by Cindy Rosmus
Why’d you have to tell me? What good could it do?
Services were last week. Wake, funeral. Cremation at that fancy place off the turnpike, where geese ruled the lawn. Remember? My dad had passed, and we were outside, smoking. “The geese,” I said, after a long drag on a Marlboro, “make me feel peaceful.” “Damn geese,” the caretaker said. “Crapping all over. Can’t you smell it?”
All I smelled was death. Why?
It was just like you. Typical. “Knew you’d want to know,” should be scrawled on your face. Like I’d wanted to know he’d been with that other chick. That the night he’d dumped me, his profile pic changed to them making out at the bar.
Knew you’d want to know …
That chick was one of many.
If I could’ve made the wake, maybe. That stench of formaldehyde you smelled over overpriced bouquets from the phonies. Ten minutes I would’ve stayed, before sneaking out the back door.
But it was too late for the wake.
Weeks ago, he was out on the stoop, drinking a beer. Made like he didn’t see me. Wearing jeans with holes. Bony and white, his knees were, like cue balls.
Now, thanks to you, I picture him dead. Instead of holes in the knees, the back of his dress pants is missing.
Like the back of his head.
Knew you’d want to know.
Really? How he was ambushed—I mean, caught off-guard—looking down at his phone. So absorbed in texts from that selfish, controlling chick that …
It was as easy to shoot him—point blank—as to reach up and sneak a kiss.
He had the softest lips, and the hardest …
But you already know that. ‘Cos you did him last. When the killer snuck up on him, he reeked of sex, and you. That perfume, or body wash you love. Smells like overpriced bouquets to you, but formaldehyde to me.
You’d always wanted him, yourself.
What do you want to know? How both arms shook from the weight of that gun? How the killer was splattered with blood, and chunks of brain?
How the killer knows where you’re hiding? Knew you’d want to know …
I already do.