Airbag Thanksgiving: Absolution conclusion 3.5

A year ago I was bitter and angry because I'd found out that my 8 year marriage was a sham and the woman I'd married didn't really love me. She had had a lover for all the years we were together and had trapped me into marriage. In my anger and without real knowledge of her true feelings, I engineered her death.  At the moment she faced death, Melissa had chosen to push me out of the path of danger, an act of love; love that she had never been able to fully express or even if she had, I'd been too deafened and blinded by my wounded pride and jealous anger to understand or believe. And I'd allowed myself to indulge in the fantasy of thwarted true love that had marked my relationship with her sister Selena. Selena had encouraged the fantasy, reinforcing it with the promise that we would get together once I'd divorced her sister and that Melissa was the one keeping us apart. Selena also convinced me that she truly loved me where her sister had merely duped me and used me. I now know this all held fatal appeal for an angry ego which thirsted for love after the shock of discovery of betrayal.

 I don't doubt that Selena had feelings for me or that I'd had feelings for her after all, I had taken her virginity or rather she had cleverly engineered me into the whole incident. However, those feelings have always been complicated, on her side, by rivalry with her sister and on my side, by the guilt and the fact that whatever feelings I had for Selena certainly didn't do much to prevent me from banging her sister. And Selena had been happy  to transform that guilt into fuel for the anger that burned in me a year ago. We'd focused our anger at having been deprived of what we thought was true love on the easiest target, Melissa. Today, our illusions or delusions and excuses were all destroyed in a brilliant show of truth rising literally from the ashes. Whatever her initial motivations, Melissa had loved me, I'd have to read the diary to know more but the love that poured out of her words just minutes earlier was unmistakable. 

" I couldn't let her destroy us! Can't you see, I did it all for us. For you! I won't let that stupid bitch hurt you again!"

 I extricated myself from Selena's tight embrace, cynical distrust of the scheming sister of my dead wife rising within me, choking in its irony. 

"Selena," I uttered in a dead, weary manner. " Don't fool yourself. We both know why you burnt it. You may have thought it spare me pain but a part of it, a big part, was your fear that you'd lose to your sister, even in death."

I didn't have to hear her gasp or to see the flush that spread across her face to know I was right on the money in my words. Selena stood looking at me as I picked up my stuff and bags, moving into the guest bedroom. 

****

The next few weeks proved harrowing for the couple. Although Selena was relieved by Melissa's absence, she did look nervously around her in the first week or so, the awful feeling that it was a Pyrrhic victory began to build in her. She tried every trick, from seduction to appealing to his feelings for her to even using her baby, to get Ian to return to her bedroom. All attempts proved abject failures. It worsened as the kids and the housekeeper gave her a wide berth. Something else also preyed on her mind, what Melissa had said about the baby. What did she mean when she said it wasn't her love child? 

Selena's mind began to darken with all the wild speculation and myriad possibilities. A week after Halloween, she quietly asked her doctor for a prenatal DNA test on the child. The spiral that began on Halloween accelerated as Ian withdrew further, limiting his time in the house to activities with the children, often ignoring her or giving the shortest of replies to her questions and attempts at conversation. He spent increasing amounts of time in the garage on his Mustang. The last straw came when she spotted Ian emerging from the kids' room with what looked like Melissa's battered diary in his hands as he left the house for the office one morning. 

"What are you doing with that damn thing?" She shrieked.

He was on his way down the stairs and had turned on hearing her shrill voice. 

"What I should have done a long time ago," he said flatly. "Read it."

"No! Don't fall into her trap!"

She pleaded to no avail as Ian simply exited the front door with the journal still in hand. Selena crumbled into tears and then started drinking that very day. As the alcohol slid down her throat, she comforted herself with the thought that Ian wouldn't be able to read the worst part, since she had burnt it. That freak show that happened on Halloween had been too rapid for him to have read or understood everything. Somewhere in that morose mind was the thought that she was pregnant and wasn't supposed to be drinking alcohol. However, what egged her on was the possibility that Ian might be provoked into engaging. By the time she'd drunk enough for the housekeeper to be concerned and for her to have contacted Ian, she'd emptied an entire bottle of brandy and was asleep on the living room couch. 

Ian had been furious, asking the housekeeper how she could have let Selena drink that much in her pregnant state. After listening to the housekeeper's protests, he helped carry his wife up to her bedroom and took care of her through her drunken heaving and vomiting till he was sure she was settled for the afternoon. It was dinner time before Ian left the bedroom, the longest time they had spent together since Halloween. Selena smiled when Ian returned with her dinner. Her happiness was brief as Ian quickly left after she'd finished with her dinner and checking that she was not feeling any pain or aftereffects from her drinking. She thought bitterly that he was only concerned with the child. However, she was encouraged by his concern for her when she was drunk and proceeded to play that card for the rest of the week. 

Ian knew Selena was playing games with him and was trying to manipulate him into engaging with her again. He was furious that she would risk the health of their child just to get his attention. This hardened his resolve to distance himself from her. When he returned to find her drunk again two weeks after Halloween and heard that the doctor had called with a message for Selena, he was determined to bring her to her senses. He carried her to the car and drove her directly to the doctor's, still drunk and hardly aware of her surroundings. 

The doctor was appalled and quickly helped Selena to sober up before delivering the results of the DNA test she had requested. Ian was completely surprised when the doctor mentioned the DNA test after delivering a lecture on the dangers of alcohol for a  developing foetus. The doctor didn't notice the odd look that was exchanged by the couple and proceeded to announce that the foetus had an unusual condition. 

"Your baby is a chimera."

The blank looks of both parents told her they were completely baffled by the term.

"She has two different sets of DNA. One shows she is your child. The other, however, is a bit of a mystery."

"What do you mean?" Selena asked fearfully. 

"Well, actually, we would like to ask if you're acting as a surrogate mother for one of your family members? You see, the other set of DNA seems to suggest a family relation who's not immediate family but still a close relative to you."

"Like a niece," Selena whispered in horror as she stared at Ian.

"Yes, possibly though there are other possibilities—"

"I want this baby removed! Now!" 

Selena's screaming brought the nurse and the doctor to their feet. Ian tried to calm her down.

"You know, don't you? She created this monster so it'll never be my child. You knew and you let her!"

Selena ranted and raved, growing increasingly hysterical. The doctor tried to calm her down and after giving her a light sedative, advised Ian to keep a watch on Selena. 

"She's very vulnerable now and with the stress that seems to be affecting her moods and making her drink, I fear for the health of the child," the doctor said while eyeing Ian. 

Ian explained briefly that things were tensed at home and Selena's mood swings were making lifedifficult. The doctor listened and was sympathetic, it helped of course that she was not impressed by Selena's decision to drink or her abrasive attitude.

When Ian finally left carrying his wife to the car, the doctor wondered how such a caring husband could end up with such a nasty wife. 

Matters only deteriorated as the days passed, Selena's hostility reached new levels as she sought to retaliate against what she saw was a conspiracy against her. She drank heavily the day after her trip to the doctor's, even ordering a case of alcohol from the stores when Ian asked the housekeeper to get rid of all the alcohol in the house. When Ian got home after receiving  a call from the housekeeper, he found a very drunk Selena attempting to enter the kids' room. 

"What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna get all that bitch's stuff and dump them in the landfill."

Her words were so slurred, he had to ask her to repeat them twice before he made sense of what she was saying. Her frustration at not being able to open the door and the effort of having to repeat her words exhausted her and she slumped down against the door. Ian could only sigh as he picked her up and brought her to the bedroom. Selena whispered in his ear something which made him stiffen though he didn't drop her as the housekeeper feared. The housekeeper looked at the unhappy couple as the master carried the new mistress into their bedroom and tried to get her sober. She shook her head, the scene before her was a stark contrast to the smug happiness the new mistress had radiated just months ago. Looking at her now, the housekeeper felt a tiny bit of sympathy for the new mistress who was now suffering for her misdeeds.

****

I looked at my wife as sympathy and hate warred inside of me. A year ago, six months ago, hell, three weeks ago, I thought she loved me. Now I see she loved the idea of having me or rather the idea of winning me, snatching me like some toy or trophy from a hated rival, her sister, Melissa.

When that triumph was marred, as was the case with our child and my alleged betrayal of her with Melissa,  she became determined to destroy it. That included our child, who she labelled a monster since learning of its chimerism. After the initial shock and worry over the potential health consequences for the child, I have to admit I was secretly and perversely thrilled that I could begin to atone for what I'd done to Melissa through this last child we were to share. Hence, regardless of whatever I felt about Selena, I was determined to protect the child as best I could. Which included protecting the woman who was carrying that child, Selena.  My determination was tested the very next day after I'd brought Selena to the doctor's. What Selena whispered in  my ear as I carried her to the bedroom made me stop and stare at the woman who had professed to love me. 

"I'll tell everyone what you did last Thanksgiving, how you 'fixed' Melissa's car and caused her death. If you're going to stop me from getting rid of this monster that my sister foisted upon us, if you're never going to be mine, then I'd rather destroy you!"

The look she gave me, even in her drunken state, told me she wasn't kidding. So that was what she meant by love - winning, possessing what she thought her sister had snatched. I felt bitter irony rise in my throat like some wave of acid that threatened to burn me from the inside out. This must be divine retribution — I'd killed a cheating wife who realised too late that she loved me and now I was stuck with a bitch who claimed she loved me for years but wanted to destroy me when she felt she'd lost. 

I walked woodenly to the bedroom, laid her down and automatically began to wipe her face with the wet towel that the housekeeper had thoughtfully placed upon the dressing table. Selena looked at me with a drunken gloating smile as she waited for my answer. 

"As long as you keep my children out of this and you ensure the safety of the baby, you can do what you want. I deserve to pay for what I did to Melissa," I said evenly though my stomach was beginning to roil at the thought of leaving my children at her mercy. 

I guess I surprised her and probably enraged her further since Selena began hitting me with a pillow. She screamed as she pummelled me, "You wimp! You wouldn't fight that bitch when she was alive, now that she's dead, you'd rather fight for her, her brats and this monster she's created than me!"

I didn't react, what could I say? In our last fight before she died, Melissa had accused me of standing up to Todd, Selena's ex-husband, and fighting for Selena and yet being unwilling to fight for us as a couple. I bitterly regretted that. I'd thought there was nothing to fight for since she didn't love me while Selena openly professed her love for me and hence there was something to fight for in her case. Chalk that up to me being dumb and look where it got me. Selena continued venting for a good 30 minutes before she was exhausted from her tantrums, and simply slumped back on the bed and slept.

This scene repeated itself at least two more times that week with one occasion where we ended up in the emergency room of the local hospital. Selena had thrown  one of her small but heavy jars of moisturiser and hit me square on the brow, stunning me so I stepped back carelessly and crashed into the mirror behind me. The crash brought the housekeeper running and she screamed when she saw me unconscious with shattered glass all around. According to the kids who she prevented from coming into the room due to the glass bits all around, she quickly regained her senses, closed the door to prevent the kids from entering  and called the emergency services.  The emergency services took me to the hospital along with Selena, who was hysterical and who loudly proclaimed it was an accident. I'd regained consciousness when we reached the hospital but the doctors insisted on me being observed for the night as they were afraid of a concussion from the collision with the mirror. I noticed the nurses and doctors whispering as they tended to Selena, who was still raving about how it was all an accident and how I was the bastard who was trying to kill her. Her obvious drunken state and wild raving convinced everyone she was the nasty abusive wife and I was the hapless husband.  Even the cops were there, having been called by the housekeeper along with the emergency services. They asked me questions and I admitted it was just an accident that occurred after Selena got drunk. They looked at Selena with disapproval and when she became defensive and abrasive, even they left giving me looks of pity.

The only good which emerged from those chaotic days was Selena toning down her abrasive attitude though her erratic behaviour was now common knowledge around the neighbourhood. She even hit on  the idea of hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Her guest list was short, consisting of her brother, his lover, two of our neighbours and a few of our colleagues. I could guess what was going through her mind, she wanted to expose me in front of people we knew and therefore ensure maximum damage. I wasn't going to be a sitting duck thought he first order of the day wasn't my protection but rather that of the children. I quietly took some time out every morning to consult with the lawyers regarding custody of the kids should I be unable to care for them. We worked out a plan to help my brother gain custody of my kids and prove Selena's incompetence as a parental figure, the latter was easy seeing how Selena had built a reputation for erratic behaviour over the last few weeks. The trust fund I'd set up for the kids years ago was functioning well, so I didn't have too many worries there. The evenings i spent mainly with the kids trying to make the best of the time left with them. The day before Thanksgiving, I walked into a largely empty office and began picking up stuff that had to be handled in case I was going away for some time. After business matters were dealt with, I opened the safe and took out Melissa's battered diary and began scanning the pages I'd read, which Selena had not burnt. Reading as I scanned each page, I felt my heart break and could barely stop the tears from falling. It was almost dusk when I finished scanning the entire volume. I combined the latest scans with those I'd made almost a year ago after  ensuring they were intact. I could only read the earlier scans briefly before my eyes blurred over as tears fell. It was worse than what happened on Halloween as the words were starkly presented before me. And there was no Melissa there for me to apologise to or comfort me. I could only ensure the scans were safely stored in two different clouds before leaving the office with the physical diary for perhaps the last time.

Selena smiled as she surveyed the table settings for Thanksgiving dinner. 'Oh, she was going to serve them all up a most unforgettable Thanksgiving!' she thought as she took another swig of the brandy. She had stayed sober for the last couple of days in order to plan her revenge on Ian and her dead sister. Those bastards who crossed her were going to regret and pay for their transgressions against her. The pain in her belly was starting to become more obvious. 

'Good, the monster is dying.' A spasm of pain ran through her heart as she recalled the joy she felt just weeks ago at the thought of the child growing in her belly . The pain was quickly quashed by the rage that flared when she recalled the doctor's announcement that her child, no the monster, was  a chimera , with two sets of DNA, one of which was a close relative, like a niece. At that moment, she finally understood what Melissa's words meant. that was the moment the baby became a monster to her.

She smiled in anticipation as the doorbell rang and the housekeeper began ushering in the guests. Ted, her brother,  asked her if she was alright and she waved a hand in dismissal of his concern. She was feeling increasingly excited as the guests arrived and the adrenaline she was feeling running through her veins dampened the growing pain in her belly. 

When the guests arrived, she made small talk with them. After light banter, all were gathered round the dinner table as Ian finally arrived back in his house and joined his guests. 

"Well, since everyone is here, let me serve up the main course!"

Everyone thought Selena meant the turkey and were a little surprised when she returned with a small covered silver platter which was too small to be containing a turkey. The doorbell rang again and the housekeeper had bustled off remarking on the ridiculous ways of the Americans. As Selena opened the cover of the platter with a flourish, the guests started to whisper at the sight of a book sitting on the platter even as the smell of motor oil filled the room. 

" As most of you know, my bitch of a sister died last Thanksgiving. This is her diary and I'm sending it to join her." Her fierce glare quelled Ted's feeble attempts to rebuke her for her rude behaviour. Selena noticed Ian's fixed stare at the book soaked in motor oil on that silver platter. She leaned over and whispered with malicious glee, " Yes darling, Melissa's precious diary is finally going up in smoke. 

Noticing her latest guests joining her round the table, Selena beamed with am evil gleam in her eyes. 

"Join us, officers. I'm about to reveal  vital information."

"Ma'am did you male a report about a murder?"

She waved her hand dismissively. 

"Yes, officers, the information is related to that, she muttered impatiently. 

"While most of you think that my stupid bitch of a sister died in a car accident last year, I know the truth, she was murdered. By a cold-blooded killer. Who switched the fuses and ensured the airbag would malfunction."

Everyone stared at Selena like she was mad. 

"Are you drunk Ma'am? This isn't a joke is it?"

"No, officers. I'm dead serious. The murderer is among us today. "

Ian close his eyes and tried to remain calm.

"The murderer is none other than--"

Ian braced himself.

"Me! I switched the fuses and killed her."

There was utter silence as everyone stared at Selena. She looked in horror, her hand clasped over her mouth. She looked as if she couldn't believe what was coming out of it. 

She recovered quickly and in a flash, she whipped out her lighter and set the diary on fire. It all happened too quickly and none of the witnesses had any idea just how it was that as the diary burnt, Selena herself began to burn. All anyone really saw was Selena engulfed in flames as everyone else round the table started screaming. Selena's screams were drowned out by the tumult. 

Ted tried to douse the flames with water but the grease fire spread. Ian  ran off and returned with a fire extinguisher and put out the fire almost instantly. But by then Selena was seriously burnt. The officers called for the emergency services while Ian tried to cradle Selena's shaking body gently as she went into shock and her eyes stared at him uncomprehendingly.  

 At the hospital, the police officers who had accompanied Ian and Selena there began to ask Ian questions which were met with blank looks. They assumed he was in shock himself. the doctors scurried around trying to save Selena and the baby. But three hours later, the chaos was largely over. The doctors told Ian that the baby had apparently already been dead for a few days mad that they couldn't understand why Selena had managed to ignore all the signs that the baby was in distress. Selena herself was barely clinging to life and the doctors were not optimistic about her condition.  The staff at the hospital looked at Ian with some pity since most remembered him from his  trip there just a week or so earlier. 

An hour later, they told Ian that Selena was gone. She never regained consciousness. 

****

IAN

I don't recall getting home that night. Somehow, someone must have helped me because the next thing I knew I was in my bed. Sleep was at best fitful and patchy. So I was quickly aware of the presence in the room. I sensed her before I saw her. 

"Melissa? I thought you'd left."

 I was about to leave but i sensed something would go badly wrong. So I stuck around and observed. When I saw Selena take the diary from the kids' room where you'd returned it, I knew she was planning something. I'm sorry I couldn't save the baby but it had been dead for some days and I couldn't stop Selena from killing it. 

"Why did you stop Melissa  from exposing me? I deserve punishment."

That you do but what good would that do? Nothing.Our children would suffer. I can't  let them lose both parents within a year or so. In any case, when you read the diary, there was absolution for me. That helped me to really forgive you. 

My head hung low in shame. 

My voice was gruff when I spoke. 

"I guess I really screwed up huh?"

The rueful smile on Melissa's face helped confirm my assessment of the situation. 

"Couldn't you stay? I mean for the kids of course."

I hated the pleading note in my voice but I was desperate and on the verge of pouting and begging.

It's better for everyone to move on.

"But I'll never see you again!" I blurted out. 

The enigmatic smile on Melissa's face made me anticipate her next words.

Well, if you really hope to see me in this lifetime again, i must leave now. 

Almost as if she read my mind, she laughed and said 

No darling, you're not that lucky to be a 49 year old with a 18 year old hanging off his arm! But it will be close! 

She turned serious. 

Take the kids away for a while, help them get over what has happened. Rebuild this house and when you return, rebuild your lives. 

She took my hand and we walked over to the kids'room where we looked over the kids sleeping the sleep of the innocent. As she began to fade, she whispered

Be at my grave next Thanksgiving, your second chance will be there!

A whisper of air caressed my wet cheek and then she was gone. 

So I did as she said. No one was surprised when I said that the kids and I needed to get away. After the disasters of the last two years, friends family and everyone else were very understanding. 

Selena's death was ruled a misadventure and all witnesses, including the hospital staff and her doctor all testified that she had been erratic for the last month or so. The police suspected that the seasonal holiday triggered her deep-seated guilt and depression. 

I'd been half afraid that Selena would come back like Melissa but she never did. Thank goodness for some wives who do stay dead.

Thanksgiving 2015

I was about to give up and leave when a figure walking jauntily towards me caught my eye. Somehow that gait seemed familiar. When she lifted her head and smiled at me, my heart skipped a beat. The twinkle in her eye and the knowing smile on the teenage face was Melissa's!  

Final conclusion by Sunday! Check back for it!