Into the Abyss

The interior of the car was warm with gleaming sunlight and forced optimism. John, with a head of disheveled russet hair, patches of stubble on his cheeks and jaw, and a patina of madness coating his deep green eyes, turned his head to his right repeatedly, at Beatrice, who stared silently out her window. Her crystal blue eyes were blurry, like the wind shield, smeared and speckled with the tracks of melting snow. “This will bring back good memories, honey. It’ll be good for us. I know it!” John said, fervently, more effectively convincing himself than Beatrice. Things between them had changed unpleasantly, and John sought to bring their marriage back to what it used to be. He had no idea what the cause of the unpleasantness was, but he knew it all started about a month ago, when Beatrice came home unexpectedly late from work.
***
It was dark that night, and it was cold. John sat in his old green corduroy chair. Awaiting Beatrice’s return from work for over an hour, he nervously flipped through the TV channels. She never came home late, except on the nights that she visited the library after work, before which informing him with a telephone call. He didn’t get a phone call that night.
Unnerved by the few words he caught of a news headline, “car wreck… victim found… police chief says…” he shut off the television and stared at his own reflection on the black screen. Seeking comfort, his eyes drifted to his towering mahogany bookshelf, filled with an eccentric collection of nonfiction and venerated pieces of literature. He noticed that the spine of The Inferno was coated with a layer of dust, and his fingers twitched with the urge to remove it, but he was fused to his seat with worry.
Suddenly, the front door swung open and Beatrice walked briskly through the threshold, letting a gasp of wintry air into the house. She took a few steps into the entry way and then paused, staring straight ahead. “Hey! How was your day? Did they keep you for a late meeting at the office?” said John, enthusiastically. She didn’t answer. She walked into the kitchen and stood in front of the sink gripping the counter, then sliding her hands to the outside of the large, stainless steel basin and leaning down into it, as if she were about to be sick. John got up from his chair. “Are you alright, Beatrice? Talk to me. What’s going on?” She lifted her head and looked out the window above the sink. She stared through the frost-crystallized panes into the wintry abyss of scant trees and snow. Her eyes were vacant, her face was gray. John noticed that she didn’t chew on the inside of her cheek as she was accustomed to doing when she was distressed. He looked at her with a thousand tacit questions in his countenance; a furrow in his brow, and thin his lips parted, as if the words he was trying to say couldn’t come out. Still hopeful that she was just joking, or contemplative of her day and not yet willing to share, he attempted to cheer her up in the only way he knew how to. “You look nice today, Beatrice.” Expecting her features to soften and her sweet voice to utter a word of thanks and some kind of an explanation, John smiled, thinking that he had done what he had needed to do. But she still was not moved, her strange stare not broken. Frustrated, he pinched the bridge of his nose before striding off to his bedroom. “Well, I tried,” he said, with a sigh. “Hopefully you’ll be better after a good night’s sleep.”
John lay in bed, staring at the white, cottage cheese textured ceiling with a deep, worrisome seam in his brow. He couldn’t sleep without Beatrice next to him, and that night was the first time he had to since they were married. No matter how angry the two were with each other, they always went to bed at the same time and made peace. Something bad must have happened at work, he thought - something that was still eating at her – maybe her boss had been rude to her…or maybe she got fired. After a few hours of going through the possible causes of Beatrice’s perplexing behavior, and not sleeping, he decided to go downstairs to try to talk to her again.
The hard wood floor beneath his feet felt unbearably cold. He took long, leaping steps to the doorway, like a child does after switching off the lights, afraid of a ghost lurking in the dark of his bedroom.
In the kitchen, he looked to the spot by the sink where Beatrice had stood before, and found it empty. A white candle stick was lit in the window sill, the flickering light illuminating the frosted panes. He could only see his own reflection, standing with a puzzled expression on his face. He blew out the candle, erasing his reflection, and seeing in replacement Beatrice standing on the back deck, facing the woods. “What in God’s name…” he murmured, before hurriedly going outside to join her.
She didn’t turn to meet his glance when he opened the door. With one hand on the door knob, he stepped onto the icy deck. “Beatrice. Are you sick, or something? Should I call the doctor?” When she didn’t answer, the furrow in his brow deepened, and his eyes began to glaze over with desperation. “Beatrice …please talk to me…are you upset with me?” With this, she slowly shifted her glance from the impenetrably dark woods to John’s face. He could see now how strange her stare was – deep, pensive, as if so many thoughts were spinning around in her brain that no words could express them. She looked at him for a few seconds with hard marble eyes, and then returned her trance-like glower to the woods.
John inhaled furiously and forced a puff of angry steam back into the dead, bitter air. “Come to bed, please, Beatrice. You’ll freeze to death,” he said, in a defeated tone, before shutting the door behind him, leaving her standing once more in her lonely, dark world of silence.

John awoke the next morning, alone. He sat up and stared at his feet for a few moments, before letting out a tired sigh and heading to the bathroom. After a steaming shower of extended length, he dressed himself with a green sweater over a white-button down shirt, brown pants, and black Dr. Martin’s working shoes. The process took longer than usual, as it did on days that he felt weary with his tiresome routine. He lingered in the mirror for a moment, widely opening his mouth, shifting his lower jaw from side to side, and shutting it. “You’re clenching again,” Beatrice would always say when she caught him doing this. “I probably just had a bad dream,” he’d respond. He abandoned his reflection and slowly descended the stairs.
He noticed the flashing light on the phone jack in the living room, telling him that there were twelve missed calls, more than there were on the machine than most mornings. “Relentless telemarketers…” he muttered to himself, assuming them to be the source of the calls.
“I didn’t hear you come to bed last night. Are you feeling better?” he said casually, without lifting his eyes from the editorial he was reading in The Michigan Citizen, expecting to find Beatrice in the kitchen like always, drinking her black coffee and reading a paperback novel. He’d stand with her and drink his Irish breakfast tea, and they’d talk about the day that lay ahead of them. Hearing no response, he looked up and saw that the kitchen was empty. She must have left early, he thought. He noticed that an empty coffee cup and spoon sat dirty in the sink, the same one that he had noticed the night before, and had been too tired to clean and put away. Beginning to feel that something larger than he had first expected was bothering Beatrice, a look of worry crept over John’s features, stitching his broad eyebrows close together and tying a knot in his stomach. Forgetting about his tea, he pinched the bridge of his nose, and headed toward the door, throwing on his black pea coat before leaving for work.
It was three o’clock when John came home. He entered through the stony threshold of his unwelcoming house and stood in the entry way, pensive. Beatrice was not standing in the entry way to greet him like she usually was. The air that he was accustomed to be welcomed with, filled with the redolence of the scented candles in the living room mixed with the aroma of a savory meal cooking in the oven, was cold and dead, the only sound coming from the sound of flies buzzing around the dirty dishes in the sink and the garbage bag that needed to be taken out. He looked around and saw that Beatrice was sitting on the couch, appearing tiny, like a child. Her eyes were fixed to the black television screen. Appalled, and angry, John didn’t bother to ask Beatrice what was wrong. He walked back out the door and drove into town, seeking warmth and comfort.

***
John’s coworkers knew he was troubled. He was usually a serious but friendly man, and one of the best writers for the paper, always submitting his articles to the editor early. For the past two weeks, however, he was not the same. He walked briskly to his desk every day, avoiding eye contact, and barely responding to Amanda, the young secretary, when she asked him about his day.
One day his boss, George, approached him, after being whispered to by Amanda, who looked askance at John, making demanding hand gestures.
“Look, John,” George said, supporting his elbow on the desk, “People have noticed that something is not right with you. I normally wouldn’t approach you about this if it didn’t affect your work, but you do have deadlines, and you haven’t been meeting them.” John stared down at his desk, saying nothing in response. George hesitated before inhaling sharply and continuing. “Now, maybe it’s best that you take a few days off. Take some time to pull yourself together. And, John, I think that you should talk to somebody about Beatrice.” With this, John abruptly looked up at George, with a turbulent expression.
“What goes on between my wife and I is my own business. I can solve any problem there is in my marriage by myself. But thank you for your concern.” He focused his attention back to what was on his desk.
“John…” he started.
“Thank you for you concern,” John hissed. His face turned red and he stormed off to the bathroom to splash some cold water on it.
He recalled the happy, not long ago days that, upon returning from work, Beatrice would put on music for him, and they’d talk together and laugh. To John, these pleasant memories stung like hot needles. So quickly had they vanished, and so mysteriously!
Then recalled by John were the nights he’d return from an especially demanding day at work. He would dismiss Beatrice’s welcoming smile with a frown that depleted her mood and tarnished the atmosphere she’d hoped to create for him. Have I been ungrateful? He thought, his mind running through the scenes of his past in which he’d been cross or unkind to Beatrice.
He dropped his brief case carelessly, letting it crash rudely to the marble tiled floor, and he took in the new environment of his home: The couches, tables, and staircase covered with clutter; the loathsome flies buzzing about, landing on the walls, the tables, on his face, on the mounting pile of dirty dishes in the sink that he had lost the energy to do. He swatted them away with disgust, and turned to the living room, where Beatrice now sat - a sad, gray splinter of her old self. Maybe this is my fault, he thought. He stood, his mind in a flurry of regret, guilt, confusion, desperation, and anger. The one love he had in his life- the one comfort that got him through the days, was crumbling before him for reasons that he could not understand. He knew that this torment could not go on any longer.
That night, while Beatrice was staring at the layer of ice that coated the railing of the back porch, John was enlightened: maybe she’s grown tired of our marriage, and this silence is a sick tactic she’s come up with to make me realize it, he thought. His mind went back to when they were young; when their chests burned with the passion of new love, not yet extinguished by the trying years of monotony that come with marriage. On their first date, they went together to go ice skating at Elk Lake. He remembered how they had laughed at each other slipping, and how they held hands, smiling, filled with youthful joy. That’s it. I’ll take her to Elk Lake to go skating.
As if hearing his thoughts, Beatrice slept in bed with John that night, for the first time in a month.
***
The car ride was silent but pleasant. The mood between the husband and wife seemed to have shifted, from frigid and uncomfortable to warm and familiar.
Beatrice’s eyes still appeared cloudy, bouncing slowly from tree-top to tree-top outside her window.
John’s enthusiasm could not be dampened. He knew that this plan would fix their marriage. On this blissful morning, John fancied himself the perfect husband. “This will bring back good memories, honey. It’ll be good for us. I know it!”
The sun reflected off the immaculate surface of the frozen lake. The last time they went to Elk Lake, several other couples were also skating. That Tuesday morning, they were alone.
John laced up Beatrice’s skates before doing his own. Beaming exuberantly, he took his first clumsy steps onto the ice. Soon, he was gliding around gracefully. “Come on honey! Come skate with me! This is great!” His eyes were fixed on his wife as he spun around, leaping, and twirling. She stood at the edge of the ice that was almost the same hue as her alabaster skin, with her arms crossed, smiling subtly.
Beatrice slowly approached John, taking small but steady strides. She stopped a few yards away from him.
John laughed. “Come on, what are you afraid of?” He glided toward his wife, with a soft, husbandly smile on his ruddy face. Standing inches away from each other, John amorously took both of her hands in his, and a ripple of bone-chilling gelidity rushed through his body. He gasped. “You’re so cold,” he whispered. He embraced her affectionately, and in his ear heard a tiny, ethereal voice that whispered, “I love you.”
He looked Beatrice in her crystal-blue eyes, and was surprised to feel hot tears streaming slowly from his. He released his wife’s frigid body and backed up, abashed. Entranced by Beatrice’s cold, penetrating stare, he didn’t notice the thinness of the ice that the blades of his skates cut into. The black water beneath could be seen through the translucent surface.
John’s awareness was regained when Beatrice turned around and walked away from him. His stare was broken, and his countenance erupted with panic, as he heard the high-pitched moaning of cracking ice. He looked down and saw the small, dooming puddle forming around his feet. “Beatrice!” He screamed, as he watched her walk away. “Nat…” The thin layer of ice gave way to John’s weight, and before he realized what was happening, his breath was stolen away by a more penetrating cold he could ever imagine feeling.
The few seconds he spent in the dooming black void of the wintry lake felt like hours, and all he could think of was Beatrice. He cried, angrily, at the murderer that was his wife, who left him to drown in the icy water. Her haunting stare that had ruled over him for the past month, patronizing his every attempt at regaining happiness, haunted him as he spent his last moments of life thrashing his limbs and calling out in vain, “Beatrice! Beatrice!” He watched helplessly as she walked away from him, and finally disappeared into the dark abyss of the forest.
Accepting his fate, John put an end to his futile struggle. A failure to fix his marriage and to even enjoy a pleasant day with Beatrice, his love, his visage was wiped clean of all emotion. The last thing on his mind before his spirit abandoned his frozen body was the sorrow he felt for his wife, who he had let down completely, and whose emotions he failed to comprehend at a time that his compassion was needed by her the most.
***
The funeral service had a modest turn out. John was survived by a brother who couldn’t make it, and his seventy-two year old mother, who was said to have fainted the day that she heard her son had died of hypothermia at Elk Lake.
A collection of photographs had been put together to reflect on John’s life with Beatrice. Framed were two newspaper articles next to each other. One headlined, MAN FOUND DEAD AT ELK LAKE. POLICE ASSUME SUICIDE. The other read the following:
WOMAN KILLED IN CAR CRASH
Beatrice Phillips, 37, found dead on arrival Tuesday evening of a skull fracture and severe internal injuries in an automobile accident four miles west of Red Grove in Route 42.
She was Red Grove’s first traffic victim in four years.
Phillips, a secretary at Red Grove High School, was found dead at 6 p.m.
Patrolmen said Phillips’ car had slid over a patch of black ice and gone through the Jersey barrier on her way home work.
It was reported the car crashed into a large tree, killing Phillips on impact.
She is survived only by her husband, John Phillips, widower, Red Grove. All attempts so far to contact him have failed.