An Early Return

Just to whet your appetites here is the first of my short stories. I hope you enjoy it.

An Early Return

by

Doug Hilditch

“Eighteen years of marriage and in all that time I have never done anything to hurt you like you’ve hurt me. So why have you done this to me?”

        The man looked at his wife, his face showing the sadness and pain that he felt. She was reclining against the pillows, her long dark hair cascading over her shoulders. Just staring at him, but saying nothing.

He had returned home early, wanting to surprise her, make her day special.

        “Huh! It was special all right,” he thought.

       He walked over to the bedroom window and looked down at the garden below, the rain from the recent shower breaking the sunlight up into a million dazzling fragments on the surface of the window pain.

       Next to his wife, the garden was his greatest love. They had started it from scratch when the house was first built and had both been more than happy with the final results.

 Now it seemed that all the hard work and effort that they had both put into creating the garden had, sadly, all been in vain. Things would have to change now. Things could never be the same again.

         They had never had children, though it was not for the want of trying. It had taken four years and countless tests before they discovered that, due to some quirk of nature, Sarah was incapable of having children. It had been a bitter blow to both of them, but especially to Sarah. She had been a bit withdrawn at first but, after a time, had come to accept the fact.

         Apart from that, theirs had been a very happy marriage. In fact, most people would have said it was as near to perfect as you could get.

         They met at a wedding, he, a friend of the groom and she, a friend of the bride. He had an instant attraction to this stunning twenty-year-old brunette and made a point of engineering an introduction to her. They got on very well from that moment and it was no surprise to any of their friends when they started to date one another, and even less of a surprise when, three months later, they announced that they were to be married. It seemed so natural.

Now, however, it seemed that his whole life had just fallen apart. He had gone off to work a happily married man and now, five hours later, he was a broken one.

A feeling of almost physical sickness came over him and he swallowed hard against it. His head pounded as every emotion he could possibly have, boiled up together in his brain, each one trying to gain control of him.

He gripped the windowsill to stop himself falling as the dizziness swept over him. Turning again he looked at his wife.

“Why?” he asked, “for God’s sake, why? I’ve given you everything you could ever have wanted. A beautiful house, money, security . . . and this is the thanks I get. I don’t understand . . . I just don’t understand.”

His wife remained silent. She was still a very beautiful woman, but her eyes no longer sparkled as she stared back at him with her cold, fixed expression.

In the distance he could hear the wailing of a police car’s siren as it fought it’s way through the afternoon traffic.

He walked back across the room and stood at the foot of the bed, absently turning the gold bracelet over and over in his hand. He had bought it as a present, a present he would never give. The assistant in the shop had told him that it was unique. It was a really beautiful piece of work, all the links were intertwined hearts. He knew his wife would love it, she always loved the jewellery he bought her. Almost as much as he loved buying it for her. Nothing was too good for his Sarah.

“Oh, my Darling,” he gasped, the tears beginning to flow freely now as he looked into his wife’s face. “I had no choice, you gave me no choice. I couldn’t bear to see it all go to waste.”

He stood in silence for a few minutes then, reaching out, he placed the bracelet on the dressing table and, as he did so, knocked a framed photograph onto the floor. Reaching down, he picked it up and looked at it.

It had been taken about eight years earlier, whilst they were on holiday in Spain. They had been having a meal in a restaurant and had asked the waiter if he would take their picture for them. It was a lovely photograph, just the two of them, laughing and happy together.

How could things have gone so badly wrong as to end up like this?

Walking around the side of the bed he stepped over the naked body of the man. The dark, purple blood stain already drying on the pale blue carpet. He didn’t know who the man was, didn’t want to know. He knew all he needed to know.

He lay on the bed alongside the lifeless form of the woman he loved. Side by side, man and wife.

For a few minutes he lay thinking and listening to the relentless ticking of the clock on the bedside cabinet, as it kept pace with his heart beat. The sound of the siren stopping as the police car came to a halt outside the house, brought him out of his trance and back to reality.

Turning onto his side he leaned over and kissed his dead wife’s pale, cold cheek, his tears falling onto the pillow.

“Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart,” he whispered.

Then, lying back, he closed his eyes and putting the gun to his temple, he slowly squeezed the trigger.