously not the case.
The police arrived soon after the EMTs carried her body down the staircase in a white vinyl post-mortem bag. Mine had been black.
As there were no signs of a break-in, and only the husband in the house, his protests of “I would never hurt her!” and, “You have to believe me, I’m innocent!” didn’t stop the officer from forcing his hands behind his back and stuffing him, handcuffed, into the sheriff’s SUV.
I smiled at the headline the next day: Local Man Accused of Murdering New Wife.
His innocence couldn’t erase my grin. At last, I would have justice.
Newspaper articles leading up to the trial lambasted him. It hadn’t taken long for the sordid details to emerge: his previous wife’s tragic (supposed) suicide in the bath, his hasty marriage to his mistress. Many had thought him callous, marrying so soon. Many suspected a pregnancy, but when no baby came, tongues stopped.
Now, his second wife was suspiciously dead. He was the natural suspect. I had made sure he was the only suspect.
I murdered her the way he had murdered me.
True, I didn’t drug her wine, so she was able to struggle and produce those “defensive wounds” the police like so much. Clear signs, that’s what they need to convict. When I grabbed her ankles and yanked upwards, her head sank, her frosted hair floating on the surface. No matter how her arms tried, she had no leverage to save herself. I focused my energy on holding her legs high until the bubbles stopped.
Vindicated, I dissolved until the ambulance arrived. I didn’t have any energy left anyway.
So much has faded or grown hazy since I died, but I cannot forget the night he killed me. He chatted cheerfully about his day like everything was fine. He was in a better mood than usual, though I don’t remember us ever really fighting. We ate roast chicken and potatoes for dinner, and he had overcooked the asparagus. That should have warned me something was off, but I went upstairs to take a hot bath without a worry, assuming my marriage was good and my husband loved me.
“Let me get you a glass of wine,” he offered. “That will help you relax.”
I remember smiling as I sipped it, thinking, He’s so sweet.
A warmth spread through my limbs, and they draped languidly over the sides of the tub as I struggled to keep my eyes open.
When I tried to sit up, I moved in slow motion, almost like shuffling in one of those bouncy castles full of balls up to your waist, but lethargic. I called for Sam, but my voice was barely a whisper.
He was there before I could panic, and for a moment, I was relieved to see him. I gasped when he grabbed my ankles and yanked, bathwater flooding my mouth. My fingers flailed for the side of the tub, trying to get a grip to pull myself up, but it was slippery. One hand found the curtain and pulled, but so weakly the rod didn’t even fall. My lungs burned as water seared them. Then everything went dark.
Next thing I knew, I was back in my home invisibly hearing my husband phone-sex with his mistress, unable to process what had happened. Or why. If there were signs, I never saw them.
No one ever suspected. He just moved on like nothing had happened.
I had been thirty-four years old. I don’t remember exactly what I did for a living, but I know I was proud of it and good at it. Maya Angelou once said that people don’t remember what you said or what you did, but how you made them feel. It’s even more true when you’re dead. Memory is fluid and amorphous; some things are fuzzy, some sharp. Sam’s jealousy of my success was one of the sharp edges.
“Goodbye, darling.” Another sharp edge. His last words as he held my feet.
It was only seeing her that I understood why he did it. He could’ve divorced me. My indignation surged, and the air crackled with electricity. No, Sam wouldn’t split everything in order to walk away.
When he carried her over my threshold, wearing my diamond, in her over-the-top wedding dress, every light bulb in the house exploded as I screamed my rage.
Elated by the revelation that I was not doomed to spectate forever, an idea for getting justice formed from the fog of my memories.
My death was reexamined and reclassified as a potential homicide. The trial only lasted three days. A recent life insurance policy provided ample motive for the second murder. According to the newspapers, the jury only deliberated an hour before delivering a guilty verdict for that woman’s murder. The judge sentenced him to death by lethal injection. I was happy to be dead in a capital punishment state.
“Goodbye, darling,” I whispered. Glowing, I skipped out the door and became one with the light.
Kaitlyn Downing—part fairy, part mermaid, and part cat—spends most of her time in her pool or her garden in Florida with her four cats when she’s not teaching English. Most recently, her work has appeared in Hemlock, 34 Orchard, and Circle of Salt.
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