Please note that the characters and situations in this story are fictional
and are not intended to represent any real person, living or dead.

That Lovely Land of Might-Have-Been

by

Paul G. Bens, Jr.

Once upon a time.  Wonderful words.  Once upon a time there was beautiful little house on a quiet little street in an ordinary town.  It is one not so unlike your own.  Though the trees that surround it may be elm instead of oak and the house might be ranch instead of colonial, it is not so far removed from the cozy home of your childhood--or even the one in which you currently sit.  The floorboards creak underneath a sea of carpeting, the icebox hums a tune with which you have become content, a closet door refuses to stay shut no matter how many times you fix it.  Look around.  Listen.  Is a clock ticking, almost unnoticed for its familiarity?  Does the wind outside rattle your windows, make fingers of tree branches brush against the vinyl siding, or simply give way to the sounds of passing traffic?  Does the clean scent of Dial (or perhaps something more exotic) linger about the bathroom door?  Or is it the stale stench of too many cigarettes that haunts your home?  On the couch does your lover lie, dead to the world while you clean up the mess in the living room?  Can you hear your daughter, upstairs or down the hall, taking her bath, playing with her Ariel, oblivious to everything but her own perfect fantasy land?

Once upon a time, there was such a family:  a father, a mother, and a daughter on the precocious side of five or six.   Perhaps they lived right around the corner or down the street.  He, a man of forty, was a strong man with just a touch of silver starting to show in his hair.  He was steadfast in his love for his family, friendly to everyone around him.  We shall call him Michael, after the Archangel.  A woman five years his junior, with raven hair or maybe something closer to the color of ripening strawberries, was his wife and she was the type of woman other men covet, even if only in the dark recesses of their subconscious minds.  Her name...her name was Lisha, the E having been dropped so many years ago out of affectation or, perhaps, a waning sense of self-worth.  The daughter, gap-toothed due to a visit from some bedtime fairy, never knew of Raggedy Ann or Barbie; her toys were of a more modern era.  She was sunshine and light and her name was Joy, for that is what she brought into the world of her family.  Once upon a time, there was Michael and Lisha and Joy.  Once upon a time, they were happy.  Once upon a time...

Lisha was lying on the living room couch, while Michael sat on the edge of his recliner, watching her, so peaceful now, so quiet.   Upstairs, Joy made splashing noises and monster voices that could be heard despite the fact that the door was closed and Chrissie Hynde's smoky voice was playing softly on the stereo system.  Michael checked his watch.  Five more minutes, he thought.  I'll give her five more or she'll be a prune.  He lifted his scotch and soda, tilted the glass round and round so that the ice cubes chased one another, and then looked back at his sleeping wife. 

She'd been so beautiful when they'd first met; so confident in her Pretenders concert tee.  "I'm too precious.  Fuck off!" She'd said, quoting the song, her lips arched in a metal snarl that finally surrendered to a charming, coquettish smile that won his heart.  He'd flipped his Eric Clapton hair with the uncaring bravado of a wanna-be rock star, as if he couldn't be bothered, but he'd known in that first, pure moment, that they would always be together. "For forever," he'd told her.  And he had meant it.

But times had changed. Clapton wore tuxedos now and Hynde appeared on innocuous sit-coms.  They'd all grown up and, until tonight, Michael had never really understood that growing up sometimes meant growing apart.

He took a small sip and sighed.  He felt so stupid. Naïve was more appropriate, though he hated the implicit femininity of that word.  They say that when a person learns of their lover's infidelities, all the oddities of months gone by come into sharp focus, smack you in the face, but Michael had never seen any of the thousands of clues that surrounded a failing marriage.  Everything had been so normal.

As Michael hoisted himself from the chair, blood and alcohol took opposite paths from the brain, and he wavered a bit before regaining his balance.  "I'd better clean up this mess," he said aloud, though he knew his wife was far too gone to hear or care.  He picked up Joy's Pokemon doll (it’s proper name was Pikachu, he’d been told), set it at the foot of the stairs and gathered newspaper pages from about the room: the sports section from beside his chair, the fashion pages from beside his wife.  He stacked them all in a neat pile by the front door before returning to the sofa.  He sat on the edge of it, felt his thigh brush up against that of his wife.  She didn't stir and that was good.  He caressed her hair for a moment, tried to remember the good times, before Derek or Eric or whatever his name was had ripped them apart.  But a moment was all he'd give over to anger and resentment.  He reached down, massaged the spilled remnants of Lisha's drink deep into the carpet, recovered the toppled glass and then retreated to the kitchen.

He let the tap run until the water was hot and then washed the glass, dousing it over and over with Rinso soap that was cotton candy pink but smelled of springtime flowers.  He lost himself in the task, stared through the window into the dark night and never noticed that his hands were scalded red.

"Daddy!"  He heard Joy call.  "My fingers are all funny!"

"I'll be right there!"  He answered as he shut off the faucet and set the glass in the rack to dry.  Taking a towel from the icebox handle, he dried his hands and then wetted the rag with cool water from the bottle they kept next to the stove.

On his way back through the living room, he stopped long enough to place the dishrag lightly on Lisha's head.  He needed to get her lucid again.  He grabbed Pikachu and bounded up the stairs.

#

"Ready?"  He said, holding out a big fluffy towel for Joy to step into.

"Oh, it's cold," Joy said as water dripped from her skin and made plopping noises in the bath.
Michael reached over, turned on the Thermador, and orangey warmth bathed over them both as he vigorously rubbed his daughter dry.  She removed her plastic bathing cap and let her long golden hair drop over her shoulders.

"Did you brush your teeth before bath-time?"  He asked.

"Yeeees," she said, having answered the same question a hundred times over the years.

"That's my good girl," he said, patting her towel-wrapped behind and guiding her toward her bedroom. 

"OK, which pajamas?" He said, pulling a clean set of underwear from her little dresser.

"Belle!"  She answered as she stepped into the cotton panties.

"Oh, that's the pretty one," Michael said as he pulled the gown from the bottom drawer. "Going to be a little princess tonight."

As the nightgown came over her head, Joy flipped her hair like a supermodel, to get it just right, and then crawled into a bed that matched her attire.  She looked like such an angel at that moment.  Michael took a mental picture.  This is how he always wanted to remember her. 

"Where's Pikachu?"  She asked, through the covers and the mound of pillows about her head.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Michael replied as he stepped into the hall and recovered the toy from the bathroom door where he'd dropped it.  "Here ya go sweetie."

"Thank you, Daddy," she smiled, hugging it close.

Michael watched her angelic face and he smiled, although tears welled up inside him.

"Daddy?"  Joy said, her face screwed with concern.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Mommy says we're going away, is that true?"

Anger swelled inside him, his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared unintentionally.  How dare she, he thought.  How dare she discuss this with you!  It had not been decided!  

"No, we're not going away."  He smiled, lilted his voice in a way that insinuated that it was all just poppycock, and then tucked the covers tightly around his daughter.  "What exactly did Mommy say?"

"She said that we were going to get a new house and she and I were going to visit you a lot."

"Don't you worry about what Mommy said, princess," Michael said, taking one strand of her hair and leaving it charmingly askew upon her cheek. "No one is going anywhere.  We're always going to be together.  Always."

"Promise?"

"I promise."  He gave her his most serious smile, the one he knew always calmed her, though he took no solace in it himself. "We'll always, always be together."

"Good."

"Now...story time," he said.  He reached over to the nightstand and propped open her jewelry box.  The dainty ballerina in her pink mesh tutu sprang to life, and a soothing song began to play as Michael picked up the storybook from the floor and opened it to page one.

"’That Lovely Land of Might-Have-Been’ by M.R. Sneb.” He smiled at her as she let out a sigh of contentment and then he continued: “Once upon a time, there was a little girl and she lived in a great big castle on a great big hill.  It wasn't a cold scary place with too many rooms and dragons lurking in every corner, but one with polka dot walls and candy trees growing outside every window..."

#

It took less than fifteen minutes for Joy to fall asleep, her head cradled amongst the fluffy clouds of pillows.  She looked so sweet, so pure, like Sleeping Beauty.  She was Michael's princess and he swore they would always be together. 

He eased himself from the edge of the bed, switched off the light on the bedside table and crept quietly from the room, leaving the door open so that the light from the hallway would make the room less scary.  He thought of going downstairs, waking Lisha, making things right.  But he knew that would never work.  It was too late.  He'd heard the finality in her voice, the love she had for her new man.  He'd let her go, but he would be damned if she was taking Joy anywhere.  She and I will always be together.

Instead he went to the room that he and Lisha had shared for the last ten years and laid upon their wedding bed, a bed that had brought them much love and a fine, fine daughter.  The house was quiet, or nearly so, as the clock downstairs played its cheery chime promptly on the half-hour.  She'll be just about ready to wake up soon, he thought.  And time was wasting.

#

Joy had shucked aside some of the pillows and her leg was draped over the side of the bed, but Pikachu still dutifully nuzzled her cheek and a little smile was on her lips.  Michael carefully moved her leg back under the covers and picked up one of the discarded pillows.  He placed it lightly on her face and used another to muzzle the pistol he'd carried from the bedroom.  He stood back a moment, letting the light from the hall wash over them.  He turned, closed the door, reached for a little nightlight they kept next to Joy's bed and switched it on.  He didn't cry.  He didn't regret.  He simply placed the gun against his daughter's pillow and pulled the trigger.

#

You didn't hear the gunshot, did you?  Not to worry, none of the neighbors did.  It was barely even a pop in the house itself.  Whether it was that sound or the chiming of the clock that roused her from a drug-induced sleep, Lisha would never really know.  But she pulled herself upright on the couch, her feet landing on a wet spot on the carpeting.  She felt squiffy, wasn't sure she was seeing things right or not, but Michael sat on the edge of his recliner.  He held something in his hand, nothing more than a dark blur.  She looked at him through hazy eyes.

"Michael?"  She questioned.

Michael only shook his head and then raised the gun.  When he was certain that Lisha's eyes had come back into focus, Michael swallowed the barrel and then blew his head off.  And Lisha screamed.

Did you hear her?

___________________

© Copyright 2006, Paul G. Bens, Jr.  All rights reserved.