The Guardian Angel
She could have called it "Marion's Monday." Every Monday for the past six years, she pulled the house apart and put it back together, vacuuming the carpet, dusting the furniture, plumping the pillows, polishing the silverware, and, if it was the last one of the month, writing the checks for her myriad of bills, as she did today.
A scan revealed what could have been a furniture showroom: the carpet piles stood at attention and the table tops sparkled. All was calm outside of her, but not necessarily inside of her. Fear, like liquid ice, strangely coursed through her veins. Neither the house nor her life would be the same by this time tomorrow, she somehow sensed.
Writing her checks was effortless, ever since her father's inheritance earlier in the year. Money, for once, was no object.
As she wrote the date on one, it blurred, the flashbacks in her mind removing her from the present and depositing her in the past.
Why couldn't I see it coming, she thought? It all added up. Sure, you had to work late every night since you got that new account, she said, as if her husband stood in the room. Of course, your infinite dedication to the company was behind those business trips and your new assistance-hah, female, what a coincidence-just had to go with you.
Every time he lied to her, that strange, almost alter-personality expression seemed to register on his face, as if there were two sides to him.
"Do you think I was born yesterday, Donald?" she screamed. What a fool I was!
Trembling and steadying one hand with the other as she filled out a check, she thought, My God, I'm worth more dead than alive to him!
Another glance at the living room and, by means of a sixth sense, she realized-no, just knew-that she only had 24 hours to live.
* * *
Telephones do more than ring: they sometimes rattle the emotions, as hers did now, causing her to bolt from her chair and pull the receiver off the hook in a single motion.
"Oh, God, it's just you," she said. "I thought it was my husband."
"That again?" said the voice. "I wish you'd calm down. I don't think your anxieties are based on any truth. You're creating a reality in your head that's just not true. Everything'll be fine. Stop worrying."
"Yeah, yeah," Marion said, forcibly controlling her pant. "Maybe you're right. I... I'm turning this into something it's not. I... I'm watching too many of those 'CSI' things on television or something."
"We'll talk about it tomorrow. By the way, I finished that sculpting class I was taking and I kinda wanted to show somebody-you, actually-my final project."
"Oh," she said, refocusing on reality. "Yeah, that sculpting class. That-that would be nice. I'd like to see what you made."
"Great," he said. "Then how 'bout tomorrow? 1:00? The usual-Donovan's?"
"Oh, yeah. Of course."
And as he said, "I'll pick you up at 1:00," she stepped on his sentence with her own and said, "I'll meet you there at 1:00."
"And one more thing," Marion said. "What if I'm not?"
"What if you're not what?" her friend said.
"Making all this up in my head-about my husband?"
"Marion, you have to have some faith. Everything will work out, I just know it. Somebody's looking over you and will make sure nothing happens to you."
She was not entirely convinced.
* * *
She had to act as if nothing was wrong, as if her premonitions were ill-founded and irrational. But as she fell into slumber next to her husband that night, another title flashed through her mind, Sleeping with the Enemy.
* * *
She kept glancing at her watch, but her mounting anxiety made it increasingly difficult to focus on its hands.
If I don't get in the car this minute, she thought, I'm never going to get to Donovan's on time. But as she reached the front door, she realized that she had failed to take her pocketbook from her bedroom and turned back.
That's all I need, she thought, is to be stopped by a cop and not have my license with me. Maybe this is what my premonitions been about all along.
But they quickly re-intensified when she saw the taxi pull up in front of her house-and her husband get out of it.
What is he doing here at this time of day and why didn't he take his own car, she wondered?
Twenty-four hours to live, she further thought. Oh, God, this is it! I was right!
Immobilized by fear, she watched the door open, as if she were a detached observer, and saw the rope he clenched in his hand. The orderly house, the sparkling tables, the footprint-devoid carpet all shattered into adrenaline-fueled trauma.
"Yes, Marion," he said, approaching her with deliberate steps and using a monotone voice that froze her blood. "Just stand there. You know you can't run. You never could."
Terrorized, she was caught by his projected energy, interlocked with him.
"Oh, no," she tried to scream. "Don't! Please! I've been good to you. I'll do anything to end this amicably. I'm... "
He took another three steps. Her hazel eyes, fixated on him, became reflections of his evil. Her silky black hair was drained of its luster, mated with sweat.
"Yes, Marion," he continued. "Look around at this house. Not a speck of dust. You were always so meticulous. Notice I said 'were'."
His voice was like an emotionless recording, devoid of feeling or empathy. He had been reduced to fact, the icy kind. His face reflected someone he was not: his alter-personality. His sandy hair flashed white. His stubble was like a bush of thorns, a dead plant out of which all the life had drained. The scar on his cheek appeared like a bolt of lightning.
"Yes, Marion," he continued. "I've learned a lot from you over the years. Now I'm meticulous, too. Notice I took a taxi, instead of my own car, so no one would see it in the driveway at this time of day. And speaking of time? Why, it's 1:00. I always leave the office at 1:00 to take my lunch. So, what's to suspect?"
Panting and heart-pounding, she could barely focus on the image before her.
Taking the last three steps to her, he wrapped the rope around her neck, tightening it with dripping deliberation.
"Waiting for a call, Marion? I wouldn't be able to help you. I conveniently forgot my cell phone. Left it in my desk. Tisk, tisk. I should be reprimanded for being so irresponsible. But there's a positive side to everything: no cell phone tower pings in this area. Therefore, I'm simply not here. How clever technology is, until you become cleverer and learn your way around it. Meticulous, Marion. It's all part of being meticulous, like you."
Her closed air passage no longer enabled her to feel or think.
"And these gloves, Marion? What do you think they're protecting me from? But poor Marion. You may not be able to connect the dots in your head by now. Why, the answer is prints. There'll be none. And the rope," he said, watching the life drain from her eyes, "why, it leaves no bullets, no gun residue, no trace back to me. What is it that you say, Marion? You don't seem to be speaking very clearly. You seem to be choking on something. What is that? Purchase receipt, you say?" He chuckled. "There isn't any, I didn't buy it, so how are they going to trace it back to me? One of a kind? Ha, ha, they sell this type of rope in every hardware store from Milwaukee to Miami."
As he tightened it, her face flushed red and she released a final gasp of air, losing consciousness.
"Do me one last favor, Marion," he continued. "When you get to Heaven, I want you to thank your father for me. Thank him for his gift-of his money-to me. I'll enjoy spending every cent of it. I promise... "
As her eyes rolled and the room spun about her, she had just enough oxygen left with which to hear the sound of a car in her driveway.
Hearing the gasps for air and feeling the same waves of fear that had somehow been carried by the telephone lines yesterday, the man cracked the front window with his ten-pound sculpture, bolted through it, and rammed it into the head of Marion's husband as if it were an impacting meteor, creating a crack that opened into a crater.
And it was he, and not she, who fell to the floor, causing the gush of blood to mar the perfectly vacuumed carpet.
* * *
The outside scene said everything about the inside one: the rotating lights on the police cars, the ambulances, the stretchers.
"No," said Marion, almost pleading with the burly officer in front of her. "My husband. He was trying to kill me. Don't arrest this man. He was just trying to protect me. He saved my life."
"And who is he?" asked the officer.
"His name is Angel. We go way back, to middle school. He was right. There was someone looking out for me. And it was him all the time, Angel. My guardian Angel."
A scan revealed what could have been a furniture showroom: the carpet piles stood at attention and the table tops sparkled. All was calm outside of her, but not necessarily inside of her. Fear, like liquid ice, strangely coursed through her veins. Neither the house nor her life would be the same by this time tomorrow, she somehow sensed.
Writing her checks was effortless, ever since her father's inheritance earlier in the year. Money, for once, was no object.
As she wrote the date on one, it blurred, the flashbacks in her mind removing her from the present and depositing her in the past.
Why couldn't I see it coming, she thought? It all added up. Sure, you had to work late every night since you got that new account, she said, as if her husband stood in the room. Of course, your infinite dedication to the company was behind those business trips and your new assistance-hah, female, what a coincidence-just had to go with you.
Every time he lied to her, that strange, almost alter-personality expression seemed to register on his face, as if there were two sides to him.
"Do you think I was born yesterday, Donald?" she screamed. What a fool I was!
Trembling and steadying one hand with the other as she filled out a check, she thought, My God, I'm worth more dead than alive to him!
Another glance at the living room and, by means of a sixth sense, she realized-no, just knew-that she only had 24 hours to live.
* * *
Telephones do more than ring: they sometimes rattle the emotions, as hers did now, causing her to bolt from her chair and pull the receiver off the hook in a single motion.
"Oh, God, it's just you," she said. "I thought it was my husband."
"That again?" said the voice. "I wish you'd calm down. I don't think your anxieties are based on any truth. You're creating a reality in your head that's just not true. Everything'll be fine. Stop worrying."
"Yeah, yeah," Marion said, forcibly controlling her pant. "Maybe you're right. I... I'm turning this into something it's not. I... I'm watching too many of those 'CSI' things on television or something."
"We'll talk about it tomorrow. By the way, I finished that sculpting class I was taking and I kinda wanted to show somebody-you, actually-my final project."
"Oh," she said, refocusing on reality. "Yeah, that sculpting class. That-that would be nice. I'd like to see what you made."
"Great," he said. "Then how 'bout tomorrow? 1:00? The usual-Donovan's?"
"Oh, yeah. Of course."
And as he said, "I'll pick you up at 1:00," she stepped on his sentence with her own and said, "I'll meet you there at 1:00."
"And one more thing," Marion said. "What if I'm not?"
"What if you're not what?" her friend said.
"Making all this up in my head-about my husband?"
"Marion, you have to have some faith. Everything will work out, I just know it. Somebody's looking over you and will make sure nothing happens to you."
She was not entirely convinced.
* * *
She had to act as if nothing was wrong, as if her premonitions were ill-founded and irrational. But as she fell into slumber next to her husband that night, another title flashed through her mind, Sleeping with the Enemy.
* * *
She kept glancing at her watch, but her mounting anxiety made it increasingly difficult to focus on its hands.
If I don't get in the car this minute, she thought, I'm never going to get to Donovan's on time. But as she reached the front door, she realized that she had failed to take her pocketbook from her bedroom and turned back.
That's all I need, she thought, is to be stopped by a cop and not have my license with me. Maybe this is what my premonitions been about all along.
But they quickly re-intensified when she saw the taxi pull up in front of her house-and her husband get out of it.
What is he doing here at this time of day and why didn't he take his own car, she wondered?
Twenty-four hours to live, she further thought. Oh, God, this is it! I was right!
Immobilized by fear, she watched the door open, as if she were a detached observer, and saw the rope he clenched in his hand. The orderly house, the sparkling tables, the footprint-devoid carpet all shattered into adrenaline-fueled trauma.
"Yes, Marion," he said, approaching her with deliberate steps and using a monotone voice that froze her blood. "Just stand there. You know you can't run. You never could."
Terrorized, she was caught by his projected energy, interlocked with him.
"Oh, no," she tried to scream. "Don't! Please! I've been good to you. I'll do anything to end this amicably. I'm... "
He took another three steps. Her hazel eyes, fixated on him, became reflections of his evil. Her silky black hair was drained of its luster, mated with sweat.
"Yes, Marion," he continued. "Look around at this house. Not a speck of dust. You were always so meticulous. Notice I said 'were'."
His voice was like an emotionless recording, devoid of feeling or empathy. He had been reduced to fact, the icy kind. His face reflected someone he was not: his alter-personality. His sandy hair flashed white. His stubble was like a bush of thorns, a dead plant out of which all the life had drained. The scar on his cheek appeared like a bolt of lightning.
"Yes, Marion," he continued. "I've learned a lot from you over the years. Now I'm meticulous, too. Notice I took a taxi, instead of my own car, so no one would see it in the driveway at this time of day. And speaking of time? Why, it's 1:00. I always leave the office at 1:00 to take my lunch. So, what's to suspect?"
Panting and heart-pounding, she could barely focus on the image before her.
Taking the last three steps to her, he wrapped the rope around her neck, tightening it with dripping deliberation.
"Waiting for a call, Marion? I wouldn't be able to help you. I conveniently forgot my cell phone. Left it in my desk. Tisk, tisk. I should be reprimanded for being so irresponsible. But there's a positive side to everything: no cell phone tower pings in this area. Therefore, I'm simply not here. How clever technology is, until you become cleverer and learn your way around it. Meticulous, Marion. It's all part of being meticulous, like you."
Her closed air passage no longer enabled her to feel or think.
"And these gloves, Marion? What do you think they're protecting me from? But poor Marion. You may not be able to connect the dots in your head by now. Why, the answer is prints. There'll be none. And the rope," he said, watching the life drain from her eyes, "why, it leaves no bullets, no gun residue, no trace back to me. What is it that you say, Marion? You don't seem to be speaking very clearly. You seem to be choking on something. What is that? Purchase receipt, you say?" He chuckled. "There isn't any, I didn't buy it, so how are they going to trace it back to me? One of a kind? Ha, ha, they sell this type of rope in every hardware store from Milwaukee to Miami."
As he tightened it, her face flushed red and she released a final gasp of air, losing consciousness.
"Do me one last favor, Marion," he continued. "When you get to Heaven, I want you to thank your father for me. Thank him for his gift-of his money-to me. I'll enjoy spending every cent of it. I promise... "
As her eyes rolled and the room spun about her, she had just enough oxygen left with which to hear the sound of a car in her driveway.
Hearing the gasps for air and feeling the same waves of fear that had somehow been carried by the telephone lines yesterday, the man cracked the front window with his ten-pound sculpture, bolted through it, and rammed it into the head of Marion's husband as if it were an impacting meteor, creating a crack that opened into a crater.
And it was he, and not she, who fell to the floor, causing the gush of blood to mar the perfectly vacuumed carpet.
* * *
The outside scene said everything about the inside one: the rotating lights on the police cars, the ambulances, the stretchers.
"No," said Marion, almost pleading with the burly officer in front of her. "My husband. He was trying to kill me. Don't arrest this man. He was just trying to protect me. He saved my life."
"And who is he?" asked the officer.
"His name is Angel. We go way back, to middle school. He was right. There was someone looking out for me. And it was him all the time, Angel. My guardian Angel."
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