Tramps.

Chapter Two.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Mrs. Tate approached her husband, kissing him on the cheek. He hugged her back. Mrs. Tate looked up to see governor Dwinell behind him. “Governor! It’s so nice to have you in our home. I hope you had a nice flight here.”

“Well, it was short. Your home is beautiful, Mrs. Tate.” The governor of New Hampshire told the mayors wife.

“Oh please, call me Marjorie!”

“What a beautiful name, for a beautiful girl.”

“Mr. Dwinell, you are so kind.” A maid came behind Mr. Dwinell and took his coat.

“Mr. Dwinell, as much as I’d love you to flirt with my wife all night long, I want to introduce you to my assistant…” Mr. Tate smiled, blisfully unaware of what Mrs. Tate had just found a few hours ago.

After her surprising discovery, Mrs. Tate collected herself properly. She was a lady. She was the mayor’s wife. She had things to do before she could unleash her anger. If Mrs. Tate knew anything about the entire situation, it was that Mr. Tate would never forget what he did to her. He broke her heart when she was already so fragile. Didn’t he know? He was her husband.

So she locked the things back into their place as if they hadn’t been touched at all. She didn’t dare cry for a second. She held it all in, went back into the bathroom to do her make up, and presented herself to her guests like she had just won a Nobel Prize. She felt grand. Better than ever.

Since no one had come up to talk to her for almost ten full minutes, she decided now was the time to sneak out the back. She had a very important thing to take care of. For father, somebody has sinned.

_ _ _

Father Clifford was sitting inside the confession box at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church talking to no one. It was a Saturday night and most people were committing sins. He had seen so himself.

This morning he had gotten up ready for the day. He was happy; his children were playing outside, his wife was making tea. He really felt fulfilled. But that was just the start of the day. He’s known from experience that endings are never as sweet as beginnings.

Just as he was about to head to the church, his wife approached him with packed bags and a smug grin.

“You can’t keep me any longer, you son of a bitch.” She told him. He had no idea what she had said until she had already rushed out of the house. By the time he ran after her, she was already backed out of the driveway and onto the road.

If only he had known she had taken the simple way out.

He was feeling an abundance of emotions. Despair and anger, mostly. He didn’t feel like the son of a bitch. She was the bitch. Besides God, she was the only one on earth he ever served. This time, both she and God had ruined him. He served God and he was sure Jane had been the only one for him. Why would God take his one true love away from him? And so suddenly? He was starting to feel indifferent to his religion. He didn’t know what to think.

            Father Clifford turned his head as a woman with black hair sat down in the confession booth. He couldn’t make out her face, but that was the point of the box anyway. Confidentiality.

“Hello, Father.” Mrs. Tate said to the priest in the box beside her.

“Hello, child of God. What has brought you here today?” He asked. It wasn’t very enthusiastic, but he thinks God might give him a break today.

“I have come to you searching for advice.”

“Go on.”

“I am not the one who has sinned… The sinner, he is my husband.” Mrs. Tate took a long sigh before she felt a tear fall down her cheek. She became overwhelmed with despair and started to sob. Father Clifford became extremely curious as to what Mrs. Tate’s husband had done.

“Mrs., what did your husband do?” He asked, concerned. Mrs. Tate sighed and wiped her tears.

“My husband has been cheating on me for quite some time now; I’m not sure how long.” She told Father Clifford. Father Clifford felt this women’s pain. He had felt something similar just today.

“Oh my, that is horrible.” Father Clifford told Mrs. Tate. She nodded her head.

“I know, I know. I thought he loved me.” He thought she loved her. His wife, her husband.

“That is a terrible thing to find out.”

“No, its not. It’s a terrible thing to go through. I was bound to find out, anytime now. There were all these pictures, it was terrible. How could he do that to me? Me? That god damned bastard-“

“Mrs.-“

“No, he is. He is a god damned fucking bastard, and he knows it. If he doesn’t know it, I’ll make sure he knows it.” The other side of the box stayed quiet for some time. “Father?”

“I’m sorry, but you are very much correct. He is the one who is wrong. You deserve to let him know. So do it then, let him know.” Father Clifford begged her. That’s what he would do. He would let his wife, or his former wife, know just what she did to him.

“What are you saying, Father?” Mrs. Tate said, surprised at his outburst.

“You know what I am saying. Let him really understand what is wrong.” Father Clifford leaned closer into the wired window between them, and at a low whisper said “Do what you need to do.”

Mrs. Tate was suddenly very aware of what she needed to do.

“Thank you, Father.” She whispered. She got up out of the confession booth and headed back to the party. She was confident in what was needed to be done.

Father Clifford went home that night, fully aware of what he was about to do to his former wife. Take her, release her of all senses and bury her beneath the earth. To his surprise, those plans were about to be interrupted.

He got home to find his wife hugging and tickling his children. When he walked in the door, she smiled.

“Bill,” Mrs. Clifford said, cheerful. “We are going to have a baby!” In hearing this news, Father Clifford walked over to his wife and hugged her tightly. He looked up to the Heavens and thanked Him for this merical. He was so happy. All former plans had been diminished. He never thought of them again.

In another part of the city, another plan was developing. Mrs. Tate was back in her husband’s notorious study deep into the evidence she had previously found.

The paper she had found had been the best piece of evidence yet. Not only had it been a list of names of all the woman Mr. Tate had slept with, it also had the places he had met them. She wrote down all the names and places onto another sheet. She folded the sheet up and hid it in her coat pocket. Mrs. Tate took the little black book in her hand and flipped to the very last page. Nothing had been written there yet, and she decided to make the last entry.

On the very last line of the very last page of this little black book, Mrs. Marjorie Tate wrote “Turn over and die.”