Josephine "Finn" Harwood has lived a frustrated life. Her husband never loved her. Friends and family are non-existent. She has lived much of her life in affluent solitude. On the night of her 56th birthday, she decides to end her marriage and make...
I should have known the bastard would be the end of me.
Throughout our marriage, he made it a point to kill me very slowly. Not with aggression or violence, but with words and actions. From the day we said, "I do", I was never good enough. Marriage was a courtesy rather than a choice. A business transaction. I may not have had a husband who chose me over all others, but I had money, cars, houses, vacations, the works. If you ask him, that's all I needed. If you ask him, he'd tell you that I should have been grateful to live in the lap of luxury.
I might have been rich woman but let me tell you the truth - I was poor in spirit.
Twenty-eight years of marriage with nothing to show for it. He left me with bruises that no one else can see. But if I can point out each and every one, inflicted with every affair, every venomous tirade, every night he didn't come home, every time I found about the new young thing he was messing around with. But I cannot blame everything on him. I knew what I was getting into. I only had myself to blame.
After all, I was the one who chose to marry a man I didn't love.
I thought I knew everything about him. After twenty-eight years, here wasn't much he could get past me. But that bastard still managed to surprise me. On my 56th birthday, I thought I'd give myself the gift of a new beginning. Before he could shuffle off to meet his newest conquest, I announced that our marriage was over. I was too tired to be bitter. So much of my life was wasted already. I wanted to take whatever time I had left to live some semblance of a happy life. I didn't want much - just enough to live comfortably for the rest of my days.
I thought he would be happy to be free of his long-suffering wife.
But he was anything but.
"You ungrateful bitch!" The roar that ripped through his throat was enough to put a lion on notice. Fear gripped my heart and for the first time in my life, I felt terror toward my husband. "You think you can just leave me because you feel like it? I give you the kind of life any woman would want and now you've pissed all over it!"
My husband is usually a calm man. He's the type of person who will insult your entire existence in the sweetest, most polite tone possible. He's elegant even when he's being a horny, promiscuous cad. But this was the first time I'd ever seen him break character. He was like a wild animal, a madman unhinged. As he walked toward me, his eyes grew wilder, like he would pounce at any moment. I'd long hated and resented my husband, but I never feared him.
There's a first time for everything.
I tried to reason with him, told him that a fresh start would be good for both of us. When that didn't work, I begged him to stay calm, reminded him that it was my birthday and that I didn't want any trouble. That a divorce would be the best present he could ever give me.
"Oh, I'll give you something nice for your birthday!" he spat.
And then he pushed me.
I realized too late that our spiral staircase was right behind me.
It all happened in the blur . I can't even say that I felt pain. One minute, I'm catching a glimpse of that sick, sadistic smirk on his face. The next minute, everything is a blur. A slice here, a crack of bones there, and then it all stops. It was all very surreal. I could barely open my eyes and what I did see was a blurry haze. I could feel the life oozing out of me. Or maybe it was the blood. Or both. But there was no mistaking it. This was the end. I would be dead within moments.
So much for a new beginning. And on my birthday to boot.
Somehow the words form in my mind just as everything fades away. As my soul prepared to travel to...wherever souls travel to when we die, I force myself to focus. I needed to speak these final words into existence. And as my dear husband walks over to my dying body, I can't think of a better person to hear this final wish.
"Wherever I am...wherever I'm going...I want to be...where you are..."
The way my husband's smugness twists into horror gives me the energy to smile one last time.
It made it much easier to give into darkness.
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