Content warning: Though not explicit, this piece depicts interpersonal violence.

Plastic fridge magnets of a purple uppercase ‘L’, yellow ‘U’, lowercase green ‘v’, along with a state of Texas classic souvenir, frame her day-old penciled note. Ray-ray, your girl is stepping out for a night on the town. Leftover pinwheel meatloaf is in the oven. Wanda June’s affairs were a kick in the ribs.

Cuffed, Sheriff Mathis jabs my shoulder blade, shoving me toward the backdoor. As I try to fit in what’s missing from memory, I keep seeing different stuff. He reminds me that she was his senior prom date. Danced with every member of the football team and left with the tight end. Nearing her airtight body bag resting atop a metal gurney, I stop to make my peace, but I’m prodded like an animal, no longer Raymond Owens, birdbrain postmaster.

We know each other, can feel each other and read each other’s mind, she’d say every morning. It was true. Mystical intuition fluttered out of her—hard to explain without sounding weird. She was big hearted. That was the problem.

Coming home to fry up a sirloin steak dinner with Idaho potatoes, I poured box wine into her mother’s gifted Good Luck engraved wedding glasses. I wanted our second anniversary to be special, even if she’d forgotten it.

Ray-ray I need a new hairbrush. Wud’ja pick me up one darling? Wanda June backed me into the kitchen counter and gave me an overdone wink. The brush in her hand was littered with hair that wasn’t all hers. Bring me some Pledge and popsicles too. She’d been a little girl passed around by her father to pay off gambling debts. Why did she want me to know so much?

At the grocery store, overheard a fella in the frozen section talking about the sexiest woman he’d ever had. Described Wanda’s tiny mole located just behind her left ear, shaped like a single longhorn. When you touched the mole, or even breathed on the damn thing, she went wild. The woman rode me like a bronco—hard and steady. I could have killed him right then and there.

Front door. Please. I didn’t have to ask Sheriff Mathis twice. Television crews had scampered from all over Dallas. My wife would have admired my confidence. I had to do that. Honor her.

Wanda’s heart-shaped shoulders and hummingbird voice had captivated me. I bought us a big house three miles from the main part of town. When she fell in love with the idea of having a horse, I built her a sizable barn for the colt I found for sale on the dirt road just past McCormick’s place. After she expressed a desire to get a formal education, I was the first in line to pick up a Paris Junior College fall catalogue for her. Dedicated love. I figured it would be a remedy.

Early days in our marriage, I’d come home and find her pealing the skin off spuds and singing loudly. Operatic. An angel harmonizing with God on a date with Lucifer. She made me plenty nuts. Cleaning my great grandpappy’s pistol in the barn calmed me down, put things into perspective and made me think how every breath taken comes with two possible endings.

At our nuptials, her mother disrupted the ceremony to ask if I knew about patience. It was more of a jeer than a question. My booming “I do” was met with a glare and her thundering maternal silence gunning to have the last word.

Cameras flashed and reporters yelled out questions as Sheriff Mathis shot off his mouth. Back away. Let us through. Neighbors that I’d never seen before stood about taking in the circumstances and filming it with cell phones. A woman wearing a black pencil skirt and white button blouse got right to business. Market is hot. I have buyers lined up to purchase your house. Whatda’ say? Someone else tries to get a selfie with us, but the Sheriff’s former right tackle arm shuts that down.

I forgave her—carpenter who built the barn, two professors, the mailman assigned to our route. Isn’t that patience?

Returning home from the store with a new hairbrush, Windex and pint of butter toffee crunch ice cream, I had decided to take a shower before putting together dinner when a chill and uncontrollable spasm in the back of my neck took me for a spell. Rode me like a bronco—hard and steady pitched in my ear.

In our bedroom, the phone cord from the weathered landline looped around her neck like a noose. I really want to see you. Everything went blank—no memory of thuggish moments. When I came to it was her mother screaming on the other line. I placed the phone back onto its cradle, then plopped a boneless steak on a heated cast iron grill. Mistakenly, I’d left the ice cream on the counter. Cutting a tiny piece of meat and spooning a mouthful of melted sweetness softened the sirens, before taking a swift shower. And there it was the woman of my dreams had red-puckered the mirror with a hundred or more kisses, then used soap to write Happy Anniversary. A wicked world of fairy tales made me fall under a spell whenever I looked into her eyes. We could read each other’s minds. Our love was the nostalgic, hurting kind.

Yvonne Conza’s writing has appeared in Longreads, The Believer, Electric Literature, LARB, Bomb Magazine, AGNI, The Rumpus, Joyland Magazine, Blue Mesa Review, Ex/Post and elsewhere. London’s Dodo Ink and Scotland’s Epoch Press have included her work in the 2021 anthologies “Trauma: Art as a response to Mental Health” and “Aftermath.” Credit: Photo by author.