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Susan slips into Max’s room about a quarter to eleven, quietly closes the door behind her and speaks into the dark.
“Are you awake?”
“Of course I’m awake,” she grumbles. “Billy’s still coughing, everyone’s awake.”
“Neil isn’t.” Susan chews her lip. She’d laced his stew with a couple Valium in the hopes of calming and subduing him and also, in fact, in the hopes he’d let Billy alone. Poor thing’s had a nasty cough he just can’t kick all week, chesty and wet-sounding even through the walls. Neil got fed up of it last night and banged on his door demanding he cut out all the racket.
If Billy wasn’t sick and holed up in his room, what happened tonight probably wouldn’t have happened. Whenever Max did something that caught the bad side of Neil’s attention, Billy would say or do something Neil would find even worse and the attention would immediately be turned his way. Susan knows Billy does it on purpose, she’s watched him do it before and it fills her to the brim with the most terrible gratitude Susan’s ever known. Always leaves her feeling rancid and ruined.
“You hit me,” Max declares without the anger Susan expects, the anger that would be easier than the despondence dragging in her daughter’s voice. “Your wedding ring cut my face.”
Susan chokes on her own heartbeat throbbing in her throat as she takes a few steps toward the bed.
“Don’t come near me.”
Susan stops in her tracks, swallows thickly. “Max, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to do that. I only did it so Neil wouldn’t.”
Because Neil would’ve hit much harder. Neil is bigger and meaner, and it’s been a very stressful week for him. The cable bill is going up again, as is the gas bill, the light in the garage burnt out, he had an altercation with a coworker that ended with them both in the boss’s office, Billy got suspended from school even before coming down with what Susan’s starting to worry might be pneumonia because she can still hear him coughing two rooms away, and then Max got brought home in a cop car because she and her friends were caught playing on a frozen pond on private property.
It’s been a very stressful time for Neil, indeed, and Susan realized with the opportunity to discipline Max came the opportunity for him to dispense that stress. So Susan jumped down her daughter’s throat and backhanded her before her husband could, sent her straight to her room without dinner. She hated to do that. She hates it still, she’d felt the ring catch seconds before she got a glimpse of the bleeding scratch in Max’s cherry red cheek. The look in her eyes couldn’t have been worse, except it was, and Susan’s own stung with tears she couldn’t dare shed in front of Neil.
“I’m so, so sorry, sweetheart. I really didn’t want to hurt you but I also really, really didn’t want Neil to hurt you worse.”
“I still don’t want to talk to you right now,” Max says, the mattress creaking softly as she rolls closer to the wall. “Go away.”
“I’ll make it right, Max, I’ll—“
“No, you won’t. You. Can’t.”
Icy teeth tear into Susan’s heart. She steps back and quietly exits into the hall. Going back to bed is futile so she finds her way to the kitchen. When she gazes at her ring, the tiniest speck of red glints upon the stone, smaller than a sesame seed but unleashing powerful waves of nausea all through her insides.
Susan breaks down sobbing. She cries until her nose is leaky and her upper lip is sticky with the snot, lashes wet and rivers running down her cheeks. She doesn’t even glance up until she hears a cough, realizes she’s not alone.
There’s Billy, gripped in another fit. Lowers his fist from his mouth when he’s done and fumbles with the key hooks. Susan isn’t sure if he got dressed or simply never undressed, in his jeans and leather jacket.
“Where could you possibly be going?” she asks even though she isn’t sure she wants to know.
“Nowhere,” he mutters, agitated and slightly wheezy. “Gonna sleep in the car before Neil gets on me about making noise.”
“Billy, it’s too cold for that…besides, Neil isn’t going to wake up yet.”
“How do you know?”
Susan pauses, stumbling for an explanation.
“Pfft. That’s what I thought. By the way, you’re ugly when you cry.” Billy’s glare is talon sharp even with the glaze in his eyes and Susan timidly bows her head.
He shuts the door behind him. Susan spends awhile longer staring at her wedding ring with her stomach in ropes and realizes there’s something she must do tomorrow. She organizes the glasses and mugs inside the cupboard, runs her fingers over chips and cracks and feels it foretold.
Susan spends just about every day of her life preparing for when her husband will be home. This means different things on different days, sometimes. Today is especially important to have every detail exact.
When she’s done cleaning the house, she changes out of her plain, old clothes. Rubs Perfect Peony body lotion all over her skin because that’s the one Neil likes best. Glosses her lips and doesn't smear. Changes into into the cranberry sweater dress Neil had bought her, wears it over opaque gray tights to preserve her modesty. She makes all of his favorites for dinner and arranges the table the way he prefers, another couple Valium crushed into his meal to make him more susceptible to compliance.
Billy doesn’t come home for dinner and it’s just as well. Neil banned him from the table until he’s better on the basis of being a biohazard. Max eats in silence, faint mark on her face that probably wouldn’t be noticeable if it weren’t for the more obvious scratch, thin red thread across her cheekbone. Staring at the scratch stirs up Susan’s stomach until she’s sure she’ll purge all over the table, ruin the dinner she so meticulously perfected.
Perhaps Susan can’t make it right, after all. But at the very least, she can make sure it won’t happen again. Her work station is already prepped.
Neil eyes it skeptically after dinner, the acupuncture kit placed upon the dresser.
“Please dear, you must let me relieve your stress,” Susan cajoles, smiling demure with her glossy lips closed. “You’ve had such a rough go of it lately.”
“I don’t know, Susan. Acupuncture?” he raises a brow. “Seems like new age mumbo jumbo.”
“I’ve read a lot about it, Neil. I wouldn’t suggest it if the evidence was to the contrary of its effectiveness.”
“Sometimes I think you read too much…”
“I already have the kit ready to go. It couldn’t hurt to try, right?” Susan doesn’t bat her eyes because Neil would find such a thing trashy but she does draw her arms together in a way that pushes her breasts together, emphasizes her bosom through the cranberry fabric. “If it doesn’t work, we could try something else.”
“Are you sure you know what to do?” he asks, tone considering.
“Oh, I know exactly what to do,” Susan promises. “Look how comprehensive this chart is.”
She unfolds the glossy page and shows it to him, delicately tracing her nail over the points printed on the model’s back in black lettering and numbers.
“I’ll follow it to the T, I promise. I don’t want you carrying so much tension around, Neil. It isn’t healthy.”
“Well, you’re not wrong there.” Neil grunts. “My back’s killing me and that hell spawn of mine has my blood pressure through the roof. Sure, we can give it a shot.”
Susan smiles and begins to unbutton his shirt. Neil shrugs it down his shoulders and she presses a brief kiss to his cheek.
“Mm…you smell good.”
“Perfect Peony,” she chimes lightly.
Neil lies on the bed face first, resting his forehead against his folded arms. Susan begins with the proper acupuncture needles, following the chart as precisely as she’d promised. These needles are practically hair thin.
The same cannot be said for the baiting needle she dug out of Neil’s tackle box. She’d bought him this very needle, in fact, nine inches long to rig live bait. Big, sharp baiting needle so Neil could rig that good bait and catch those good fish Susan could fry just the way he liked and have leftovers for days.
“How is it so far, honey?”
“Not terrible,” Neil offers. “You might make a believer out of me, yet.”
“Glad to hear it.” Susan guides the keen tip of the baiting needle below the base of her husband’s skull and plunges it directly into his brain stem.