Death by Design ©
Seniors' Writing Challenge 2023 - Windsor Public Library
Standing at the top of the steep cement cellar stairs, she contemplates---for just a millisecond---whether she should push him backwards when he stomps to the top.
But what if the fall doesn’t kill him?
Sandrine stares at her ex-husband, dozing in the Amish rocking chair across the dark living room where she is sitting/lying/shifting uncomfortably on a black leather sofa. Ted is snoring softly. Evil thoughts crowd her tired mind as she studies him. His grey hair is wavy and full. His physique for a 54-year-old male is...most suitable. He does not have a beer belly. He’s kept in shape by playing and coaching soccer.
Sandrine---aka Sandy---thinks mournfully how she has lost her free spirit. For years, she lived with another free spirit in a cozy summer bungalow overlooking Lake Huron. Left Ted a dozen years ago after long term planning. Somehow, despite their conjugal friction, she and Ted had raised an intelligent, well-liked son, Andrew, educated and sensitive to the world’s woes. The youth was now 22, “and a hunk” according to Sandrine’s lover.
As in most of life, there is a story behind the story.
Sandrine was pregnant with Andrew when she married Ted. She was nineteen with long golden tresses---like a fairy princess she was told. From high school, her goal had been to attend Radio, Television and Journalism courses in Toronto. Andrew’s arrival changed all those lofty goals.
She met Ted while watching a soccer game. He caught her eye and she caught his. Didn’t take him long to stride over to the bleachers, make a move on her where she sat near the end of a row.
“You always look like a princess?” he asked playfully, with a British accent.
“You always come on so strong?” she retorted, looking annoyed yet flashing a seductive smile.
“Only to those I want.”
That candid admission both shocked---and titillated---her. She liked his self-confidence, his bravado, his edgy cockiness.
“Well, since we’re getting to know each other, I’m Ted. Yours?”
Without waiting for a reply, he shuffled his warm, commanding body next to hers at the end of the bleacher seat and hustled closer.
“I’m Sandrine,” she confessed.
“Whoaaaa, that’s some awesome name…how so?”
“My mom had this crazy idea that a Spanish name was neat. She always wanted to live in Mexico. But never did.”
“Whoaaaa. I likes your mom,” he teased. “And I knows what I like and I knows what I want---Sandrine,” he whispered, boldly wrapping his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close.
Sandrine felt a jolt of desire jump around inside her belly. This man was to be taken seriously.
From that dire beginning grew a wild, tempestuous relationship. Gawd, he was like a pouncing animal. She remembered the thrill of the chase. His soft but masculine touch. His fingers massaging the back of her neck. His hot breath licking her sensitive ears. The back seat of his car like the honeymoon suite at the Hilton. Sandrine had never experienced this hunger, this power, this smell of desire, in any of her younger dates. Ted’s earthy brown eyes transformed him into a wild beast ready to devour, lust, lunge into her eager moistness. She could not resist him. He would not be resisted.
But that was then and this is now. At one time, his constant attention was flattering. Then gradually, Sandrine grew suspicious and tired of Ted’s jealous tirades, possessive actions. To the point she knew she had to leave or suffocate beneath his strong-arm ugliness.
She managed to find a simple little job in a bookshop. But first he had to check it out. The owner was an aging female who needed help on the floor while managing the business. Ted visited the shop several times before he concluded more women than men bought books. So he ‘let’ Sandrine clerk there. God forbid she was late coming home from work unless she called ahead to explain.
On a bright red autumn afternoon, Corinne walked into the shop. Corinne loved the printed word as much as Sandrine. Gradually, Corinne hung out more and more in the shop, chatting, discussing books, lingering over breaks with Sandrine. Sandrine considered Corinne a kindred spirit. Someone whose company she savoured, as much as she dreaded her husband’s dark undertones.
To the delight of both women, Corinne was hired as help, too. Now each could be together all the time, argue over politics, philosophy, new titles, contemplate which Canadian author was the most popular: Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel, or L.M. Montgomery.
Ted had no objections when Sandrine and Cori dined, enjoyed movie night, or attended conferences together. That is, until the truth smacked him in his face.
Sandrine and Cori were covert lovers.
Sandrine had never known the magical freedom of giving herself to another woman until this unexpected liaison. In Cori’s cedar and stone cottage, featuring a floor-to-ceiling lakefront window overlooking Lake Huron, the two women melded as one. On that unforgettable first night, Cori’s lips brushed against Sandrine’s bare shoulder. Sandrine felt that exquisitely erotic move right to the bottom of her feet. She turned slowly to meet Cori’s sparkling blue eyes. As naturally as the golden sunset over the lake, Cori and Sandrine gently met, their bodies melting together.
Later, naturally, Sandrine conspired to leave Ted. Andrew was well on his way to independence. The time was right. She shared her plans with her loving son, who at first appeared confused, then accepting, then wondering how his unsuspecting father would react to the shock. Ted did not like nasty surprises.
But he had no choice. Sandrine had grown stronger with the years, indestructible with her new love, at the peak of her womanhood, and wanting more from life. Despite his anger, threats, taunts, begging, bribing, cajoling, she picked up her belongings to join Cori in the lakefront cottage.
Both women, bathed in their happiness and content with the world, invited Andrew and Ted to visit anytime. Andrew came often. Ted did not.
Life was perfect. So much so that superstitious Sandrine feared the magic bubble might burst.
And when it did, despair hung around her shoulders like a heavy cloak.
After months of mysterious pains, doctors’ appointments, treatments, tests and not feeling at all well, Sandrine received the devastating news. A death sentence.
Not long after---without warning---Ted swooped into the cottage haven where she and Cori cocooned, swept her lingering body in his strong arms, and spirited Sandrine back to the ‘home’ from which she had escaped.
She was horrified. He was bombastically arrogant.
“Should have stayed here---with me,” he admonished the first night.
Although physically weak, Sandrine felt her ire flare. “I want---I need---to go back,” she pleaded defiantly. “Do not keep me a prisoner.”
“If you had stayed with me,” he retorted, “we would’ve both eaten healthier, lived better, worked out AND your health wouldn’t have degenerated into this….”
She felt her energy drain.
“I will take very good care of you. Make sure you eat the right things. Even feed you if I have to. You will get better with me.”
Period. End of discussion. No argument.
Sandrine’s sick stomach felt sicker. Ted was all about control. With age he seemed to have gotten worse. She dreaded his jail. She wanted the lake---its moods settled her soul--- no matter what the season. She wanted the soft spirit of Cori. Right now, on the black leather sofa, she was shrinking into the shape of a shroud.
“Here,” he directed a spoon holding some liquid to her mouth. “Swallow…good for you.”
“What is it? Don’t want it.” She pushed his hand away. A green fluid splashed on Ted’s pants forming a star-like stain.
“Stop it! Stop behaving like a child!” he ordered.
“Leave me alone,” wailed Sandrine. Nausea rose like an unwanted visitor into her stomach.
When Cori tried to visit, she was scorned, turned away. When she tried to contact Sandrine, Ted intercepted her calls. Grabbed her cell. Cut her off.
Sandrine’s life---as she existed now---was miserable. A hostage, she tried to fight back but her illness made her defiance a time and energy waster. If she resented Ted before, she hated him with passion now. Wished him gone, banned forever from whatever life remained to her.
A month later, Ted announced: “Look at how you’ve improved! You’re eating organic, taking supplements. Walking around the room! Hell, you’d be dead if I hadn’t rescued you from that lesbian!”
Sandrine’s blazing green eyes bored into Ted’s back as he strode and bellowed and bragged all the while charging around the house like a mad bull. She hated his power over her. His almighty, preaching, god-fearing sermons. His studied look as he tried to force her to eat what she did not want. Sometimes the food stayed down, sometimes it didn’t; she’d throw up all over the floor. He never complained cleaning her vomit, only doggedly continued to feed her, ordered her to sleep. Rest. Woke her up for a spoonful of this or a sip of that. Controlled her like a dictator. She saw no future but death.
Whether it was her mind, the illness, or the suffocating environment in which she now existed, Sandrine developed a death wish for Ted. She began to amuse herself with this idea, dwelling silently in an evil fantasy world.
First, there was poison. But poison would be discovered. And because he prepared all the meals, how was she going to accomplish that? And how would she get the poison? No, she mused, poison was not the answer.
A gun? Ted did own a rifle but only to hunt game. She didn’t know how to use it, where to find it, and the sorry thought hit her she may not be strong enough to lift it!
Rope? In her half-crazed mind, she was thinking about weapons used in the game of Clue. What would she do with a rope? Tie him up when she could barely hold off his advances? A joke! No rope. No wrench. No candlestick, lead pipe, or knife. All for the same reasons. She would be unable to execute the crime.
Was she doomed to live like this, a half-invalid, for the rest of her short life? Good God, she thought, surely there was an answer. She realized Ted was never going to let go. She could see his gleam of revenge whenever he approached. Gloom settled over her spirit like a heavy black cloud.
Suddenly Ted’s eyes popped open from his nap in the Amish rocking chair across the room. “I’m thinking you’re so much better. Obviously because of my loving care….” he chuckled. “Let’s have a glass of wine together and toast your health…”
The thought of a glass of wine threw Sandrine’s stomach into turmoil. She, who once loved her wine, could not bear the thought of alcohol now.
“No thanks.”
“Well, I’m going to the wine cellar. Find a bottle. Bet you’ll change your mind.”
“No.”
Ignoring her, Ted almost skipped to the cellar door in the kitchen. Sandrine heard him clomp down the stairs.
Slowly she shuffled to the kitchen, too. Stood at the top of the cellar steps. Heard him root around in the little wine room with the cement floor.
She turned off the cellar light.
“Hey!” yelled Ted from below. “Turn on the light!”
She didn’t.
“Turn on the light, goddamn it, Sandrine!”
She ignored him.
More cursing as he hit his head on a low beam trying to maneuver to the bottom of the stairwell. “Sandrine! I’m losing patience!”
Silence. Her eyes wide now. Sandrine peered into the cellar darkness.
She heard him begin his struggle up the steep staircase, obviously holding more than one bottle. She slipped behind the door to the basement. Heard him nearing the top, swearing profusely.
Stepped from her hiding spot---Sandrine knew her appearance would surprise him---and with all her limited strength she pushed her hand hard against his chest.
Her unexpected shove knocked him off balance. As if in a vision, Sandrine saw him stumble backward. Still holding wine bottles.
Bumping down the stairs, she heard his yell. Heard a viciously hard thud when he must have hit the cement floor. A glass explosion. A groan. Then silence.
“Ted!”
Silence.
“Ted.”
“Ted?”
She waited. Nothing.
“Ted?” she whispered.
Nothing.
She waited.
Nothing.
As quickly as her diseased body allowed, Sandrine shuffled back to the black leather sofa, quivering and giddy, covered herself with a blanket, slowed her breathing.
Nearby on the side table, she spied her cell.
Slowly---suppressing a small smile---she punched in 911