New Message: By Tasha Hickman

New Message

            Kimberly burned her wrist on the handle. Instant potato flakes skittered across the counter and on to the blue vinyl floor as she jerked it away.

            “Damn.” She said putting her skin to her mouth. The pot started to boil over. Hurriedly she took her free hand grabbing the dish towel wrapping it around the handle and removing it from the stove burner.

            “Just what I needed.” She said with an exasperated sigh. It was overly melodramatic of her, and she knew it. Since she was alone in the kitchen with no one to make fun of her she welcomed the open self-pity. Click. The front door audibly hinged, and then the sucking shut noise followed as it always did. Kimberly hated it when Roger slammed the door shut like that, sometimes it woke up Craig.

            “Kimmy?” Roger called from the front room. She could hear the clunking sounds of him kicking off his shoes by the door. Good he remembered.

            “In here babe.” She called bending down to clean up the flakes which smeared at the wet cloth. Looking at her wrist as she wiped the floor it turned an angry reddish pink that wrinkled, oddly the skin felt tight as if it were to split. Cold water in a minute, if Roger sees a mess… “You’re home late guy.”

            “Eh, projects due tomorrow. Wanted to make sure I had everything for my class lined up.”

            “That’s good.” Kimberly straitened herself up walking over to the sink to rinse off the cloth. Roger was near the table now and took three strides before pouring himself into the mismatching wooden chair. She knew he’s always hated their furniture, it’s mostly the same hand me down things they received at their wedding eight years ago. A teacher’s salary isn’t enough when you get a surprise like Craig as a honeymoon baby.

            “What’s this?” Roger asked picking up a water colored paper from the table. Kimberly looked over her shoulder as she started another batch of instant potatoes.

            “Craig made it at school today. He wanted to give it to you but it got too late and I told him I’d make sure you got it.”

            “Huh. What is it?”

            “He treated it as if it were his Mona Lisa smile because the teacher had him feature it in class today.”

            “Great let’s put it on ebay.” Roger pushed it away from him gliding to another quarter of the table. Kimberly opened the cutlery drawer taking out a long bread knife.  The blade wobbled in the handle as she stroked through the French bread. Another emblem of the shabby lifestyle they led. Minutes later she’d organized a dish for Roger, fake potatoes, dry bread, pork chop with just add water gravy.

            “Thanks” Roger said without enthusiasm or much compliment. It didn’t matter, Kim knew he was grateful, but after eleventy-thirty nights of the same routine for his dinner, his thankless “thanks” became part of the ritual. “What did you do today?”

            “Craigs soccer game and grocery store.” Kim answered reaching over to the water color portrait.

            “And?”

            “And, nothing.”

            “Doesn’t sound like ‘nothing’ is what you’re really saying.” Roger said sitting down his fork in the gravy.

            Roger could always pick up on pathetic feelings like that. Sometimes Kim wished he’d play stupid and leave her alone with her thoughts, what’s ironic is while they were dating she used to think of it as a superpower. No man could read her mind until she met Roger.

            “Craig cried all the way home from his soccer game today.”

            “Kid’s a wuss. Someone kick him? Did he loose his game?”

            “No.” Kim said curtly cutting off Roger. “No, He didn’t lose the game.”

            “Then what?” He parried back with equal sobriety.

            “Some of the boys on his team were making plans after the game to go to one of their homes to ‘play’, er ‘hang out’.” No kid wants to be associated with a verb they used at the age of five, even if he’s now seven. “He asked if he could go with them and they said no. So he pushed that little fat bastard to the ground. Hard. He looked like a jiggly ball of…”

            “Craig did what?”

            “It happened Roger. To be perfectly honest part of me is more than sure if Craig didn’t I would have.”

            Roger stared at Kimberly in lost disbelief. If the night wasn’t interesting before, it was now.

            “The kids where pointing and laughing at Craig saying that their mothers had been staring and whispering about me the whole game. They didn’t want Craig with them because his daddy is a rapist and murderer.”

            Roger stared at Kim for a period of uncomfortable silence.

            “Is that all.” Roger said returning to pushing around the gristle of his pork chop. Kim scoffed at his response.

            “No, Roger. That’s not all. Hell, there’s so much more that I try to hide from you simply because I know how bad of a running gag it’s becoming in this house.” She felt purged, forced to vomit out those insipid words. More silence followed, she was scared to flinch a muscle.

            “The trial found me innocent. It’s over.” Kim stood up to walk over to the kitchen and started cleaning up her cooking dishes. She couldn’t look at him, this was her least favorite subject and anytime it had been brought up in the last eight months it’s always ended with Roger sleeping on the couch. She stared into the sink reflecting.

She remembered the camera’s outside of her house, the lenses big and full of depth. How that one piece of bulging glass splintered into thousands of eyes staring right at her. She remembered the news reporters suffocating her as she walked up the courthouse steps with her husband. A woman in black Jimmy Choo’s holding a microphone stepped on Kim without the slightest of remorse in the shuffle. When her mother saw her on CNN she called and offered to let her and her son stay with her. Kim was insulted by this, and not only told her mother ‘no’ but essentially told her to stick it. Kim later apologized for that little explosion. The lawyers told her that it was good she showed her face in court as the doting wife who believes in his innocence. A gimmick to get sympathy that worked.

            “I know they did.”

            “All of this. It’s just something as stupid as me being in the wrong place, getting drunk, going for a walk, then dropping my wallet…” Roger became heated now raising his voice.

            “Your wallet was stolen.” Kim whirled around facing him holding a pot charred from the oven.

            “Right. That’s what I said.”

            “No it isn’t. You said you dropped it.”

            “Yes, and someone else picked it up. Same someone who ended up killing that poor teenager.”

            Kim turned back to the sink placing the pot down next to the bread knife. The sink was full of bubbles and dirty water. She took a heavy breath through her nose carefully thinking out the next words.

            “You’ve never described it like that before. Not to the courts or any interview, even me.” Kim could feel herself holding her breath with full lungs. “You told everyone you left it at the bar.” A burning sensation hit her cheeks. What she now was saying was close to accusation. She could hear the chair scrape as Roger stood. Turning around she faced him hands still dripping from soap.

            RIIIING.

            RIIIING.

            RIIIING.

            RIIIING.

            The land line sat between her and Roger vibrating on the wall with each cry. Kims breathing was now shallow starts and stops as she looked at the phone.

            RIIIIIING.

            RIIIING.

            She started for the phone.

            “Do. Not. Pick that up.” Roger threatened darkly. Kim drew back her outstretched hand.

            RIIIING.

            “No!” She lunged for the phone again but Roger was much closer to it. He ripped it off the wall unhooking the main body from the wall jack.  His eye’s fixed on Kim.

            “Now you and I are about to have a conversation here, Kimmy.” The way he said ‘Kimmy’ was spiked and cold. “I didn’t kill her. I left my wallet at the bar. It was taken then left at that scene. I was found innocent.” Roger took a single purposeful step toward Kim. She coward back two, her heart was racing now. Every detail in the room seem to overwhelm her, the distance between Roger and her, the shell of the phone in his fist that had been her hope of help.

            “You came back that night so... Any doubt I had… never really questioned it.” Kim backed into the counter by the sink. Roger saw her creep her hand outward.

            “Don’t!” He leapt forward, but Kim had already grabbed the bread knife from the sink. When she turned around holding it out she nicked Rogers forearm. Shock came from both Kim and Roger looking at the shredded line on his work shirt starting to soak into crimson. He stepped toward her again.

            “Stay away from me!” Kim screeched breathing heavily. He faltered back. She looked in his eyes expecting anger, but it was a new look she’d never seen. Fear, wide exposed fear of Kim and the bread knife with a wobbly handle. “Stay back.” Roger raised his open hand and the other holding the phone in front of him.

            “Kim I just want to talk.”

            “Plug the phone back in.”

            “Put the knife down.”

            “Plug the phone back in!”

            “It’s not what you think.”
            “NOW!” A strange feeling of empowerment came over her as she yelled. Roger was now shaking, his face contorted in what looked like an angry pouting plea. It sickened her of how much it looked like little Craig when he doesn’t want to do a chore. His breathing heavy now setting up for the next burst of thought, Kim advanced with her knife again.

            “You want to know what happened to me that night?! You want to know? I got drunk then decided to take a walk in the park near the bar to give me less of an excuse to come home!” Roger spat in an angry yell. His face then softened before describing what came next. “She was already there. Legs sprawled open on the cement…” Roger started to hesitate sipping breaths of air between words. “…She….She was…. Twisted….and bruised. Her eyes stared into nothing her dress was ripped clear up to the waist….hair was matted with dry blood and draped over her face… I…I…” Roger led off standing silently. Bowing his head calmly with resignation plugged the phone back into the wall jack. “Please… Don’t ask me anymore.”

            RIIIING.

            RIIING.

            “You, what.” She said forcibly prompting him to continue. Hot tears merged and spilled over her cheeks. The bread knife visibly shook in the two hands that held it.

            RIIIIIING

            “I leaned over her to feel a pulse and see if she was okay.” Roger cried leaning his body on the wall. “But she was dead. Dead, and like that? I got scared. I am a coward who left her dead in the park and didn’t call for help. When they found my wallet the next day who would believe me? Bending over her my wallet fell out of my pocket, I was too drunk to notice…” Roger stood strait again and looked at her his face swollen, wet, and red, he held out his hand. “Give me the knife.” She gripped it tighter almost forgetting where she was.

            “No.”

            RIIIIING.

            RIIIIING.

            “Kimberly, give me the knife.”

 Kim tried to grab the phone. “Don’t answer…!” Catching her off balance Roger stepped toward her in determination and accidently clutched her burned wrist. Kim cried out in pain as he swung her around. Closing her eyes reflexively she turned the knife upward, stabbing Roger. Not piercing him further than his ribs. Each bone skipped over the knife ridges with a strange popping feeling. Kim immediately let go of the handle and backed away from Roger. It clanked to the floor with a tin sound.

RIIIIING.

Roger squatted hugging his torso grasping either sides of his shirt into fists. The feeling in her legs left her and she collapsed to the floor kneeling in front of him unsure of what to do. Absent mindedly she grabbed the dry towel that hung on the oven and tossed it over to Roger. Finally she sat down on the floor as Roger staunched the blood. The message machine gave a click and beep.

“You’ve reached the Parsons! Leave your message at the beep.”

            BEEP.

“Kim? Kim I thought you’d be home. I just wanted to say that we just saw it on the news, that they caught the real killer? It’s so wonderful they got him! Confession, proof, everything! I’m just so relieved for your family. Call me back as soon as you can, this is Emily.”

            BEEP.

Roger and Kim looked at one another in silence. The message machine had a happy blinking red light that read “One New Message.”