Folks think I’m crazy, but I’m not. I tell them he’s not really dead, but no one will believe me. You will believe me, I know you will.
It started when I fell in love. At the time, he was the vice president of his family’s company. Jim is talented and sophisticated and nice. Plus, he has a great sense of humor. He didn’t mind that I was poor. It was one of those moments when I lied my way into a hoity toity galas where we bumped. The truth is I planned the whole bumping thing. Did I say that I fell in love? I did. I fell in love with Jim’s money. After a few months, I had stroked his ego…among other things, to get the invite to meet his family.
Siberia is the tropics compared to the cold reception I got. The worst of the bunch was his stuffy dad. The man shunned me. I overheard the cranky old dude telling his precious son that he could do better. Jim decided that true love was better than family ties, so we eloped. As soon as I said I do, I figured out how to forge Jim’s signature and started draining one of his bank accounts.
I was Mrs. Big-shot, so I quit my job and lived leisurely and spent well. With time on my hands, I joined a gym. The hunky beefcake who worked there knew I was married, so it’s not entirely my fault that we hooked up. One day, we sort of bumped into Jim’s dad at my favorite ritzy hotel. I knew that he was going to tell Jim, so my friend, followed him outside where the old gent had an accident. He survived, but the blows to his head left him paralyzed, and nonverbal.
Jim was frantic to have family members help take care of his dad. I volunteered, since I wasn’t working. The mute vegetable spoke to me all the time…with his eyes. He would stare at me with this cold look. His rheumy eyes would narrow like he was hoping to shoot daggers out of them.
Secretly I worried that one day he would get better and start talking. I decided that I had to shut him up permanently. I would take care of dad first and then Jim would have an accident later. So, I went to a public library and did a search on poisons. I found one that was virtually untraceable after ingestion.
After that, it was my duty as a devoted daughter in law to feed the old gent his soup. He fought me. Whenever he would clamped those lips together, I would just hold his nose and shove the spoon in his mouth. But I was careful around the nosy nurses. Did he know what I was doing? You betcha. Those eyes stabbed me with his silent recriminations like bayonets. It took a while, but the old fart died in his sleep. I cried at the funeral and Jim thanked me for taking such good care of his dad. My lover and I laughed about the whole thing.
So what’s wrong? My plan was to start cooking scrumptious meals for Jim. That afternoon, as I was laying out my recipes, I looked up at the big 52 inch flat screen on the wall. There was something wrong with the picture. I looked at it sideways and couldn’t figure out what was bugging me until I turned off the television. That’s when I saw them for the first time. They were clear as a bell on the black background. I saw a faint pair of eyes. I freaked out. When I told Jim about it, he stood real close to the tube and said, “Oh, yeah. Probably burned into the screen from a scary movie you were looking at.”
I demanded that he replace the set which he did. The next day, a pair of sexy delivery guys took the old one and put up a newer, sleeker and larger flat screen. I was thrilled. No more eyes. After a while, Jim started to get sick. I told him that he’d been pushing himself too hard since he lost his dad. Meanwhile, I upped his dosage to help speed up his reunion with the nosy coot.
A week later, I saw them again. The eyes had reappeared. They were clearer on the new set. I was scared. I couldn’t breathe. Those eyes were his eyes. They were still rheumy and accusatory, under thickly furrowed eyebrows.
He’s found a way back from death to get at me.
I started screaming. Even as I ran, I couldn’t stop screaming. When I tried to hide in the bathroom, I saw those eyes in the mirror. I ran to the front door hoping to escape the house. But the eyes appeared on the fancy etched glass embedded in the door. I backed away and turned to flee through the patio. I was several paces from the door when I saw his shape form on the sliding glass doors. I don’t know how long I knelt on the floor screaming and crying. I only knew that I couldn’t escape. When Jim came home, I confessed everything.
Now I live in a little room with puffy walls. No one believes me. There are bars on the window, but there’s also glass. I can see his eyes in the glass. He’s still watching me.