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'Til Death Do We Part
by
Geraldine Cook Davis
Life with Ed was deadly. And, so, I plotted to kill him.
It was time for a walk in the woods. Traipsing through the foliage, I took to task a mushroom hunt. Mom raised me to know the edible mushrooms from the mushrooms to die for.
A bowl of steaming mushroom soup literally boiled underneath Ed's bulbous nose. He calmly lifted the bowl and emptied it into the dog's dish, adding a few ice cubes to temper the heat. Then, he sat, once again, across from me and murmured, "I'll take your dinner, thanks." He scooped my plate of yogurt with fruit and granola topping into his mouth as he watched Martha, our aging cocker spaniel, lap up the soup.
Damn! I thought. He knew how I loved that dog. Ed could be mean-spirited. I dug a place for Martha in the garden.
Ed and I laid her out on a blanket and carried her weight between us to her place of rest, next to the tiger lilies. How she'd loved to pee on them.
We limped back to the house.
"What gave me away, Ed?"
"Hadn't seen you so happy since I became impotent." He took a sip of coffee from my cup. "And, singing 'I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal you,' was my second clue."
Hell and damnation, I never could keep a secret. Angry with myself, I marched back down to the garden. As I shovelled dirt into a smaller cavity than planned, Ed dragged his sorry self to the back porch calling, "Better luck on your next try."
In the afternoon, while food shopping, I remembered that great Alfred Hitchcock classic where the woman bops her husband over the head with a frozen lamb leg, killing him. Irony was, she served the murder weapon to the investigating police.
Well, Ed hates lamb, so I got his favourite, pot roast. I got an extra big one and planned to freeze it real hard.
"Got you a pot roast for Sunday," I said, picking up his shoes, after I tripped over them in the middle of the floor.
"Why?" Ed's face never left the TV screen. How he loves that show, Wild Kingdom.
"Just a little apology."
Hearing the freezer door open, he barked, "Whatcha freezing it for? It's already Saturday." A commercial came on and he sauntered out to the kitchen.
"I don't want it gathering those new germs everyone is talking about."
"Leis, I saw that Alfred Hitchcock frozen lamb killing with you before we got married."
I threw that pot roast in the crock-pot, not caring if it cooked away to nothing.
Ed and I sat across from one another with chins propped on elbows.
"How were you going to kill me with a frozen pot roast? You only got a small roast."
"Is not. Got a sizable one."
"I saw the pathetic thing!"
"Well, who wants to pay the price of beef when you can't cook up the dinner later?"
"The police would have eaten it. Wasn't that your plan?"
"Nah. I was planning to bury it with Martha. Sort of a good-bye present."
"Well, they might have found it, had their dogs sniff it out. Anyway, what were you gonna do? Stand on a chair and hit me over and over with a flat roast?"
"You never give me any credit."
"Throw it at me then? I'd duck."
"Ed, go to hell."
He placed one greased-stained hand over mine. My Ed's a mechanic. "You know you don't really mean that, babe."
I sighed.
Ed asked if I wanted to go for a cool cone ice cream, so I said that would be okay with me. I thought the fool got lost until we pulled up to the dog pound, where we chose a lovely golden retriever and lab mix. She's a sweet one.
I guess there's worse men than my Ed. And, I decided on quilting again while he works his crossword puzzle. There's peace in placing threats where you know they ought to go.
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