272. As the dust settled, she looked out the rear-view mirror into the empty road behind her. She was at a stop sign in a four-way intersection in the middle of Arizona. She could have sped on through. She readjusted her mirror and kept driving. The cool A/C blew onto her face as the heat blazoned along the horizon.
Was she far enough away? How far was far enough? Just to be sure she drove down the sandy road another 10 miles. She was surrounded by sand and a couple cacti. She put the car in park in the middle of the road. Her knuckles were white from clutching the steering wheel. She shook them, loosening the joints in her hand.
Pulling a shovel from the back seat, she set to digging a hole about 20 yards from the dirt path. It was noon. Beads of sweat rolled down her face as she worked. The ground was hard and parched. She dug until the hole was about 6 feet deep and 4 feet wide, her adrenaline fueling her task.
She popped the trunk.
Black trash bags were stuffed into the small cavity. Copper leaked into the air. She puked into the road beside the Sedan. She grabbed the bag on top.
Her husband, Larry, had always been an angry man. Angry at the stock market, the kid’s soccer coaches, and the way she cooked. He never appreciated her. He never thanked her for ignoring the affair he had with his secretary. He was a cheating, angry man. His secretary, Renee, had invited him to a dinner at her house, along with his colleagues. She wasn’t invited. He complained the following week as to why his wife couldn’t make steak like Renee. She had made him steak the night before.
“How was it, baby?” she asked him, as she dragged his lifeless body along the sand. “Better than Renee’s?” She kicked him into the fresh pit, “I thought so.”
She returned to the car. Two smaller bags were left.
She pulled one out and set it on the ground, the tinkle of a charm bracelet made it past the sounds of the scratchy trash bag.
There was no denying Emily was one of a kind. She didn’t like the music other kids did, she didn’t like the movies other kids did, she didn’t read what other kids read, and she certainly didn’t hang out with any other kids. Calling herself the Angel of Death, she clothed herself in black and rimmed her eyes in heavy makeup. She had changed her name from Emily to Victoire, more medieval. How rude, what an absolute insult to a mother. She had declared that she loved the musical Sweeney Todd, slashing the air with razor blades, one day.
“Still your favorite, Em?” Her mother asked. “I think it’s mine, too,” she replied pushing bag over the edge to rest in a heap atop the other.
One last bag.
The bag was lighter than the rest, and she carried it in the air.
Roger was just too much. He colored on the walls, scrubbed the counters with mac & cheese, played with toy cars on the stairs, and talked out of turn. She had asked him politely to take his toys elsewhere; the stairs was no place for a little boy to play. He had insisted, leaving there later for her to trip on and stumble down the rest of the stairs. She had carried him to the top of the stairs and let go.
The bag fell with a plop and a shuffle. “The stairs are no place for a little boy to play, darling. I thought I told you better.”
She pulled a can of gasoline from the car and covered the bags. She dropped a match, and turned on her heel. She started the car and continued down the sandy road.
As the dust settled at the next stop sign, her eyes flashed to the rear view mirror as a cloud of black smoke filled the horizon.