Fiction Short Story

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Fiction Short Story

by Pamela Olumoya

Side Effects

Martin Miles finished his beer with a series of noisy swallows. Already in her blue terry cloth robe, Joanna had kept him company while he devoured two helpings of her meat loaf and specially prepared buttermilk mashed potatoes laced with a special concoction of heavy-duty sleeping pills. She was sick and didn't have an appetite; therefore Martin didn't expect her to eat but he believed in eating well himself.

Moving close to his dowdy wife, Martin could smell the Sprite she constantly sipped, and the faint scent of regurgitation that stayed with her. She was probably expecting a positive answer to her earlier question and a peck on the cheek. He reached out in her direction past her hopeful brown eyes and the gray edges at her hairline, but lingered just long enough to remove a napkin from its holder.

She'd brought up the subject right before he had sat down to eat his meal. Her transplanted kidney was failing, she was on the list for a new one, but she was getting weaker by the day. Although he had declined the first time asked three months ago, did he think it was possible for him to reconsider? The perfect dinnertime discussion, right? One of his favorite tactics was to not answer. He loved making her bide by his time.

After wiping his mouth, he hovered nearby while he readjusted his maroon shirt past his beer belly and into his black slacks. Finally, after a huge yawn and stretch he was ready to answer. "Joanna, you are somebody I have known for a very long time. But, I have known Joe the barber, Frank the mailman and Carlton the mechanic for a long time too. If they asked me for a kidney, I'd tell them no just like I'm telling you no." He let out an uncovered belch loud enough to send the cat scurrying to another room. This time he yawned wide enough to bring tears to his eyes.

"But ... but, what about the children?" She managed with a shaky voice even though she knew that neither sentiment nor logic would matter to him.

"What about them? You want to harvest their organs too?"

"Oh God! You think you can just say anything to me, don't you?" Her voice suddenly found resonance and something akin to hate. Martin noticed it immediately, it had been so long since she had done anything but whine, her nervy response got his attention.

"If you're seriously worried about the children's welfare, you don't have to be. They're seven and eight. They've known how sick you are their whole lives. They'll survive."

Pain racked her soul, but she couldn't stop. "So, you are saying that life without me will just be a momentary glitch our children will have to overcome?" She looked past him at the clock.

"You said it, not me."

She inhaled and held her breath, a yoga trick she'd learned that calmed her. Finally she exhaled. "Martin, remember when we agreed that my sister and David would become Trevor and Tatiana's guardians if something ever happened to both of us?"

"That was when they were still babies and your whining still worked," he snickered as he retrieved his overcoat from the hall rack. Coming back to stand before her he said, "Say, you wouldn't be trying to tell me something, now would you?"

No," she dropped her gaze, "it just helps me to remember when things were better between us, that's all."

"I didn't think so. I'm leaving now." A gust of cold winter air came rushed past him when he went out the door; enough to make the children's magnetically held soccer and basketball game schedules flutter on the refrigerator door. Once outside he took two steps, hesitated, then turned around and went back inside. Joanna was waiting for him, watching him, as if she'd predicted his return.

"What the hell are you looking at? What's gotten into you tonight? What do you think you are going to do? Huh? Let me break something down for you. You are not that smart and I'm not that stupid." He paused and shook his head as if to clear it. "So, whatever you are thinking forget about it. There's not a chance in hell of you pulling off something that would hurt me that wouldn't backfire and land your fat ass right in jail. I'm sure Trevor and Tatiana would love to see their mother spend her last few months wilting away in a prison cell. That would make a pretty picture, wouldn't it?"

She knew when she poked, he'd poke back, but things had not been this venomous in a long time. She tried to turn away, but he grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. "I'll tell you what. Why don't you go on upstairs and write out your eulogy. I'm thinking something short and sweet like, she lived, she died, and nobody cried should do it. Does that work for you?"

She stared at his eyes and then at the shaving bumps he was plagued with and wondered how it could have possibly come to this. Hadn't they been high school sweethearts? Hadn't he been a football star and hadn't he'd been proud to be seen with her, the lead twirler on the pom-pom squad?

He stared into a face that used to be pretty, but was now swollen with the side effects of her medication and then quickly thought of the warm luscious body waiting for him elsewhere. But, he had to admit, there was something different about her tonight all right; he just couldn't put his finger on it. The beer and dinner were making him groggy. Giving up, he shook his head and said, "Jesus Christ!" as he walked out of the door. "Joanna, you can be a real pain in the ass."

She looked at the clock and waited for him to drive past. Two minutes. Nothing. Four minutes. Still nothing. The adrenaline erased her fatigue. Practically running, she got her coat and hurried into the garage. She found Martin asleep behind the wheel. She opened his door cautiously, alert to its groaning, creaking sound. "Martin," she called. "Martin," she called again, this time shaking him, poised to jump back if there should be even a titter from him. Carefully, she snaked her rubber-gloved hand across to the ignition and turned the key. After carefully closing the garage door she washed the dishes and then, to be doubly sure, she put them in the dishwasher right before going to bed.

"I'm not sure what happened," Joanna told everyone who inquired the next day, "He did mention a bad pain in his lower back. I think he reached for the aspirin and got my sleeping pills by mistake. And, unfortunately, they've had to increase my dosage because, after a while, what used to work just stops working."

"What? No, I didn't think to look in the garage until morning. Martin, well, you see, Martin had this habit of going out after dinner and not coming home."

© Copyright 2003 Pamela Olumoya

About the Author:

Pamela Olumoya likes to write short stories, children's plays and poems. She has written two pre-published novels.