Winston

the family patriarch, had died on 13 November 19, and in so doing satisfied the individual fantasies of his wife and daughter, although neither of them was to know it.

Winston's wife, Isabella, had been slipping small amounts of slug repellent into her husband’s morning orange juice religiously for three years and had watched, with an inward smile, his descent into ill health. On many occasions, she had convinced him that his nausea and strangely-colored excrement were natural extensions of the macrobiotic meals that his doctors had recommended, and that his inability to maintain his balance while he stood was a result of the abnormally high levels of toxins in their drinking water, and she herself felt vertigo from time to time. His other inabilities were completely coincidental but were welcomed nonetheless.

Isabella began life as a very poor and quite naive Catholic. She had been raised in a disjointed family, the daughter of Sarah and Max. Her mother, an aged circus performer, met Max at a motion picture festival. He was the manager of the establishment, having earned his position through a series of lucky occurrences. Max immediately fell in love with Sarah, and after he tore her ticket, he found a replacement for his post and followed her into the theatre. His instant attraction was not unusual for Max, for he fell in love with most women. That night, after conceiving Isabella, their only child, Sarah proposed. Max, imagining a life of excitement traveling with a circus, agreed.

Isabella was born, right on time, nine months later and found herself with an enormous, if somewhat peculiar, family. She traveled a great deal and saw many different kinds of people but seldom played with anyone her age. During her first sixteen years of life she endured the daily torment of a quarreling family. Max, having felt he had been pressured into marriage, openly resented his wife and her opportunistic ways. For her part, her mother had misjudged the salary typically earned by theatre management and squandered his tiny life savings on a not-so-glamorous existence and made love to the men who watched her performance. These facts were, of course, known to Isabella who heard with complete clarity the fights her parents had, nearly nightly.

These altercations necessitated a diminished childhood for Isabella. She learned at a young age the illusion of disinterest. She found that she could will herself into virtual invisibility and that people around her would tell their secrets without hesitation, friends and strangers. In this way, she became the company's therapist.

One week during a particularly sluggish period in the carnival’s stay in a small Midwestern town, Winston introduced himself to Isabella. She was quiet with him, as she had learned to be with others, and Winston took this as a personal challenge. Winston had never been known to ignore a personal challenge. During the course of the evening he had accomplished what no other person had been able to do since Isabella’s seventh birthday: he had made her genuinely laugh.

The circus was scheduled to remain in the town for the weekend, and Winston attended every performance. Soon their flirtations were finalized. he asked for the permission of Max and Sarah to take their daughter on a date. They, at first, were reluctant; but then, realizing that they had inadvertently agreed on something, turned the argument to other affairs, and the young couple simply slipped away. That night, Winston raped young Isabella. He invited her to his family’s home that overlooked a secluded lake for a swim in their pool. Isabella was mature in many ways, but in matters of sexual relations her experience was very limited, her models flawed.

Winston insisted that they wear matching swimming suits and they entered the poor house to do just that. He playfully looked at Isabella and advised her that, if she were shy, to turn and look the other way. She blushed and obliged. When he announced that it was safe, she turned and found him disrobed, wearing only his underwear and apparently desperate to locate a matching suit for her. He searched the room thoroughly but could not find appropriate attire for them both. At last he gave up, but said that there was still a way that they could match, and he dropped his underwear. Isabella blushed again and hid her face in her hands. Winston pried them away, stared at her for a moment and kissed her. She allowed it initially, and then, as the kiss become more serious, resisted. Then they were struggling.

Winston pulled away, for the moment frustrated.

“Isabella, I want you to look at me…” and he showed the power of his right arm before continuing, “…and know that if I wanted to, I could easily overpower you to get what I want: a night of pleasure from you, a guarantee of your absence tomorrow and complete certainty of your silence. Why would a man of my means bother with someone who is clearly beneath my dignity and who would, as circus performers do, lie for the sake of opportunity; why, when all I really want is for you to make love to me, here, and, for a single evening, before your company leaves my life forever, provide for each other an intense pleasure that we will both remember?”

Isabella was crying. She conjured the practiced distancing that she had mastered and decided to allow Winston to satiate himself on her. Sixteen years of enduring her parents’ bickering seemed trivial during the moments of agonizing embarrassment she then experienced, for before Winston had finished, the door to the pool house opened and an imposing man stood at the entrance. Winston's father, Theodore, was smoking a pipe and carried a flashlight.

“Winston. I see that the carnival did indeed provide you with amusement. I expect to see both of you in the house directly. Oh, and make sure you do so quietly. I will be angry if you upset Mother.” Winston’s face had grown completely white, and he had lost his ability to complete what he had started.

Without speaking a single word to each other, both children went about the business of dressing and ordering themselves for the encounter with his father. Isabella’s thoughts were clamoring for attention in her head. Her first reaction, which her strangely logical mind immediately stifled, was the fear of being sent away. Second, and more absurdly, being killed. Winston's father seemed too controlled to act so barbarically. Not that he would have trouble concealing such a crime. “Who would miss a circus kid? My parents?” With a powerful effort, Isabella cleared her mind and found the distant, warm place within that was always comforting, and she allowed the events of her life to simply happen without conscious intervention.

The table had been set with hot chocolate and milk. Theodore, motioned for Isabella to sit. He looked at his son for a moment and ordered him to his room. After a long breath, he addressed her.

"First,” he said to Isabella, “what is your name?” She answered him in a quiet voice. “I apologize for what has happened, Isabella. You have obviously been taken advantage of. You see,” he said, touching her face, “when done right, one does not feel like crying…until much later.” Theodore removed his glasses and rose to clean them.

“Winston is an odd boy, Isabella. He has never been like other boys. He tries though, tries very hard. He observes how other boys play, and what other boys do, but he is not interested. I truly believe that he wants, with all his heart, to be interested. Instead, he just imitates. I often wonder if he deliberately engineers these situations where I am forced to catch him, like I did this evening, engaging in what he think a mischievous boy of his station ought to be doing. As if he were trying to convince me...” his voice trailed off…

Theodore was still gazing out of the kitchen window. “What are we to do? I could try to wash away some of this pain by providing for your family, but that sounds awfully akin to a bribe, or worse. Yet I do take some of the responsibility for all this.”

But Isabella had solved the problem for him, for when Theodore, turned, he discovered that the last of his monologue had been delivered to no one; Isabella had run away. She had escaped from the kitchen by virtue of her talent and a new facet of her personality she had discovered just that evening, for that evening had forced Isabella to retreat deeper into her hidden place than she ever had been before. There she uncovered a chilling piece of herself that could only be described as a powerful survival instinct: she became aggressively self-aware and self-interested.

After slipping away from the kitchen, Isabella returned to the pool house and found Winston's wallet and cash. Hours before, theft was unthinkable to her. Now, however, she took his effects and left the estate. Isabella went home to her small trailer and found her parents asleep, apparently exhausted from their late night quarrel and sex. Without fear of capture, Isabella took her clothes from the wardrobe and packed them away in a bag. With these, she set out to begin life. After four years and her three failed marriages, Winston found her.

She was working from her apartment, mending clothes. Her late husband, Chuck, had died of a tragic accident and had left her with a small legacy of debt less than a month before the reunion. Winston appeared and told her that her debts were canceled out of his deeply-felt “guilt feelings.” They spoke of the events in their lives, and Winston confessed that he had thought of very little else in the intervening years than to earn her forgiveness. Isabella had sensed his flirtations and desire again. She knew that his station in life had, if anything, vastly improved since their parting. And Isabella’s powerful self-interest ruled. She responded and returned his advances and they completed the activity they had begun years before, and Winston cried. He curled himself into a ball and allowed Isabella to caress and comfort him, and she knew that through all of his aborted previous attempts, this had been his first time. She used her instinct to advantage and within two weeks, after a short municipal service, they were wed.

Their marriage had lasted, despite her intuition and hopes, for over two decades. She became pregnant almost immediately but terminated it the moment her doctor gave her the unwelcome news. Winston, of course, did not know. It was several years later before Isabella conceived a child again, and this time, partly out of boredom, she allowed it to develop.

Miriam was born and, just as her mother had prayed, became the object of her father's affection. This allowed Isabella to slip away again into herself - a practice that outgrew mere convenience and became her identity. Soon, very little around her mattered. Her only distraction was her husband and her plans to murder him.

Winston, for his part, did not notice his wife's inattention. He was out of the country on business so frequently that he did not have the time to notice. He did acquire a strong fondness for his daughter, but this soon evolved into a kind of ownership, and he became increasingly anxious about her deviant behavior as she grew. Isabella was aware that her husband routinely searched their daughter’s wardrobe and possessions. She did not try to stop him. Nor did it occur to her that she ought to. Isabella, unlike everyone else who knew Winston, was not afraid of him; she was simply too absorbed in her own machinations. She had known for some time that Miriam had been sleeping with a boy from town. Although she first elected not to reveal this intelligence to Winston, after several weeks, Isabella finally engineered a situation where he discovered evidence. Isabella did not know quite why she betrayed Miriam beyond a casual desire to see how he would respond and what opportunities the situation may afford.

Winston’s response was quick and final: his daughter was to be sent away immediately to a school famous for its academic integrity and the morality of its students. After Miriam had been removed from their home and sent to Sainted Martyrs of The Sacred Valley, Winston had grown sullen. He did not attend church that next Sunday, nor did he receive confession the following week. He neglected his duties at work and did not go to his office. And most peculiar, he canceled business trips and simply stayed at home - with his wife. Isabella found this unexpected reaction intrusive and intolerable. She was responsible for his behavior in an indirect way and began regretting her decision to expose Miriam, for she could not very well pursue her hobby (namely Winston's death) with him so close by.

Fate had forced her hand earlier than she intended to play it. But Isabella knew what she must do and was in some ways relieved that the she had been shown when to do it. The next morning she began early. She prepared an enormous meal, complete with a large glass of an orange juice and pest-control mixture. Winston, in his distraction, did not comment on the taste. Isabella continued this procedure each morning for a week before the trace amounts of the poison began to work perceptibly. It seemed to intensify his apathy, and after two months Winston spent most of his time in his bed. His vomiting was routine enough to warrant a pail by his bedside and Isabella delivered his morning breakfasts and toxins to his room. He ate little, and only with her insistent coaxings did he drink the juice.

After another month of bedside deliveries, Isabella came to the conclusion that her husband’s hold on life was too strong to succumb to her plot. She sat one morning contemplating modifications to her plan. For nearly three months, he had ingested enough poison, by her estimation, to kill a man, yet somehow he was ruining the strategy that had taken years to devise. Could she have misread the signs? Did he rush her into a scheme that was not yet ready?

She sat at the table for several minutes, musing. She reached a conclusion with decisive finality and knew that she must act on it quickly, for their extended family, including their exiled daughter, was scheduled for a dinner visit that very evening. Isabella stood, withdrew the bottle of slug repellent from its hiding place and poured the entire content, nearly half the bottle, into the juice. She looked down into the now brownish liquid, knowing that Winston would fail to notice the difference in appearance or taste, and put it on the tray next to the toast he would not eat. As she concealed the empty poison bottle in the garbage, she turned to see Winston behind her, holding the glass.

Isabella screamed.

“Winston. You startled me.” He did not respond. She sat down. “Winston, I am so embarrassed. I wish you had never come upon me like this….I…I am at a hard point in my life right now, Winston. I should have talked to you about it, I know that now, but it was - it is - so much easier – so much less embarrassing - to just handle it my way. You see Winston, I was going to suicide.”

Winston, who had been staring at his wife, looked down at the glass of brownish juice in his hand. He approached her and caressed her back.

“Isabella, I suspect, that if I submit to an analysis of my blood and urine or maybe even the vomit in the urn upstairs, that we will find a considerable amount of arsenic that probably matches precisely the cheap stuff you put into this grass, wouldn’t we?” he spoke these words with a tenderness she had never heard. “...and I intend to do just that, for my lethargy truly baffled me until now.”

“Winston, I don’t know what to say! I have been so sad after Miriam started to behave the way she did….oh, Winston…”

“I am taking myself upstairs now, Isabella, without the orange juice and tomorrow morning, I am going to call the police and a medical team who will not only check me out physically but will have a few questions for you as well. All that said, it will not be for twenty four hours due to our dinner party and Miriam's visit with us this evening, and I imagine that twenty-four hours will be plenty of time for you to find some excuse and leave quietly, never to return.” And with that, Winston put the orange juice into his refrigerator and returned slowly to his rooms upstairs.

Isabella, remarkably calm, sat facing the wall, chewing a thumb nail and thinking. Her daughter would come back home in less than eight hours. After years of planning, Isabella had accepted and rejected many plans but always knew that poisoning was her surest gamble. Her first instinct had been to simply shoot him. Over the course of several years, Isabella had considered the possibility. Winston was often out of the country, and even when in town, few ever set eyes on him. His disappearance would go unnoticed until Isabella herself decided to call for an investigation, well after his corpse had rotted. It may now be time to take more direct action.

She went to the hall closet, bringing a chair with her. She opened it and stepped in. Isabella groped along topmost shelf trying to find the pistol she had bought so long ago. She found it, pulled it down, and inspected it. She had hidden it there, loaded, almost on a whim. Now she felt its considerable weight again and planned her next action. She thought of walking up the steps, the gun behind her, seeing her husband with toast in his mouth pointing the gun at him, pulling the trigger. “Just that easy.” But of course it was not that easy.

Isabella had to kill her husband. Putting poison into his orange juice was not at all the same thing. She started small and day by day now it was a ritual: a thing that she did in the morning. Pointing a gun to her husband’s head, pulling the trigger, cleaning him off of the walls…that really was a different thing. “What has he done to me that I am even thinking of this?” Isabella asked herself. Memories of her youth were sketchy at best, but she remembered a part of her previous identity. A good girl who was content. Isabella knew that the creature into which she had evolved would never be content. The reason that she had been plotting the death of her husband was not to be free of him; she seldom saw him and when she did, he was cordial enough. The reason was something different; a feeling best described as a sort of obligation...

After a moment’s hesitation, Isabella came to another conclusion with decisiveness. She dropped the gun, unconscious of the possibility that it would fire, stood, opened the refrigerator, withdrew the glass of tainted orange juice, and she drank it. All of it.

She felt a metallic residue in her mouth and smiled. Isabella sat down on the couch and went to sleep.

Isabella’s unconscious body was discovered many hours later by the maid who had arrived to begin preparations for the meal. When the maid screamed, Winston's cousins and uncles (who had arrived over the course of the last hour and had been socializing in the study) rushed into the kitchen. They stood over Isabella’s body and wondered what to do. When Winston eventually came down from his room to investigate the commotion, medics had been called. They waited for the authorities together, and no one spoke. After official statements had been taken and the body removed, the family was informed that Isabella, although not dead, would never be quite the same. They all retired to the rooms that had been prepared for them.

In the morning, they assembled for a quiet breakfast, and Winston, suffering from stress and poison, began coughing spastically. Following a particularly powerful fit he collapsed, dead. His not-so-immediate family simply looked at his body, still too shaken by the previous evening’s events to react fully.

Miriam did not return home for Thanksgiving. Her decision to sever relations with her family had been made before being sent away to St. Mary’s. Her intense hatred for her father had been enough motivation, and she did not think at all of the other members of her family. Miriam’s mother had never been affectionate. In fact, Miriam thought of her mother more as an aunt who coincidentally lived with them. As for the others, her real aunts, uncles, cousins, Miriam knew them as grasping, covetous derelicts envious of her father’s money. The events leading to her expulsion from her house were painful memories. She had fallen in love with Rod Norris, a patient, good man. He had a gift for teaching that could have blossomed into a profession of some renown if only presented with the correct circumstances. Instead, he repaired fences and cars. His patience (and his simplicity) kept him from becoming bitter about his station in 1ife.

On more than one occasion Rod had tried to teach Miriam the basic skills of auto repair. But the most important piece of her development from girl to young woman was something so simple that it was almost comic: Rod had taught her how to drive. This was an exercise that had scared her throughout her young life. As her friends had received their driving licenses, she imagined that soon she would simply never learn. Even at eighteen, she had believed learning would be too difficult.

Winston had thought it perfectly natural for his daughter not to drive. He had impressed upon her that only those who “had to” drove. This long-standing bias had left its mark on his little girl, and she barely gave it much thought until the opportunity presented itself. Rod was not surprised to learn that Miriam did not know how to drive, and he had sheepishly asked permission to teach her. She warned him that it would be an awkward project. Rod, the consummate teacher, allayed her anxiety, telling her that driving (despite her father's objections) was fun. His smile conveyed his compassion and this, of course, was the very reason Miriam loved him, and she suddenly felt that her apprehensions were silly. After their first lesson, Mimi had imagined the scene it would cause to tell her father that his hatred of driving was misplaced. Her own experience taught her that driving was enormous fun that the exhilaration and freedom were unparalleled, that she truly enjoyed responding to the car’s needs and, in some strange symbiosis, actually becoming a part of the car. All of these things were just indescribable, though… how could she explain to her father, whom, she suspected, had never, ever driven? This thought amused her, filling her with the euphoria of superiority.

But simple driving was only a beginning. Rod was not merely interested in the process of driving. He found automobiles in general simply fascinating, and he tried to pass his passion for them on to her. They began with the basics. Soon Miriam found that she could perform the general maintenance necessary for good car upkeep. Unfortunately, her ability seemed tied to his presence, for only when he was with her, standing beside her, could she perform. With Rod, Miriam had felt for the first time in her lonely life that she was skilled. She had a function. And, best of all, she felt with measureless gratification the pleasure that her learning gave to Rod.

While she lived at home, she sneaked out of her window to Rod’s waiting car, and. they would talk for several hours in a parking lot before he turned the discussion to her special tutorial. She would pop the hood and begin by probing the slightly warm engine. He guided her over various points of interest, explaining their functions. Miriam came away from these evenings exhausted and filthy. It was in this way that Winston had first became aware of her clandestine activities, for after supper he entered her room, unannounced, carrying a grease-stained blouse.

“See this?” he had begun abruptly holding her blouse before him, “These are telltale signs of misdeeds! And I will not permit secret or surreptitious misdoings!” Winston drew another breath, "Explain yourself! Immediately!”

His eyes searched her face for evidence of prevarication. Miriam had fought to keep her voice from shaking. “Um, Daddy, I’ve been teaching myself ...car repair.”

Miriam had learned the art of lying under pressure from her mother many years ago. At times, she could fool even her father. This was not one of those times.

“I don’t think so,” Winston said with an incredulous expression. “That is a convenient and unlikely answer. Why don’t you follow me?” He turned and left the bedroom knowing that his frightened daughter would follow. He took off his jacket and tossed it onto a work table by the door. He slowly rolled his sleeves to the elbows. Miriam was startled. Never had he done such an informal thing.

“You are getting older, Miriam,” Winston began. “I just can’t stand the thought of your drifting too far away from the way I, and yes, your mother, have raised you. So, I need to assure myself of certain things and quell my curiosity.” He approached his daughter with a tool in his hand. “Take this.” Miriam had been so disconcerted by the way he spoke that she did not move. “Take this,” he had said again without changing his tone. There was an uncharacteristic pause as Winston's stare bore down on his daughter. She removed the tool from his hand.

“I have taken the liberty of having this car altered so that it will not work, and your job, as I am sure you've already guessed, is to repair it while I watch.” At that moment, Miriam had been simultaneously happy and surprised. This game was one that Rod had played with her often, and one that she enjoyed. Suddenly the situation that looked bleak seconds ago held the possibility of resolution

But as she approached the car, it seemed alien and wrong. She identified the problem at once. This operation was one that she usually (and exclusively) had played with Rod, and now her father demanded that she do it with him. Miriam had begun to shake and found her cheeks wet with tears of anger and frustration.

“I can’t! I just can’t,” and she dropped the tool, sank to her knees with an emotion close to shame.

“Of course you can’t, Miriam. And now, you will tell me his name so that I can ensure no more wicked appointments, and if there is a repeat of them, your life will be a misery.” Miriam, flustered, revealed Rod’s name to her father, but she sent, by way of mutual friends, messages to Rod and with warnings and messages of her love, advising him to leave the city for a while. Rod replied, agreeing under the condition that she accept his proposal of marriage. Three weeks later, she slipped out of her house on a day when her father was out of the country, evaded her personal nurse who had orders to watch her, and met Rod. They arrived at the Justice of the Peace’s office and were wed.

During the weeks that followed, Miriam had many opportunities to meet her husband. On one, however, luck had not been with her: Winston discovered the couple asleep together at a local motel. At 7:30 a.m. the owner of the motel, at Winston's command, opened the door to their room and admitted Miriam's father. He entered with the rising sun at his back and found his little girl in Rod’s arms.

Miriam had naively believed that she could keep her marriage a secret, that she would simply see Rod at every available opportunity. When Winston discovered them, however, Miriam knew that her decision had been a poor one; for now her father believed her to be an adulteress.

“Miriam! And who is your hairy friend there?” Winston asked with raised eyebrows, waking the couple. “If you are not home in sixty minutes’ time, you will find all of your belongings at the Mt. Angel Convent and,” he added with the power of a truly powerful man, “I will I make sure that your new home has all the charms of a medieval dungeon.” He swirled around and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Miriam had arrived home within the allotted time but not before buying a few things at the hardware store. She picked up wire cutters and electrical tape. She concealed these items in her pockets and swiftly went into her room. Once inside, she sat on her bed to withdraw her items but was interrupted by the sound of her father’s voice. She jerked around in time to see him standing ominously before her as if he had appeared from the air.

“Miriam, you promised to have no more wicked appointments. You promised. We have no choice but to send you away, this very afternoon to Sainted Martyrs of the Valley School for Girls which is holding a place for you. I can promise you that you will live under the constant scrutiny of Sister Barbara Ann, a close, personal friend of mine, who will inform me not only of your educational progress but your ethical progress as well.” Winston had stood completely still, and Miriam noticed that he was hording a tiny cassette recorder that he clicked off as he finished his brief monologue. Miriam watched as her father left her room without another word, and closed the door behind him. Only then did she notice that her belongings were in the hallway, entirely packed ready to go. She felt her lips growing tense, forming the half-pucker her friends knew very well: it was this expression that meant that Mimi was about to do something dangerous.

Miriam squatted in front of her door and peered through the keyhole. When she was satisfied that her father had really gone, she ran to the window, opened it and, with the confidence that comes from practice, climbed down the tree that grew outside her window and reached the soft earth below. She carefully approached the garage house and entered the code that opened the door. The small green light illuminated, and Miriam slipped in. She remembered the last time she had stood in the garage and the horrible scene that had transpired there. Miriam stood like that for a while reminiscing and felt that her tears had come back. As she wiped them away, her lips tightened again and she strode to the car that she intended to sabotage.

The next morning, Miriam’s maid woke her. She had spent the night quaking with anticipation, unable to sleep. She knew that a town car had been sent for to conduct her to her new home, and she knew that her father would be driven in his own (modified) car; likely driving closely behind…he would want to see for himself that nothing went wrong with his plan. She knew him well enough to predict.

Miriam finished readying herself and was conspicuously animated during breakfast. She discovered as she left her house that her father had gone ahead to make arrangements at the school. Her spirits fell visibly as she realized that she would not witness first-hand the death of her father. “Perhaps,” she whispered aloud, “if we hurry, we can still see the ghosts of the accident!” “Excuse me, Miss Miriam?” asked the driver. “Drive,” Miriam instructed, staring wide eyed from the windows of the car, straining for the tragedy.

Soon they were driving through the city and out again into the country. Each passing mile made Miriam more and more nervous, and her lips became more and more tense. “Are you enjoying the scenery, Miss Miriam?” asked the driver. “God! Stop your infernal talking!”

The car accelerated. At last, she saw her father’s car, but intact and in front of the school. She stepped out to find him laughing with a rotund woman in a nun’s habit. They both turned to her and frowned. Her father, not noticing the dazed and confused look on her face, passed by without a word.

“Bastard.”

The sister cupped her hands and struck Miriam’s ears. Miriam, who had never before been hit, stood astonished, listening to the ring in her ears for several moments before beginning to cry. She was led into the school roughly by the arm. The door shut behind her, and there she studied, lived and agonized for more than three years.

During those three years there she continued to correspond with, and secretly see, Rod. One weekend toward the end of her final year at school, Miriam managed to elude the driver her father had sent for her and taken the opportunity to slip away with her husband. The invitation to the family dinner wherein her mother died never reached her. Miriam and Rod found their way to a small town where they started a wonderful life, independent of their families. With her three children and seven grandchildren, Miriam never contacted her parents.

Although Isabella’s recovery was never complete, she too lived a long life. She had become simple minded and required constant attention; but her husband had left her his sizable fortune. The members of her family were willing to help and share in her newly acquired wealth; many moved in with her and volunteered their services. She would have been surprised (had she the means to be surprised) that she was actually quite content after all.