Devil on Your Back

by Max Henry

“Get inside, Candy. It’s freezing out.”

  She walks in, followed by the brunette I recognize from Julia’s old workplace. For the time being her name eludes me. And for some unexplained reason, that little omission bothers me. I wait before I shut the door behind them, scanning the dark front yard in case Julia’s jogging to catch up. There’s no sign of life other than a police cruiser, which idles at the curb. Where the fuck is my wife?

  “Candy. What’s going on?” I try to keep my emotions in check, but my voice cracks on the last word as I shut the door.

  “Something happened while we were waiting for a taxi, Vince. I . . .”

  The message she left half an hour ago replays in my mind. For the first time, I notice what a mess her face is—black is smeared under her eyes, and subtle lines run through her makeup, down her cheeks. I glance at the brunette, and see a puffiness softening her expression. I don’t make it to the armchair beside me before my legs give out.

  “Shit, Vince.” Candy drops to the floor in front of me, but I can’t look at her. I can’t look at the signs of how bad her news is going to be.

  I can’t look at the truth.

  Instead, I stare at the pattern on our sofa, and count the spirals around the diamonds. “What happened?” My voice is high and needy.

  “A guy mugged her, Vince. We were standing outside the place, there were people in front of us, and . . . and he . . .” She breaks down, tears coursing her face.

  My brain startles like a deer in the lights, and then immediately works to save itself. The details of last night get shelved—put aside to work on at a later date. I declutter. I simplify.

  My gaze drifts to the brunette. “What’s your name?”

  “Sara.”

  I nod. “Would you like a drink?” I ask, standing on shaky legs. My mind is a mess. I’m fucking cracking.

  “Vince.” Candy rests her hand on my arm, and the touch both comforts and repulses me, shocking me into the now once more. My eyes flick between the connection and her face, causing her to quickly drop her hand.

  Where is Julia? The question I keep asking, although I’m certain deep down I know the answer already. “How bad is it?” I ask instead.

  Not that she needs to tell me. I’d be a fucking idiot not to see it. Tears crest my cheekbones and run in rivers until I can’t clearly see her pitiful eyes looking at me while she gets up off the floor. I drop my chin and cover my face with my hands, ashamed these two women have to see me like this. Men don’t cry—not unless they’re broken.

  But I am broken.

  “She—” Candy chokes up. “She didn’t make it, Vince. Oh God, I am so fucking sorry.” Her voice breaks down to something resembling a moan.

  “Where is she?” I bark out. “Why is she fucking alone?” My rough voice shakes the still night and adds tension to a situation already on a knife’s edge.

  Candy reels back at my outburst. “She’s at the hospital. We came to get you as soon as the police arrived.” She sniffs, wiping her eyes. “I’m going to watch Alice. Sara will return with you to the hospital,” she says in a level voice. “There’s an officer outside, waiting.”

  “I can drive,” I growl. Anger charges my limbs, and I move to find the keys with such haste both women step back. “She’s my wife. I can get to her.”

  “No, Vince,” Sara whispers, hands raised. “You need to let it process. Let the cop drive you.”

  Tears still flow, and I realize I’m fisting my hands so hard, a cramp has set in. “Why are we standing around?” I ask, striding to the door. “Let’s go.”

  I need more than anything in this world to hug my wife, and tell her it’ll be okay.

  • • • • •

  ANTISEPTIC BURNS my nose, and I follow Sara through the sterile halls like a zombie. For all intents and purposes I may as well be—my spirit has left this body behind. I’m a shell, so fucking empty that I can’t remember who exactly I was before this happened. I may as well be a totally new man.

  A man without a wife.

  The thought disgusts me, and denial quickly sets in. I haven’t even seen her lifeless form yet. Maybe this is some sort of out-of-body experience, and I’m going to wake up from a dream having the strange sense of what it’s like to lose the woman I love, yet look over to see her still asleep beside me. Yeah, that’s it.

  Sara talks with a nurse and gestures toward me. Kind eyes look my way as I check out the waiting room we’re in. It’s small, closed-off, and unforgiving. A man could lose his mind in here.

  I think I already have.

  “Sir?” The nurse garners my attention. “I’m sorry, but can I please get you to step over this way? We need to complete a quick form and confirm your identity before I can let you through.”

  I nod, no words wanting to form. I understand—they must get all sorts through here. She’s only following protocol.

  I produce my wallet and show her my driver’s license. She takes the details, fills out a few lines, and checks some boxes. The nurse slips the paper my way and hands me a pen.

  “Could you please sign here to say that you are indeed the deceased’s next of kin? I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  The deceased.

  It’s the first time I’ve heard it formalized like that.

  “I’ll have somebody escort you both through,” she says softly to Sara as I sign my wife’s life away—literally. “The grief counselor will meet you shortly, as well.”

  “Can I be with my wife now?” I ask. My head feels heavy, as if it doesn’t balance on my shoulders properly.

  “This way.” A male orderly holds his arm out.

  My body moves towards him of its own accord. Sure as fuck, it ain’t me telling it to do it. I’m still stuck on those two words.

  The deceased.

  The orderly pushes through a pair of swing doors and then swipes his security pass at the next set before they open automatically. Sara links her hand in mine and gives it a squeeze. My fucking broken tears start again, and yet I still haven’t seen her. We stop outside a nurse’s station, and the orderly whispers to an older woman behind the desk. She walks out to greet us, and the orderly hands over, disappearing back the way we came.

  The nurse walks ahead, leading us down a corridor that has doors staggered on either side. I’m sure any one of the twenty million signs around this fucking place would tell me where we are, but hell, I can barely talk, let alone read. What difference is a ward number going to make anyway?

  The nurse stops outside a pale blue door, and depresses the handle, pushing it wide open for us. “If you need anything, I’ll be at the station. I’ll give you a moment alone,” she says, ducking her head and clasping her hands before her.

  I step into the room and look around the place, avoiding the bed. It’s clean, and light; cream walls and stark white linens. I half-heartedly count the blooms in the small posy they’ve placed on the nightstand. It seems surreal that this is the last place I’ll see my Julia. Nothing in here is us—nothing is our home, nothing is our life together. A part of me wants to walk away and preserve the memories I have of who we are, who we were.

  Sara squeezes my hand. “When you’re ready, Vince. Don’t rush yourself.”

  I can’t move. I’m not sure if I want to throw up, pass out, or cry uncontrollably. I know I need to do this to let the grieving process start, that I have to show myself that this is real—there are no lies here.

  “Would you like to sit for a moment?” Sara gestures towards a striped chair that’s positioned on the opposite side of the bed. I still can’t bring myself to look directly at the body under the covers.

  Instead, I glance down at Sara’s glassy eyes and say the stupidest fucking thing of my life. “I remember you now. You worked on the front desk, and you came to our engagement party.”

  She twitches a smile, and I know I’ve made the poor woman feel awkward.

  I don’t know what I feel.

  My chest shudders with the enormity of the b
reath I draw, and I walk toward the bed. Sara holds her position near the door as I come to a stop by a pale, straightened arm. I stare at that familiar limb, using my peripheral to check over the rest of the body, not certain I want to fully face the truth I’ll find.

  Swallowing away the excessive saliva I’m cursed with, I look through a blur of weak-man’s tears at her face. The room swims. My hands find purchase on the side of the bed, and I brace myself to stay upright. Sara steps forward to support me, placing her arm around my waist. It’s a gesture of solidarity more than anything. She couldn’t hold me; I’m a big guy.

  “Julia?” I croak.

  Her pale face looks so angelic, so at rest. But her light is gone. Nowhere is there any trace of the woman that left me a few hours ago. Not a sign of the joy she could bring to a room.

  Nothing.

  “How did it happen?” I ask.

  Sara sighs, and her eyes run quickly over Julia’s body. She doesn’t need to answer.

  I peel the bedding back, and gingerly ease the hospital gown aside. A ragged moan escapes seeing the red marks that stain her flesh. They’ve bathed her, and prepared her, but nothing can hide the bruising over her abdomen; it accentuates every puncture wound that dots her torso.

  “She was stabbed?” I strangle out.

  Sara nods.

  It’s too much. Knowing my baby died in so much pain tears a hole in me that can never be repaired. I cry out in agony, and collapse to my knees, my hands still on the side of the bed. Sara rubs my back while I wail at the loss—at never having my beautiful Julia smile at me ever again, at never hearing her laugh with Alice.

  At having to tell Alice what happened to Mommy.

  Sobs rip from my chest and choke me up from that moment forward. My voice is lost—taken from me with the future I never planned on giving up. Stolen.

  A solid sixteen hours pass before I can finally tell my son why Mom isn’t coming home again.

  I WAIT patiently in the driver’s seat of the old pick-up as Vince punches the code into the gate. His Triumph was due for a service, so I suggested he leave it with Fingers, the club mechanic, while we head over. Besides, if he wants to bring anything sizeable back with us it’ll be easier in the pick-up than balancing it on the back of his bike.

  The steel gate slides open and Vince returns to the passenger seat, directing me through the rows of lock-ups as we proceed. Towards the back he asks me to stop outside a narrow unit, covered in dust and obviously not very well used.

  “I haven’t been here in a while,” he mumbles, staring out the window of the pick-up. “Don’t usually have much reason to.”

  Reaching over, I give him a pat on the leg and smile. “C’mon then.”

  He’s still sitting when I round the hood of the truck to his side. I knock on the window with the back of my knuckles, and nod toward the unit. He opens the door, his gaze averted, and gets out.

  “Fine,” he mutters.

  “If you really don’t want to be here that much, then the sooner you start, the sooner it’s over.”

  “True,” he says flatly, producing a key for the padlock.

  Vince opens the unit up, the steel door protesting its use. He fumbles around on the right-hand wall for a second before a dim light bulb in the center of the narrow space comes to life. I peer over his shoulder and scan the contents of the unit: a few boxes along the rear, an old BMX, and a well-used tool chest.

  His shoulders heave with a heavy breath, and he stands stationary for a moment, just looking it all over. Unsure what to do, I move to the side of the entrance as he heads for the boxes. I lean against the sheet-iron wall and watch the traffic on the far-away road go by like ants in procession. The rustling of cardboard, and a few not-so-quiet grumbles come from behind me. Hopefully he finds what he’s after, and whatever the hell it is lifts his mood.

  My gut says it won’t.

  “Always the last place you fuckin’ look,” he mutters.

  I turn around and my chest constricts at the various piles of photos he has stacked on top of the unopened box beside the one he’s working in. Large, framed pictures of a woman in a white dress, the same woman holding a small child, a close up of a smiling face. It’s all her.

  And she’s beautiful.

  How the hell am I supposed to compete with that?

  Overwhelmed, I step outside, gasping for fresh air. Talking about it is one thing, but seeing the evidence of what he had is too much—too personal. I may as well have been lurking around in their home for how I felt just then. This is his thing to do—I never should have asked to come.

  “Everything okay?” Vince asks a short while later.

  “Yeah,” I reply, dropping the hood of the pick-up. “Thought I may as well check out the fluids while I waited.”

  “Right after you’ve run it?” he asks, eying me suspiciously.

  Dammit. “I always forget to do it before I start her up.” I laugh . . . awkwardly.

  He nods, clearly unconvinced, and lifts the items in his hand. “Got what I needed.”

  “Good stuff,” I say, and jump into the truck.

  He locks the unit and gets in opposite, still eyeing me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Are you going to tell me what the real issue was?”

  “Nothing,” I say a little too brightly, and start the pick-up. “Nothing at all.”

  “When a woman says it’s nothing, it’s always something.”

  I sigh and steer us out of the complex. The gate opens automatically to exit, and I save answering him until we’re steadily cruising on the road, heading back to the clubhouse.

  “I felt out of place.”

  “Why?”

  “It was personal, Vince. Those were your things, your memories—not mine.”

  He blows out a sharp breath and twists in the seat to face me as I drive. “You have a photo of Mike on your dresser.”

  “So?” I retort sharply.

  “So, I have no problem with it.”

  “Why should you?” My God, Sonya. You walked into that one.

  The silence is deafening.

  “Fine!” I holler, my voice ricocheting around the closed cab. “I see your point. It doesn’t change how I felt, though.”

  The silence is unnerving.

  “Say something, Vince,” I plead quietly.

  The silence is final.

  We continue along the road, divided by our stubbornness. I have no doubt at all that he’s exactly like I am at this moment—wanting to speak, to sort it out, but equally as frustrated at the thought that we even have to. This is why I was happy to keep to myself for so long. This shit right here. Sometimes it’s just easier to go without, to save having to put up with the struggle to keep what you have.

  Mike wouldn’t have made . . . stop it, Sonya. I’m doing it, even in my thoughts; I’m comparing him to Mike.

  “Vince . . .”

  Nothing. He stares out the window at the houses that whizz by, only straightening his position in the seat when we turn down a quiet street near the club.

  Aggravated, I pull the truck sharply to the side of the road and switch it off.

  He crosses his arms.

  “I’m sorry I did that, okay? I’m sorry I gave you such a double standard.”

  He sighs and faces me. “This is what I was talkin’ about—whether you can live with a ghost or not.”

  “And I understand that. I feel like shit . . . honestly.”

  “What else was the issue? ’Cause you don’t look like it was just that you felt like you were impeding.”

  I jerk my head to the side and shrug. “It’s nothing.”

  “Again with the nothing being something,” he growls.

  I toss my hands in the air. “She’s beautiful, okay? So damn beautiful. How could I ever compare?”

  “Correction: she was beautiful. And who the fuck says you’re being compared?”

  “I am,” I mumble, wringing my hands in my lap.

  “
Excuse me?” He leans forward, baiting me to admit he’s right.

  “I am,” I say louder. “I’m comparing myself to her, not you.”

  “Why do that?” he asks. “What’s the point?”

  “Because I’m worried that if I’m not enough you’ll walk away and leave me worse off than I was to start with.”

  Vince lets out a ‘hmph’ and turns to stare straight out the windscreen again. “What is it with woman and their need to push shit to its fuckin’ limit, just to prove a point?”

  “What do you mean by that?” I ask.

  “I mean,” he says, dragging out the words, “why is it that you’re so fuckin’ convinced I’ll decide you’re not enough, that you’ll do what you can to put the thought in my head for me just so you feel vindicated in your paranoia? Can’t you fuckin’ be happy that we’re trying this?” He waves his hand between us. “Can’t you just enjoy the ride?”

  “I’m sorry if I seem to have more interest than you in making this long-term,” I bite back. “I didn’t realize this was just a ‘ride’ to be enjoyed.”

  “Woman, I’m at the point in my life where I can’t be bothered with this mind fucking. I can’t be stroking your ego every ten minutes to make sure you aren’t imaginin’ shit that’s not even there.”

  “God forbid you had to show you cared,” I snap.

  He lashes out, kicking the underside of the dashboard.

  “Hey!” I reach across to check for damage.

  “Fuck’s sake, Sonya. I thought you were different . . . better, but you’re just the same—insecure and needy.” He snatches at the door handle, finally opening it and getting out in a huff. “I’ll walk.”

  The door slams, and I sit in shock as he trudges up the side of the road. Asshole. How dare he compare me to the other women he’s had? I bet the bastard hasn’t had anything other than club pussy, and here he is, comparing me to them. I’m not needy, am I?

  My lips set in a firm line and, angry enough to lay a path of rubber in my wake, I turn the pick-up over and slam my foot down on the gas. The tires kick up shingle off the side of the road as I speed toward his current position. I throw the truck into a skid and come to a stop in front of him, dirt kicking up into his face.