The man was lying in bed. His breathing was steady but loud and distinctly labored, and he was clearly too weak to move or speak. It was late afternoon, and the room was growing dim.
The woman stood at the end of the bed and studied the man for a moment, and then she retrieved a ladder back chair from a corner and placed it beside the bed. She sat down. Her movements were quiet and calm. She seemed determined in some way, resolute.
“When I was a girl, Randle, I had such faith. I believed Jesus loved me. I believed he loved everybody, and that somehow he would make everything work out in the end.” Her voice cracked as if she was about to cry. “My faith gave me so much comfort. It may have been simple and naïve, but it was mine. It was what I felt in my heart.”
She shifted in her chair, and her tone hardened. “Living with you these past forty years has robbed me of my faith. I tried to hold on to it. I did. But it slowly slipped away until there was nothing left.”
“If your god is real, Randle, the merciless god you demanded I believe in, the one you preached to me about, then he’ll probably punish me for what I’m about to do. But I don’t care. I don’t care.”
The woman paused for a minute and then said, “I’m not calling the ambulance this time, Randle. The doctors may be able to bring you back from the brink of death again this time if I did, but I don’t want them to. I want to be through with you.
“You’re a hard man, Randle. And we both know you can be cruel. Hateful and mean. And no matter what you do, you still think of yourself as righteous. Every day you told me what was right and wrong. You were always preaching to me. And sometimes you hit me while you were preaching to me.
“I don’t know what the hell happened to you, Randle, but I’ve not seen any love or kindness in you since our children were babies. I think it was that church. I think you changed when you claimed you were called. You started judging everybody, including me and our kids. But you never judged yourself.
“I was a fool for taking your abuse, but even if I didn’t respect myself enough to leave you for my own sake, I should have done it for our children.
“You drove Jennifer from our home. So what if she fooled around with a few boys and smoked dope? What did she do that was so different from what we did? You called our baby girl a ‘whore’ and told her God was going to throw her in a lake of fire. …you beat on her, and tore her room apart. Ruined everything that meant something to her…including that antique porcelain carousel horse you gave her when she was ten. And you said you were saving her when you did that.
“I was her mother. I should have protected her from a jackal like you. Even if it meant putting you in your grave back then.
“And you started in on little Terry before he even started school. You browbeat that boy every chance you got. You made him feel small and worthless by telling him what a man was supposed to be, and how he would never measure up. As if you knew anything about being a man. Then when he was twelve, you caught him kissing that boy named Jeffrey.
“The awful things you said to our Terry… All the time. Every chance you got. Even five years later when he stood in our kitchen and told us he was leaving our house for good and that he’d never be back, you were still saying those things to him. I could never figure out what you hated more, the fact that Terry liked boys or the fact that Jeffrey was black.
“And when they called to tell us he’d hanged himself in his apartment out there in Los Angeles, you wouldn’t even bring him back here and give him a proper funeral and burial. You told them to let the county dispose of his body. You said he was an unrepentant sinner and didn’t deserve a Christian funeral.
“He was our son, Randle. That’s when I gave up hope.
“And I know you’re a hypocrite, too. I know what happened between you and that girl. I know, Randle. I didn’t confront you then because I was a coward, but that girl’s mother confronted me. She told me what a wicked woman I was for staying with you, and letting you pass yourself off as some kind of family man. I didn’t argue with her because she was right.
The woman stopped and bowed her head as if in prayer. The sudden cessation of her voice left a void that was filled by the sound of the man’s heavy breathing. The man had not moved. He couldn’t move or speak, but there was recognition in his eyes.
After a long moment, the woman sat up, sighed and continued. “I want you to know, Randle, that no one on this earth loves you. Your children didn’t love you. I don’t love you. Your family doesn’t love you. The scripture chirping vultures in your congregation don’t love you. I want you to know that. I want you to die knowing that.
“I want you to know that every time you got on top of me for the last thirty years, I thought of somebody else. Some of the men in the congregation. Your brother a few times. Even your father once. It was the only way I could get through it. I couldn’t stand you touching me.
“I’m going to bury you in your family’s cemetery, up in the woods. No one ever goes up there anymore. I’d put you in a hole in the backyard like a dog if the law would let me. I’m not going to mark your grave either. And I won’t let the church put up a stone. I’m going to use your insurance money to bring Terry back here. I’m going to bury him in the town cemetery, and I’m going to buy him the biggest God damn monument…
“I’m going to tell people about you, too, Randle, the things you done. Then I’m going to try to find our daughter, and I’m going to beg her to forgive me. …I don’t care what happens to me after that.
“So you just lie in here and die alone. I have no pity for you. And I will be glad to be rid of you.” With apocalyptic anger, the woman added, “You reap what you sow, you sorry son of a bitch.”
The woman stood and slowly but deliberately went over to the window and pulled the curtains. She then crossed the darkened room, went out into the hall and closed the door behind her.
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