The Knife I Use to Cut Cherry Pie
The knife I use to cut cherry pie is six-inches deep in my husband’s chest, the handle slippery with his blood and mine. His eyes stare, unfocused, at a point above my head, blue and cold as the water that runs from our kitchen sink.
“Clara.” He lets out a breath, shaking hands closing around mine around the knife and I’m shaking too. “This sickness is killing you.”
I’m somewhere outside myself, somewhere far away from this place. Somewhere outside this two-story house in the suburbs with the white wood panels, the white picket fence. Where I don’t have to pretend to be someone, be something, I’m not. Where I’m not trapped within these four walls, watching the world go on without me through the window over my kitchen sink. Where I can fall asleep in Alice’s arms like I did the other night and not worry about my husband, my husband coming home early, my husband grabbing her by her perfect red Lucille Ball curls and dragging her down the street to her own husband, my husband coming home to me red in the face with his breath smelling like whiskey, my husband with his belt between his hands, my husband raising it endlessly above me, a snake with its fangs bared to strike. The kids watching, me on my knees pleading.
“No,” I sob, shaking my head again and again and again and again, the floor spinning beneath me. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” and it’s not killing me, it’s not killing me, it’s not going to kill me. My head’s buried in the uninjured side of his chest, the metallic taste of his blood on
my lips. His heartbeat’s irregular, too long between each desperate flutter, way too long. Isn’t this that I wanted? Isn’t this everything I ever wanted? He’s going to bleed out in front of me. He yanks the knife out of his chest with one last deep grunt. It clatters to the linoleum floor beside him, blood pooling in the white space between the black tiles, dark as the lipstick smeared on my bathroom mirror. His heart falls still in his chest, and I feel something black rotting in mine.
The sound of his heartbeat is replaced by a sudden, swift knocking at the front door. “Johnny?” a voice calls. It’s Alice’s husband, Stan, but his voice sounds too much like Johnny’s, all deep and gruff. I jump. “Clara? Everything all right in there?”
I gasp, stumbling to my feet. I can see my kids playing in the front yard through the big bay window over the sink, the little boy with my blond hair and his father’s blue eyes, the little girl who looks all too much like me for her own good. They’re swinging on the swingset, facing away from me. Always facing away from me.
“Johnny? Clara?” Stan calls again, his fists pounding against the door. “Is everything all right?”
Hands shaking, I yank off my apron, dripping in blood. Somehow, I get it together enough to fold it neatly and sit it on the counter, but maybe I’m not together at all. Maybe it’s a different kind of sickness, me playing the pretty little housewife with Johnny dead on the kitchen floor, the smell of cherry pie filling the air, making me sick to my stomach.
I crack the door. Stan stands out on the small concrete slab of our front porch, in a neat tweed suit like he just got off work, his beard scruffy and unshaven, gin on his breath. “Is everything all right in there?” he asks again. “I heard screaming. I thought…”
“Johnny’s just a little sick, that’s all,” I jam my foot between the door and its frame, not letting him in. “You know how he gets.” I’m trying so goddamn hard to hold myself together, swallowing down the tears, wringing my shaking hands. “Could you send Alice over to watch
the kids for me, please? Johnny’s real sick. He’s real sick. He’s…”
I glance at his body on the kitchen floor, blood pooling beneath him. He thought I was the one that was sick in the head, and maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s right. If it weren’t for me, if it weren’t for whatever the hell’s wrong with me, he’d still be…
Stan heaves a heavy sigh. “I don’t want you two spending no more time together,” he says. “It’s not good for you, whatever the hell this is. I’m just looking out for you girls.” He pauses, looking out at the kids, his arms crossed over his chest. “But if Johnny’s sick like you say he is, I’ll take ‘em back with me. Alice can keep an eye on ‘em while she cooks.”
I slam the door in his face, shoving my back against it until I can’t hear his footsteps anymore. Johnny’s still lying there on the kitchen floor. I step over him and pick up the knife. His blood looks just like the cherry filling, the pie baking in the oven. Soon, it’ll start to burn.
I rinse the blood off the knife in the kitchen sink, looking out at my reflection in the bay window. My reflection is distorted and twisted, unrecognizable. Maybe Johnny was right. Maybe this sickness is killing me. The grass on Alice’s side is plush green, trimmed neat. Her house looks just the same as mine, down to the bay window over the sink.
Behind my reflection, I can see Alice standing at her own window, looking out at me. I raise my hand to wave. She smiles back, but a large hand closes around her shoulder, and Stan appears behind her. His eyes meet mine, and he leads Alice away from the window, leaving me staring at my own distorted reflection.
I let out a muffled sob and bring the knife I use to cut cherry pie to my wrist, digging the tip into my skin until I bleed.
Lizzy Sparks is an English and creative writing major at Ohio State, where she has recently read for the annual Non/Fiction Prize. Her work appears in Sheepshead Review and is forthcoming in Mantis.