Dena read the letter one more time, just to be sure it wasnt a hoax. She studied the handwriting she has seen a hundred times before. Love letters, birthday cards, post-its left around the house declaring everlasting love or to feed the cat, every line of every letter was a dead-match. How could this be happening, on today of all the days in the year. How could so much love turn to absolute hate in an instant.
"Dearest barren-bitchface. I hope you die a horrible death, or live a long life of misery. Johns."
Dena Swalwell had married her chldhood sweetheart in Vegas, 1988. They had been inseperable for almost 10 years. The inner sanctum of friends and family who knew them best knew that theirs was a true love. A special bond that will last all their lives, and if any love could survive the last breath of its human form, Dena Marie nee Holden and Johns Jamie Swalwell's would be amongst the first.
Another glance over the sentence brought a fresh round of sobs. Deep heartfelt sobs, the kind if you heard through a door it would be best to keep walking. It would be wise not to ask, you would say. A family bereavment at the very least. A calendar on the wall gave the date, August 13. Friday to be precise. It was on a friday it happened. It was August 13, exactly 7 years ago to the date. The worst day of both their lives.
She decided to dress, or at least remove the silks which wrapped her body and make an effort to look in the wardrobe. It was 7.30, and her staff at the hospital would be expecting her for surgery at 10. Plenty of time if she composed herself now. Dena dragged herself to the bathroom, avoiding Oscars toys on the floor. Their was two bathrooms in the house, but only one they ever used.
The sounds of children on the street began to fill her ears. Happy children, naughty children, young and slightly older. Their home at the end of Belmore Street was selected purposefully. They had the choice of homes, having well-paid jobs and a small trust fund, and this was ideal. Six years ago the street was silent. The houses were all detached and professionals filled all. Then came a day, about three years since, that changed their lives. A nursery had opened in the house three doors up.
"Mommy, mommy, no i want to stay with you!" She would hear a child scream, the same words everyday, sometimes one child, sometimes another. It drove her crazy on Thursdays, her day off. Yet, somehow, she would recover and remind herself they were only children. No child wants to leave their parent. No child wants to be left behind, eiether in a strangers company or the most well-liked family member. When they see their parents leave, thats the cue for all hell to break loose.
Grabbing her dressing-gown and wrapping it tight around her frame, she headed for the kitchen. Clothes can wait, she decided, caffeine is the motivator of the morning. She thought to call for the cat, but the crying had left her throat dry. As she headed down the stairs, as she has a thousand times, she caught a strange smell. Burning, but not of fire, more like cooking, but not a nice slow roasted duck or chicken casserole.
The smell was now overpowering her senses. Did she leave the oven on overnight? No, they ate takeaway last night. Johns' favorite, Italian. The stairs to the house finished at the front door, the kitchen was at the back. As Dena walked down the passage she began to wretch. Something was cooking.
The kitchen door was shut. It was never shut. It couldnt shut unless pulled to, and this is something they never did. Even when all the doors and windows were opened, the draughts couldnt pull the door to.
She stopped, just short of the handle. Her hand was an inch from it, yet she couldnt move another muscle. She had a recollection.
Medical training in Chicago is among the best in the world. Indeed, doctors come from all over the world to train more there, to get the best possible education they can before returning to India or Great Britain or wherever. She recalled one day, studying in a classroom in the rear of the hospital, a man screaming in agony. A blood-curdling nightmarish sound that pierced all hearts and minds that heard it. The man, no more than thirty, had been in a car accident. His Volvo collided with a petrol tanker and burst in flames. The poor soul was burned so bad he later died in the hospital, but the stench of burning flesh hung around for days.
"No," she thought, "That smell was different. This isnt a burning body smell."
She was wrong and right at the same time.
Gathering her courage, Dena grabbed the handle and turned. She forced the door open.
When the human mind is struck with an overwhelming shock it can and will react different ways to different people. Some faint at the smallest sight of blood, others can refuse to believe what they are seeing.
Denas medical training had prepared her for most sights, missing limbs, dead children, diseased people screaming in agony for a cure which may never come. The sight that greeted her in her own kitchen, on her own table, was not enough to make her faint, and the smell alone had assured her of its reality.
Taking its place in the center of her kitchen table, where Dena and Johns had spent many mornings happily sipping coffee discussing the order of the day and the weather, was the large roasting pot she got from her grandmother. Happliy received at the time, Johns tenderly teased her it was too big for them. They would never use it, he laughed. Somebody had used it.
Dena vomitted violenlty, falling to the floor and screaming all the while.
"Noooooo!!" Screeching, refusing to believe, but she knew what she saw. Her eyes never lied, and she trusted her senses implicitly.
Regaining herself for the briefest of moments, she stood. Tall and proud as a woman she was, Dena Swalwell was bent double. Looking into the pot, where the charred remains of her beloved cat hadnt moved, she fainted.
Little did she know at the time the hard tile floor had a cushion to stop her skull from cracking like an egg.
Whomever shaved Oscar for the stove didnt have time to sweep up.
