6

 

Muriel

October 1980

 

MURIEL SAT AT her desk, trying to write. It used to be comforting to be in this room that was all Amelia, all the time. Underfoot, a hooked rug sported her sister’s profile. Even the desk lamp’s metal pulls were modeled on her older sister’s plane, the Electra. She used to think of it as a sanctuary. Now it felt like a prison.

The speech. She’d had a moment of impetuous enthusiasm; on its heels, regret. That song swam up from the depths, and she hummed along. “Regrets I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.” She had one. Why on earth was she giving a talk and traveling to New York to do it? Muriel shivered, thinking of where it would undoubtedly take place, one of those stuffy, oak paneled rooms half filled with academics and curiosity seekers. Some called them fans.

It had been the note from the Samantha Barry girl that had gotten her started off, down this wrong path. Now she had to write something. Unsurprising, that in the harsh light of day, words escaped her. Thought went up in a puff of steam. She would return the round trip ticket and overly generous stipend. She would give her regrets.

Muriel stuck her pen on the blank page and left it there, digging at the paper. Of course, what came to her was the gun. Albert’s gun, upstairs, hidden where she’d found it, inside the drawer of his desk in that closet-sized home office. It was a shock coming on it that first time. But the second? The third? The twelfth? Albert was the one who told her they had to move on. Albert was the one who got up and went about his business. “It’s important to stay busy,” Albert had insisted. “It helps to take one’s mind off things.”

“Things?” Muriel had shot back.

He was so mild in response to the unimaginable. Just went through his day, and his daily routine. Then one morning, he was reading to her aloud from the newspaper while sitting at the breakfast table. He stood up with an expression of total astonishment and tumbled backward. Her heart had chipped off in little pieces. It turned out his broke all at once.

And to think, she’d thought him the braver one, better suited than she was for the job at hand.

It stunned her how wrong she’d been about him.

The gun. 

Muriel stood up and went out into the hall, then climbed the stairs. She paused by the bedside table. There was the book Virgil had lent her. She’d read it straight through. The Transit of Venus. What did the title mean? It was, on the face of it, an astronomical oddity. Venus crossed the sun twice in eight years. If you lived to see it twice, you’d never see it again. More than a century would pass before one got another opportunity. The same could be said about true love. Or rather, the author thought as much. The writing was elaborate, so elaborate that Muriel wasn’t sure of the ending and had to go back, flicking through the pages to see. Yes, it was just as she feared. They were star-crossed lovers. Muriel found herself crying. It was unfair but all too true; those you love are often on different trajectories, and it’s lucky that you even brush against them in passing.

If Albert had come upon her like this, he’d have said, “What’s wrong?” If she’d told him the truth, he’d have been surprised. A grown woman crying over something she read in a book?

I wouldn’t have told him, Muriel thought. I would have said something got in my eye. And he wouldn’t have pressed me about it.

It came to her again, how much they didn’t want to know about each other.

Albert read thrillers; they were fast paced and exciting, there was always something coming up round the next corner. He read them so fast, like popping candy into his mouth. There was still a pile of them on his side of the bed.

His bed.

His room.

His house.

No, Muriel thought, that’s not fair. Hadn’t she been the one to put the pictures up on every wall and pick out the bedspreads, not to mention the material for the curtains? She’d sewed them all herself on the Singer in the workroom and put up the wallpaper, too. What made it his? Nothing. It was theirs, yet it wasn’t. It didn’t feel like it, even though she was the one left behind to live here.

Muriel walked into his small office directly off the bedroom. There was the desk, and the file cabinet with papers locked away that told everything about the house, the mortgage, the financing arrangements. She’d been going through them when she found it. He had records of every single incident for the last forty years. When the roof had needed repairs from that major leak, ice forming over it, dripping down into the bathroom. When the boiler had burst, when the oak tree in the backyard had fallen over, luckily missing the house by inches. Every piece of history that they’d shared together was in here too, the children’s birth certificates, their wedding license, his work history, his social security card, his life insurance policy.

The key was in the desk drawer. She’d known that. He’d known that she knew, but why would she look inside? He hadn’t expected her to. He hadn’t expected to die like that. In the hospital, surrounded by beeping machines, he hadn’t been able to utter a word. Perhaps if he had, he’d have offered her a warning.

Watch out for that right hand drawer. You might be surprised.

Muriel unlocked the second drawer down, lifted the files of papers and took out the box underneath. She opened it and looked at the black Colt and Wesson. The gun lay in its case, the smell of grease rising off of it. She lifted it out and held it with both hands, held it away. Not a big gun, and because it wasn’t, heavier than it seemed like it should be.

Muriel knew how to shoot. She and Amelia had begged their father for a rifle. He’d given it to them one Christmas. Therein, a story. 

Father had asked, “What should Santa bring?” Santa was a family joke. Amelia had debunked the Yuletide legend early. At five she’d peppered their parents with unanswerable questions.

“How does Santa get to every chimney in one night?”

“How does he fit down it? He’s just too fat.”

“Where exactly is this workshop? Show me on the map.”

“How do reindeer fly? They don’t have wings. And even if they did, their bodies are too heavy.”

What was the expression children used these days? Poor Santa was “toast.” Their parents gave up and gave in, their faces contorting. They’d found a joke and Muriel knew, even at four, the lie. Amelia did her best to comfort her after the fact. “It’s not like there won’t be Christmas,” she’d said.

But back to the rifle. They’d wanted a Winchester like their cousin Tom had. Muriel remembered how they’d been sent to their grandparents to live while their parents established themselves. That December a brutal winter storm roared in. Would the train arrive? But it did, their father and mother emerging at the Atchison station, bearing three valises. In one was the longed-for rifle. The card was made out to both of them. It read, “For our remarkable offspring. Ready yourselves. Then take aim.”

“What on earth? That’s not theirs, I hope,” Grandmother Otis exclaimed. “They can’t have that, it’s totally inappropriate. Not in my house.”

 

MURIEL HAD SET the box on her lap. She removed the ammunition, then cocked the barrel of Albert’s handgun and loaded it up. What had Virgil Washinawack said? That Albert had wanted it for protection? That was a good one.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Marriage was certainly a mystery. The secrets one kept from each other. In retrospect, the rifle was the best present their father had ever given them. Of course, the day after their parents left, it disappeared. Grandmother had swiped it. Amelia was the one who marched into their Grandmother’s bedroom to demand it back.

“Young lady, are you accusing me of stealing from you?” she’d said, all up on her high horse.

And that was supposed to be that. She didn’t know whom she was dealing with, Muriel thought. Amelia searched the entire house. She found an old trunk in the attic and picked the lock with a hairpin. There it was. They spent weeks practicing in the woods. One Sunday night at dinner, Grandmother said, “You have something that belongs to me. I expect it returned.”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Amelia retorted.

That was when the war of wills began. Their grandmother’s ironclad resolve pitted against Amelia’s steely determination. Who would bend first?

When March blew in like a lion, the stories came with it. Mexico ravaged by plague. Photographs of the stacked victims, waiting for burial, featured on the front page of the Atchison Daily Globe. “Symptoms are chills, fever, severe headache. The patient experiences nausea and vomiting. As the disease progresses there is delirium and finally death,” Amelia read with relish.  “This pestilence is spread by migratory rodents.” Looking up, she said, “Have you seen how many rats there are in the barn, Grandmother? Why, the entire town could get it. This plague seems to spread like wildfire.”

“It won’t come here,” Grandmother insisted.

“Rats are migratory creatures,” Amelia had continued. “They go north for the summer just like the birds.”

“They do not. I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Poor Mrs. Michaels looked so healthy last week,” Amelia mused. “And then just like that.” She snapped her fingers. Mrs. Michaels had been a perfectly pleasant woman, and ancient. She’d been far from hale or hearty.

“You know, there’s only one thing they can do to stop it. They have to exterminate the vermin. Now say we were to do it. Putting down poison is dangerous. Other animals might eat it. Daisy might get into it.” Daisy. Grandmother’s spaniel. The dog had consumed more than her share of pastries and other sweets and lived to tell the tale. Rat poison could possibly have as little effect as anything else had on that cast iron stomach, but did one really want to take that chance? My sister was always clever, Muriel thought. And it was funny, when an idea was implanted it was hard to rid yourself of it. Suddenly Grandmother Otis was fussing because her husband had a cough. “Just leave me be,” he insisted. She put her hand to their heads, checking for fever whenever they came home flushed from running. “I’m sure there’s nothing at all wrong with us,” Amelia said, but her tone lacked conviction.

Then an acquaintance, Martin Roth, died in his sleep. Roth had been in a wheelchair for years. Usually their Grandmother would have noted his passing with a pithy remark like “Death comes to every man,” or “We come into this world naked and we go out, similarly clothed,” but when she heard the news, she went unnaturally quiet.

“He was a nice man, wasn’t he, Grandmother?” Amelia said. In truth, he wasn’t nice at all. He used to try and get them to sit on his lap and give them a ride. Girls would say other things happened. He tried it with Muriel who refused to climb on, then Amelia hopped up and there was this horrible scream from him. Everyone turned to look.

“It’s nothing,” Martin Roth said, much too quickly.

Later, Amelia showed her the hat pin she’d stuck him with. “If anyone tries something it fixes them.”

Now Martin Roth was dead. He’d lived a long, full life. He’d had his fun, sometimes at the expense of unfortunate little girls. In death he was about to be put to better use. “You know what else I read today about the rats? They’re drawn to warm weather. That’s why we only see them in the spring and summer.”

“We don’t see them because they hibernate,” Grandmother told her.

“Oh no. After they migrate, they nest.”

“You have it wrong.” But Grandmother didn’t sound confident.

She had Nichols, the man who worked for them, check. He affirmed that the barn was the home of rats and other “unclean creatures.” Poison would work, but it would also be a danger for anything else that sniffed round it. “And you have such a fine dog,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for anything that might happen to it.”

On his way out, he gave Amelia a conspiratorial wink.

The following morning Grandmother turned to Amelia at breakfast and said, “I give up.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You can kill them. Go on. Go and do it. Do it now before I change my mind.”

“Who would you like me to murder?” Amelia asked, innocently.

“There’s no ‘who’ involved. Get that rifle you’re hiding. Dispose of the rats. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care if you shoot yourselves in the process.”

“What rifle?” Amelia asked. Muriel kicked her under the table.

“Amelia Earhart, there is no need to be impertinent!”

“I’m not being impertinent, I’m trying to understand. Father gave us a rifle for Christmas. Then it went missing and you said you didn’t know anything about it. It can’t be that rifle you’re referring to.”

“I removed it because it was unseemly to have you toting that thing around with you. People would talk. Girls who want boys to like them don’t walk around with weapons under their arms.”

“Who said I wanted a boy to like me?”

“You most certainly will.”

“If I do, they’ll take me as I am,” Amelia said. “Now grandmother, saying we do what you want, then we can use the rifle without any obstruction from you afterwards, correct?”

Grandmother’s face went red. She sputtered, “Just get on with it. One more word from you, and I’ll end up doing something we’ll all regret.”

In the hayloft, Amelia had cracked open the rifle and inserted ammunition. Only then did it sink in and Muriel’s heart shrank. “Couldn’t we just tell her we did our best? She never goes out to the barn.”

“Grandmother will want evidence.”

Maybe the rifle wasn’t worth it. Muriel had never actually killed anything before. Their cousins were the avid hunters. The boys brought down squirrels, raccoons, even a deer. But neither Muriel nor Amelia had ever taken a life; they’d slaughtered glass bottles and cans.

“I’ll go first,” Amelia said.

They baited the trap and hid in a corner, waiting. A half hour passed. Muriel’s legs ached. Then she spied the whiskered nose, twitching. “Don’t,” she wanted to call out. Too late, the rat skittered across the floor to find the piece of cheese. Amelia aimed with precision and pulled the trigger. The beast fell, mortally wounded, its blind eye staring up. Amelia knelt down. “So sorry, old thing,” she said. An elderly rat, the hair of its coat sprinkled with gray. Muriel forced herself to look and found it surprising. Whatever had animated the creature was gone.

“Is this what happens with us?” Muriel asked.

“It must be,” Amelia said.

“But you have to still be alive somewhere?”

“In heaven, do you mean? It must be getting pretty crowded up there, what with all the spirits dancing around.”

“It’s only this? What’s the point?” Muriel asked.

“Don’t be silly. Whatever we do, whatever we make of what we have, that’s the point.”

“Is that enough?”

“I guess it has to be,” Amelia said.

 

I GUESS IT has to be. Muriel heard Amelia saying it. She lowered the gun and walked back into their bedroom. She opened the closet, and found Albert’s suits, the winter weight worsted wool and the summer weight striped cotton. She hadn’t thrown any of his things away. She was wearing his cardigan sweater. She slept in his shirts.

Down to the end of the hall and up the stairs into the attic. It was nothing like the attic at her grandmother’s. That was full of mystery. There had been a stuffed reindeer head mounted and left leaning against a wall, a wedding dress with a crinoline veil, old crockery, her grandfather’s scimitar collection, a Chinese vase with a crack in it.

Here, her children’s lives were boxed up. They had walked away and she’d said, “What do you want?” They’d replied, “Nothing.”

The gun was shoved into the pocket of his trousers. They hung loosely on her, held up by a belt. It was loaded. Loaded for bear. Or smaller game. What did she weigh, anyhow? Not more than a hundred and thirty. Not even that.

The attic had been made into their son’s room. He’d wanted to come up here once he hit Junior High. The walls were still painted dark blue. The curtains framed the one small window. His dresser still held his baseball and hockey trophies, Most Valuable Player 1949, 1950, and 1951, and a posed photo of the Medford high school baseball team, all smiles when they won the state championship.

Muriel opened the top of his dresser drawer. He’d left behind a change in case he slept over. She touched the plaid shirt. Then backed away and opened the closet. There were his old sports uniforms. An ancient Olympia typewriter sat on the desk. His bulletin board still had clippings of his favorite players; Ted Williams playing the last game he played before heading off to Korea. 

Muriel set the gun on the desk. She sank into the chair, feeling her courage ebb. She forced herself to pull open the right hand drawer. Pencils worn down to the nub, old ball-point pens, an art gum eraser, letters opened but left inside their envelopes, gift cards, birthday cards, be my valentine, all mixed in together.

She swallowed, then lifted the gun and turned it on herself. Opened her mouth. Stuck the barrel inside. In movies they made it seem easy, natural. But the barrel tasted rancid and oily. She gagged. She wanted to spit it out. Muriel forced herself to hold the gun steady. When her breathing slowed, she reached round for the safety and took it off. A click. Her finger sank down to the trigger. She shut her eyes.

There were things to think about. How selfish this was . . . doing away with yourself. How there was no excuse for it. How there would be such a mess to clean up and someone would have to do it. How she was never inconsiderate, how she was kind and doting to a fault. Yet was it wrong? Every day all she wanted was for this misery to be over with. Why couldn’t it be her turn?

Albert had wanted to do it.

He’d bought the gun.

Wasn’t it as if he were giving her permission?

Her finger tucked round the metal trigger and pressed. She told herself, there’ll be an end then and you won’t have to think anymore, the thinking’s what takes the most out of you. Waking up every day and trying to get through, waking up and for a moment thinking it was another day like all the other days that had gone before, then realizing that it wasn’t, that it would never be that way again.

Amelia’s answer to her question came back to her.

“Is that enough?” she’d asked.

“I guess it has to be.”

The gun tasted horrid. She pulled it out of her mouth, retching. Then stood, needing to wash the taste out of her mouth. She had to get rid of the damn thing.

Years and years ago, she and Amelia had stood shoulder to shoulder inside that rundown barn, tucked behind a house on the main street in Atchison. It was a town set in the heartland of a great and powerful country. That country was only a part of the continent of North America, one of several continents dotting the planet. If you looked at life from that perspective, your own small part was inconsequential. Although it was all that you were given. It was all that you knew.

Muriel also knew what she’d done so long ago, taking a breath and steeling herself, then lifting the rifle onto her own shoulder. Narrowing her sight, she’d said, “My turn now.”