I don’t think I could have heard the shot; our houses were too far apart. But something woke me up in the middle of the night, and while I tossed and turned trying to go back to sleep, I began hearing sirens. I wasn’t thinking about the disturbance the next morning as I came up to Glen Boyd’s house. Glen and I aren’t really friends, but we frequently walk to school together.

           Today, as I approached his house, I saw two police cars and a group of neighbors hanging around outside. One of the women in the group was crying loudly “Juanita killed Doral,” she kept saying over and over. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe it. She killed him.” Juanita was Glen’s mother, I knew, and Doral his father.  

            Glen’s dad, like my dad and so many in our Arizona town, worked in the copper mines. The times I was around him, he was usually quiet, sullen mostly. I knew from my dad that he had a reputation for being a drinker. Glen’s mother was small, pale, a mousey-looking woman. She didn’t go out much and was usually wearing a simple house dress the times I saw her. As I thought about her, I do remember one time when she reached into the cupboard to get a plate to put some cookies on before offering them to Glen and me, I saw a huge bruise on her arm.  I didn’t think about it at the time, but now that I knew she had killed her husband, I wondered if he had caused the bruise.

            I continued to stand in front of the house. I hoped I might see Glen or his little sister. Where were they?

            “Shot him,” one of the male neighbors said. “Shot him with his own gun. I thought I heard something in the middle of the night, but these kids with their loud cars racing up and down the street are so damn loud, you’re always hearing some kind of noise.”

            “Don’t know how she put up with him as long as she did,” one of the women said. “Meaner than a snake.” Just then another police car showed up. The officer that got out addressed all of us standing outside the Boyd house. “Why don’t you all go home now, folks? We’ve got an ambulance that needs to get in here.” The cop looked directly at me. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school, son?” he asked. “You’d better get going, or you’re going to be late.”

            “Are Glen and his sister alright?” I asked.

           “Don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said.

           “They live here, in this house.”

           “Don’t think anybody’s hurt. Now you better get going.”

           Nobody at high school was talking about what happened. Was I the only one who knew? Glen and I weren’t in any classes together, so I normally didn’t see him during the day. By lunchtime, my stomach was so upset that I threw up the tuna sandwich my mother had packed for me. I used that as an excuse to leave school early. On the way home, I stood for a while in front of Glen’s house. All the cars and neighbors were gone. The house looked empty and was eerily quiet.

           When my dad got home off his shift, the first thing he wanted to talk about was Doral Boyd being killed by his wife. My mom always said those miners were as gossipy as any women’s group.

           “Shot him while he was sleeping, I heard,” my mother said. “Said she was sick and tired of putting up with him.”

           “Is that what you got planned for me one of these nights, Karen? Shoot me while I’m sleeping?” my dad asked.

           “Not unless I knew the cops would take me right to jail. Sure as hell wouldn’t want to have to clean up the mess afterward. Besides, I wouldn’t have been as stupid as Juanita Boyd. If she’d waited two more days, it would have been payday. She could have gotten his paycheck first.”

           “You are a cold woman, Karen.”

           Mom just laughed. Maybe dad was right. My parents didn’t have the best marriage, but I wasn’t sure I knew anybody who did. I began to wonder about my mom’s comments. Maybe she was a cold woman.

           Aloof or standoffish might be a more fit description I thought. She wasn’t one to be part of a women’s group. Didn’t have the time, she said. Didn’t want to waste the time was more the attitude she projected. She was artsy and studious. She would rather read and do crossword puzzles than do housework. That was the source of many of the arguments between her and my father. The biggest blowup came one day when my dad compared her housework to the way his mother kept house. The heavy glass ashtray she threw at his head didn’t hit him but broke the glass on a hanging picture behind him instead. Mom slept on the couch for a couple of nights, and our dinners were deathly quiet. After that, my dad seemed to accept that housekeeping wasn’t her thing.

           When I thought about that argument, there was something really strange about it or, at least, I thought it was strange. Mom had a habit of never leaving a butcher knife out on the drainboard or the counter when we went to bed. If she had used it in the evening to maybe cut a watermelon for a snack, she would always wash it and return it to the drawer. She might leave the plates and utensils and any cups and glasses we’d used, but the butcher knife would be carefully put away. I asked her about it once, and she said, “If someone breaks in here one night and wants to kill me, I sure as heck am not going to leave a knife out in the open for him to use. I think being stabbed to death is the worst way to die I could imagine.” She shuddered when she said it.

           The night of the big argument when mom slept on the couch, she did leave the butcher knife on the counter. I don’t remember her using the knife earlier, but there it lay right out in the open. I wonder if mom thought she might need it as protection against my dad. It was my turn to shudder.

           Juanita Boyd went to jail to await trial for killing her husband, and Glen and his little sister went to Oklahoma to live with relatives. I didn’t even know Glen was gone until one of his neighbors told me on the way home from school one afternoon. At the dinner table that night, I tried to talk about it, but nobody was paying any attention. Mom announced that she had taken up painting and needed dad to help her set up a place to work.

           “Now where are we going to find space in this little house for you to paint?” dad wanted to know.

           “Don’t need a room in the house. Garage will do just fine,” mom answered. “Move some of the clutter away from that window, and I’ll have some good natural light.”

           “You don’t know any more about painting than I do, Karen. Windows are so dirty there’s hardly any light at all going to be coming through.”

           “I clean everything else around here. Guess I know how to clean a garage window. This space will work just fine. You’ll see.”

           “No, I won’t see. I’m not ready to give up my garage for your foolishness.” With that, dad got up and left the table.

           There was no big argument, but things were awfully cool for a couple of days. I began to think things had blown over, but one afternoon dad and I happened to arrive home at the same time. When he opened the garage door to park his car, there stood mom at an easel, paintbrush in hand. I decided to go into the house through the front door, while dad stomped into the garage. I couldn’t hear their conversation from inside the house, only a strong murmur. I know dad was controlling his anger. He wouldn’t want the neighbors to hear. Mom wouldn’t care one way or the other.

            Dad came in the house through the front door and told me to come with him. We were going to get burgers. This was so unlike him; we hardly ever went out to eat. What should have been a treat for me was awkward and unenjoyable. I was glad to get home and into my bedroom to study.

            What followed for about a week was an uneasy truce between my parents. Mom seemed to be trying to prove that her newfound pursuit of painting was not interfering with her expected duties of wife, mother, and homemaker. Meals were dutifully prepared, and even the house seemed cleaner and more tidy. The mood didn’t last long though.

            One afternoon when I came home from school, mom was not in the house. I figured she was still in her garage studio. When I opened the door from the kitchen, she hollered, “Don’t come in here. I’m working.” I tried to warn dad not to disturb her when he got home a half hour later.

            “We’ll see about that. She thinks she can tell me where I can’t go in my own house.” With that, he headed to the door leading to the garage, pulled it open, and slammed it behind him. The shouting that followed was so loud that I had to hole up in my bedroom to get away from it.

            A half-hour later dad knocked on my door. “You want burgers again?” he asked through the door. Like most teenage boys, I could eat a burger anytime any day, but with my previous experience of eating with my dad, I didn’t expect to enjoy it.

            The next day I was determined to get my dad’s mind off his problems with mom. He had been promising that he would take me fishing. I thought payday weekend would be a good time to go. When I got home from school, mom was outside working on her roses. I figured that would be a good time to retrieve our fishing gear. I put my books in my room and went through the kitchen to the garage.

            When I entered, I didn’t pay any attention to the chalk marks I saw on the cement floor. As I walked back past the spot with fishing rods and a tackle box in hand, suddenly I knew what I was looking at. It was the chalk outline of a body, just like the police use to mark the location of a murder victim. I had an eerie feeling as I stared at it. I set the fishing gear down and walked to mom’s easel. When my eyes fell full on the canvas, strong southern light shining on it through the garage window, I couldn’t believe what I saw. What I was looking at was the body of a man lying in the same position as the chalk mark outline on the floor. I couldn’t see the man’s face, but a large knife was protruding from his back. And sitting on dad’s toolbox next to the easel was the butcher knife mom usually kept tucked away in a kitchen drawer. Evidently, she wanted to be authentic and needed it for reference. I knew I had to warn my dad.

            “I didn’t want you to see that yet. It’s not finished.” My mom had come into the garage without me being aware.

            “Mom,” I stammered, “what are you doing?”

            “Using art as a creative release of tension,” she said.

            “Is that supposed to be dad?”

             “Yes or, at least, his form. I had to use the chalk outline to get the position right. Pretty good, don’t you think?”

            “You want to kill dad?

           She didn’t hesitate. “Some days.”

            “So after you get his paycheck this weekend, that’s what you want to do?

            She laughed. “Where did you get that idea?”

            “That’s what you said about Mrs. Boyd that she should have waited until after payday.”

            “Just because she had to kill her husband to protect herself doesn’t mean that’s what I’m

going to do. This painting is just a way for me to work through some of my frustration. Unlike Mrs. Boyd, I’m not afraid of my husband. I love my husband.”

            “You do?” I couldn’t hide my surprise.

            “Yes. Very much.  Let me show you something.”

           She pulled the canvas off the easel and quickly replaced it with another. It was a work in process, but I could tell it was a portrait of my father.

           “I don’t know if painting portraits is my thing, but I wanted to try.” She held up a photograph of my father. “I’m working from this old picture of your father. This was taken just before you were born. I was very pregnant at the time. He was so happy and so excited about becoming a father. You can see it in his eyes. I know I will never be able to capture those eyes, but I really wanted to try.”

             I looked at my mother’s eyes and could see the glistening of tears forming as she said this.

            “What happened, mom, between you and dad?”

            “That’s what we have to find out. When we were going together, he used to tell me how much he admired my independence. ‘You’re not like most of the other girls,’ he would say. You don’t need anyone to take care of you, but I’m going to try anyway.” And he did. He’s a hard worker and has always been a good provider. When you were born, I didn’t have to go outside to work. I could stay home and take care of you and your dad. I liked that, but I also gave up a lot of me while I was doing that. Now I want to try to find that independent girl again. I want to try new things. I may even go back to school. Take some college courses. Do you understand?”

            I nodded. I knew then that mom was deadly serious. She was trying to express a part of her that dad had forgotten was there, and I didn’t know existed. And she had found a way to keep her frustrations under control. The chalk on the floor really outlined the image of her own life, flat and unfulfilled. I was determined to help her change that by doing more for myself. She would have to work through her own problems with my dad, but on our fishing trip, I hoped to find a way to tell him how happy I was to have him and mom for parents. That seemed a good place to start.

– Wayne Rapp

Author’s Note: The idea for this fiction piece came from an event in my childhood when a classmate’s mother killed his father. I thought I would take an event like that and have my protagonist react to it. As stories sometimes do, though, it went off in another direction and ended up being about the protagonist’s mother.