Man of the House

by Abigail Graham

  David reaches behind his back with his free hand as Alex shoves him down. A small, leaf-shaped blade appears in his fist, jutting from between his fingers.

  He punches Alex in the stomach, and his hand comes back wet with blood. Alex grabs at David’s arm. David twists to try to free himself.

  I roll, and the chair cracks down on top of David’s knife. I feel for it but I can’t get the grip. My hand’s close on the blade and it bites me, red and hot. I pry it out from under the seat of the chair and fumble with it. My side is wet with blood where I cut myself shoving the blade under the ropes. I saw frantically as Alex sags against the wall, all the color gone from his face.

  David is peeling the gun out of his hand, pushing it around to face him. He’s going to shoot him in the head.

  Sarah throws herself at him at the last second, and knocks him off Alex. David struggles with her. She’s thin and wiry but no match for him. My gun presses into her chest.

  The sound is louder than the world. Grace and Carrie shriek through their gags.

  Sarah drops, clutching her chest and sucking in air through her mouth and her wound at the same time. A distant part of my brain says: She took a bullet through the lung. If she doesn’t get an ambulance, she’ll die.

  Sarah looks at me. She wrenches the knife out of my hand. With the last of her strength, she cuts me loose.

  I roll free, grab the knife, and ram it into David’s back, right between the shoulder blades. It hurts too much for him to cry out.

  He pushes against me. His hands flinched open when I stuck in the knife, and he dropped my gun.

  He snarls and grabs at me with shocking strength, but I’m slippery with sweat and blood and he can’t get ahold of me.

  “You have the right to remain silent!” I shriek, and ram the knife in his gut, “you have the right to an attorney,” I scream, “anything you say can be used against you in a court of law!”

  I raise the knife up and ram it down with both hands, and throw the whole weight of my body into it. The blade crushes through his chest, slipping between his ribs, and it doesn’t stop until the tip bites into the linoleum under him.

  David has nothing to say. His mouth is too full of his own blood. His head falls back with a thump.

  “Alex!” I scream, “Alex, oh God,”

  He clutches his arm but he’s bleeding from a dozen shallow wounds in his stomach, blood soaking his shirt and pants.

  Sarah lies on the floor, moaning.

  I yank the knife out of David and run to Grace, cut the ropes and yank the rags out of her mouth.

  “Call the police, now!”

  Grace wails, “You are the police!” and starts sobbing.

  I shake her by the shoulders.

  “Get on the phone and dial 911 now or he’s going to die, goddamn it!”

  She blinks at me and nods, and rushes to the kitchen phone and yanks it off the hook.

  I grab my sleeve, rip it loose, and knot it around his arm wound, then grab the knife and cut away his shirt.

  Alex leans back against the wall.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “No no no no no, you’re not sorry, you’re not leaving,” I plead. “Stay awake.”

  “Tired.”

  “I know you’re tired but--”

  He cuts me off with a moan as I tighten a cut strip of his shirt around his middle, trying to staunch the blood.

  “Hurts like a motherfucker.”

  “Grace, get Carrie up and get her out of here,” I shout at her. “Take the phone.”

  Grace cuts Carrie loose and leads her, sobbing like mad, into the living room.

  Sarah grabs Alex’s foot.

  “Don’t die, please,” she says.

  Alex rolls his eyes at her. “I’ll do as I damn well please.”

  “You are not dying!” I shout at him. “Come on, where’s the damn ambulance.”

  Panic tightens in me, my breath coming faster and faster, until I hear voices and Grace shouting “Here, here, in here!”

  The paramedics come rushing in.

  The first word out of the taller one’s mouth is “Jesus.”

  I get out of their way, but hold Alex’s hand. They need my help to get him on the gurney, and then wheel him into the ambulance. I grab Carrie and carry her out with me.

  They stop me.

  “We need room to work. Follow us to the hospital.”

  “Grace, with me,” I yell.

  She sits in the passenger’s seat of the Tahoe holding Carrie in her lap while I drive behind the ambulance with my lights and sirens going. I run after them inside until one of the nurses stops me as they roll Alex into triage.

  “Let us handle this,” she tells me.

  Handle it. Handle it.

  God, I’m soaked in blood. There’s so much, it stiffens my clothes. Carrie is screaming and crying, Grace is holding her and staring at nothing. I want to hold my daughter, but I can’t like this.

  Every cop in the world shows up. Howard, Jim, a bunch of state troopers. Hailey and Frank appear. The emergency room fills with people.

  Jim puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “Hey. Let’s get you and Grace cleaned up and calm Carrie down. We’ll go to my place. Come on. It’s not far.”

  “But…”

  “You’re not going to save him or not save him,” he says. “Let the docs work. I’ll bring you back. You’re hurt too, Phoebe. We need to get you cleaned up.”

  He drives us all to his house in his old Crown Vic. His wife, Carol Ann, takes Carrie and sits with her while I shower the blood off me. I split my scalp when I fell, but it scabbed over, and the cut on my side only requires a bandage. My hands are worse. I have deep cuts on my fingers.

  “You don’t need stitches for these most likely,” Jim says, wrapping them in bandages. “I stopped the bleeding. We’ll let the docs take a look. Come on.”

  When Jim takes us back to the hospital, the reporters arrive. Bill and Jim push a path through everyone so I can get inside with Carrie and Grace.

  Inside, I find the same balding, portly guy I saw at Alex’s trial with his lawyer.

  “You,” I snarl.

  I gently hand Carrie to Grace. She locks her arms around her aunt’s neck and they sink into a chair.

  “You got Alex’s stalker out of jail. Did you tell my ex where to find me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, but his eyes give away the lie.

  “You got her out of jail and you told David where to find us.”

  “I got her an attorney. It’s her right. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “What about David?”

  “He must watch TV. I guess you haven’t. Broadside dating the cop that busted him is all over TV. Very cute, nice human interest story. It’ll be great for his career.”

  I nod. Then I punch him in the face as hard as I can. He drops back on his ass, clutching his broken, gushing nose.

  “You crady bidtch!” he wails, “You brode my node!”

  “Get him out of here.”

  Jim and Frank yank him to his feet and drag him outside.

  “I wand to pred chardes,” he moans.

  “Shut up,” Jim replies. “Get everybody that isn’t family out of here. Now.”

  They clear the waiting room, and I sit with Grace and hold Carrie in my lap. She’s finally stopped crying, but she says nothing, just clutching me, playing with the fabric of my dress in her fingers.

  It’s a long wait. Hours.

  A doctor comes out, tells us he’s in surgery.

  By the time they come back, Carrie is asleep. Grace went to give a statement to the police, leaving me alone with my daughter for a while. The waiting room is dark.

  The doctor returns. I vaguely know him. I think I went to high school with his nephew, something like that.

  “It was touch and go for a while, but he’s going to make it. He’s going to be off his feet for a good long time. The cuts to his abdomen wer
en’t deep, but he needs a long period of bed rest. The wound on his arm was the worst. He’ll be in a sling for a good long while.

  “How is he now? Is he awake?”

  “Yes. We numbed him while we worked. Once the blood transfusions are complete, we can give him something for the pain. He’s in agony, miss. It’s best not to…”

  “Let me see him.”

  “It’s better if the little girl stays back.”

  I nod, and hand Carrie off to Grace as she comes in.

  I follow the doctor through the swinging doors, down the corridor, and to Alex behind a curtain.

  It’s like walking into a freezer. I just stop. He lays splayed in the bed, which is too small for him, barely able to fit him at all. Bandages loop around his big arm. There are IV drips and beeping machines. More bandages wrap tightly around his waist.

  I slowly move to the side of the bed, and rest my fingers on his good arm.

  His eyes open.

  “Hi.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “Barely.”

  I brush his sweaty hair back from his face. “You’ll be off your feet for a while.”

  “Yeah. Never play again.”

  My chest tightens.

  “Good. Where’s Lou?”

  “He was outside.”

  “Don’t let him leave. I’m going to pound his head with my fist until it pops out his asshole.” He coughs, and a look of agony twists his face.

  I rest my hand on his chest.

  “It’s okay. I broke his nose for you.”

  He laughs, and the pain comes back. He raises his good hand and grabs mine, his grip is firm but gentle, even as he’s wracked by pain.

  “They’ll give you something soon. You’ll be able to sleep.”

  His voice is soft, pleading. “Don’t leave me.”

  “No. Never.”

  He smiles. I pull up a chair and sit beside him.

  They don’t move him until morning. By then, I’m exhausted. He spends most of the next day sleeping. I bring Carrie up and we sit with him for a while. She never says a peep.

  By that night, he looks at me and says, “You don’t have to stay here. I’m going to be fine. They’ll let me come home soon.”

  Home. Jesus, my house is a crime scene. I don’t want to think about all the blood on the floor.

  “We can’t go back there.”

  Alex looks terribly sad to hear that. “Then we need to buy a new house. For us.”

  I smile sadly. “I can’t really afford…”

  He reaches over with his good hand and takes hold of mine, squeezing my ring finger lightly with his thumb and forefinger.

  “I’ll buy you a ring later. I’m busy, right now. Marry me.”

  I flinch. “What?”

  “She says yes,” Carrie says, the first words she’s spoken all day.

  “I…”

  Alex looks wounded by my hesitation.

  “Yes. Of course, yes. I just can’t believe you asked. I never thought… I always figured…”

  I’m at a loss for words.

  “Go rest. Take a shower. Sleep. Put on your own clothes.”

  The next few days are a blur. Bill gives me all the leave I need, so I spend my nights in Grace’s apartment and my days with Alex until they finally let him out.

  One week later, Alex sits uncomfortably in a wheelchair three sizes too small for him as I roll him out the hospital myself. I’d hoped we could just go home, but when the doors open, a barrage of flash bulbs goes off. Of course, the reporters are here.

  Carrie tucks close to my leg as we ignore their shouted questions and roll him to the Tahoe. When we get there, I do my best to steady his bulk as he climbs inside.

  Once we’re all inside, he groans.

  “I can’t wait until they forget about me.”

  “Me, too,” I sigh.

  “Where we headed?”

  “I’ve been surfing Grace’s couch. I can’t go back to the house. I’m moving out.”

  “We. We’re moving out.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know where we can go yet, just…”

  “Just drive, baby.”

  He leans his head back and closes his eyes.

  The easiest thing to do is just move into Alex’s rental, right next door. He kept the keys and his lease hasn’t run out yet. I grab a few suitcases full of our things, mine and Carrie’s, and move in with him. It’s a lot more sparse than my place.

  While Alex heals, it gradually becomes clear I’m not going back to work. I run out my paid leave and put in notice. Bill waves me off, tells me I’m done and wishes me well one rainy afternoon. I turn in my badge and my gun and file papers for a carry permit for my personal firearms, and leave my job as a traffic cop.

  Alex hires people to pack up my house for me, a company who does crime scene cleanup, and a contractor to fix the house up. It was always a fixer-upper, but I never got around to the fix-upping part, since I never really had hope I’d be able to sell.

  After six months, it’s a completely different house, like something out of a magazine, and Alex is on his feet. Every morning when I wake up before him, still running on my old routine, I lay there and trace the scars on his stomach from David’s knife and try not to cry.

  As the streaming sunlight warms him, Alex wakes and finds me running my fingernails over his stomach. He slips his arm around me and pulls me close to kiss me, and I hide my face against his chest. I’m embarrassed to be so happy. It feels like if I let it show too much, something will come and take it from me.

  When the house is finally on the market, we decide it’s time to go. Alex only leased for a year and mine and Carrie’s things are sitting in a self-storage bin.

  The freedom is dizzying. We can go anywhere we want, do anything we want. Alex is done with professional sports.

  The next few months become a dream, doing all the things I never thought I’d do. House hunting with my fiancé, for one. We look around in Sylvester first, but the more we talk, the more we decide we don’t want to stay there.

  I was born in this town, grew up here, despaired here, found love here. I’ve had enough. We really can go anywhere, but I don’t think I could live in a place without trees and fields.

  Alex and I sit on the couch in his rental, poking around on a real estate site with my laptop. Carrie is upstairs in the second bedroom working on her homework.

  “I’ve heard good things about this place,” Alex says, tapping the screen.

  “Don’t touch, you’ll smudge it.”

  I bat his big hand away.

  “Don’t get mouthy, baby.”

  I roll my eyes at him and zoom in on the screen. We mark out our favorite places.

  When Alex gets his Ferrari out of impound, he puts it up for sale. It goes in three days, and the cash from the sale goes to our new house, further upstate in a town called Paradise Falls.

  Almost one year to the day after I pulled Alex over, we walk into the courthouse for a quick, simple ceremony with my sister as witness. The last thing I wanted was a spectacle. We exchange a few words, he slips a ring on my finger, and we make it official.

  Carrie stays with Grace while we take our honeymoon, or rather, Grace house sits our new place and my daughter keeps an eye on her. I was nervous about leaving them alone, but Carrie has adjusted well to all these changes and everything that happened, and still adores her aunt.

  “I’m not one for extravagance,” Alex tells me as we settle into our seats for the overnight flight, “but this is our honeymoon.”

  I sleep most of the way after I have a few drinks to calm my nerves. This is my first flight from Philly to Rome for two weeks in Italy.

  Everything is a shock to my system. Going through customs, getting my new passport stamped, the frantic taxi ride through the streets of Rome to our hotel.

  I walk into the room and my stomach drops. “Alex, this looks too expensive.”

  “Honey, I’m rich. Stop complaining.”<
br />
  His open hand smacks hard onto my ass and I yelp and jump. The weirdest part is that we arrive at almost the same time we left. I want to cat nap, badly.

  I head for the bed.

  “You get on that bed and I’m not letting you sleep.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  He grabs me from behind and pulls me against him, his hands climbing all over my body.

  “Take it easy, champ. We just got here. I need a shower, at least.”

  “Mmm,” he purrs in my ear. “See, I thought the purpose of the honeymoon was to fuck the ever-loving shit out of the bride.”

  “The bride stinks.”

  Alex seizes my hips and yanks me around, sniffing at my armpits.

  “Stop that!” I yell, breaking down into giggles.

  “You do stink.”

  He pumps his hips so I can feel his hard cock against my stomach.

  “I don’t seem to mind.”

  “I need to clean up.” I sigh loudly. “I’d hoped the first thing you’d want to do in Italy would be visit a museum or an authentic Italian restaurant or…”

  “If you don’t get in the shower, I’ll just rip your clothes off right here.”

  I hesitate for a moment, fighting to suppress the grin spreading on my face. When he makes a grab at me, I run for the bathroom.

  Wow. It’s all marble with a separate shower and a huge, jetted soaking tub with its own big window that opens out to the warm autumn air. I want a good soak, but that comes later. I strip and duck under the water, half expecting Alex to get impatient, come in, and screw me in here.

  Alas, he doesn’t. I yawn under the warm water and let the heat soak into my bones before I get out and walk back into the bedroom, roughing up my hair with a towel.

  “Alex?”

  He steps up behind me, grabs my wrists, and forces them together in front of my stomach.

  Click.

  I feel cold metal locked around my wrists, and look down. “Alex,” I groan.

  I can feel him laughing, his big chest pulsing against my back. The handcuffs are on tightly. I hold them up and snap the chain between my wrists.

  “What is this?”

  “This is going to be fun,” he says.

  He wraps his arms around me and lifts me from the floor. I struggle vainly as he drops me on the bed, grabs the cuffs, and loops his belt around the chain to bind my hands to the headboard.