Ambidextrous

AMBIDEXTROUS


         They were the same, and always had been.  Paul and Virginia met in college during an astronomy field trip.  He looked through the telescope, then she.  Their hands met under a Van Gogh sky and the rest was stone.  Music, movies, art, food – everything had some common ground.  Paul was instantly Virginia's hero, because no one had ever met her needs so completely.  One came to always rely on the other's ability to pick up the pieces.  Two peas in a pod.  Two sides of a coin.  Yin and Yang.  All of it.  That was them.
         Beyond college they set a routine.  Paul trimmed trees with his head soaring in the cosmos.  Virginia set up her art studio in the basement.  Each allowed the other to follow their dreams – side by side.  Money came and went, but they had each other.  Thick or thin.  Always on the same page, if one couldn't – the other could. 
         Then fate brought pregnancy. 
         An elated toddler poised for a pony ride, Virginia danced her belly across the kitchen each time Paul paused to gaze.  He marveled at his wife's zeal as she fashioned the baby's room, months before the due date.  Paul watched his wife shimmer rapturously, and he maintained that happiness regardlessly.  They painted the baby's room in one night, right down to the cumulus clouds on the ceiling.  Paul stood by Virginia every step of the way, because a little Paul or Virginia was on the way.  Nothing was going to strip the enchantment from her. 
         Paul, though, detested the notion of a future mouth to feed.  His life was perfect.  Stars by night.  Nature by day.  Virginia consuming all space between.  Now a baby?
         Now a baby.
         “Our life was perfect, you know.” Paul confided in his week old daughter as she groped at air.  “We had it all.”
         Paul eyed the baby monitor on the night table to verify it was still switched off.  Nighttime was Paul's time.  He lit a smoke, opened the French windows across the room, and leaned. 
         “I didn't want you.  I even tried to talk her into an abortion...subtly.” he spat in a argument of smoke and crisp September air.  “And this is never going to end.  This...worry.”  Paul took another drag and gently released it out the open window.  “Money, time, sickness, time.  Those are my worries now.” he added, as though his complaint carried any weight.
         The baby, Martha, breathed idly beneath beach motif bedding.  Waves and sand below her.  Star fish and seahorses flanked her.  A sky blue blanket.  The remaining collection of clothing and toys were a solid mixture of gender specific items.  Pink giraffes.  Camouflage binkies.  Purple bottles.  Paul and Virginia never took the step of finding out he sex of their first born child.  The element of surprise excited Virginia.  A virtual Christmas.  For Paul, honestly revealed disdain.
         “I never cared.” slid into the chill.  The sun overwhelmed the horizon and Paul took a long deep breath.  Soon he could hand over the reigns. 
         Virginia brought him his favorite mug of coffee.  “So, how did it go last night?”
         “Great.” he smiled.  Great.


         On a placid Saturday as Virginia sang in the kitchen preparing lunch, Paul studied the backyard evenly.  It had been a month since the arrival.  The birth.  The infringement.  Little had been done since then.
         In a distant corner of the yard awaited an Asian ornamental fountain purchased before Virginia found out.  Ten months had past, leaving the lawn gadget abandoned and at entropy's mercy.  Grass surpassed its borders.  Translucent yellow plastic tubes dangled and flailed in the breeze.  The lustrous jade finish washed gray from exposure.  An octopus on the beach, trying desperately not to expire. The lawn hadn't felt the caress of a blade in over six weeks.  Cow grass shot up by the gross, turning the hilly yard into a dune.
         Paul could almost hear the waves.  Feel the sea spray.
         Martha giggled through the open window.  Virginia shrieked with joy, undoubtedly over some near involuntary action which resembled concentrated motor skill. 
         The lawn leered back at Paul.
         Through their lives together, they had completed whatever they started.  All was carried through to the end.  Blades of grass waved in the breeze, hissing failure in Paul's ear.  The future was failing him.  He was failing Virginia, but they still had plans.  Even the small ones seemed overly significant now.  The yard.  Vacations.  Dinners.  Intimacy.
         Intimacy.  Paul kindled a cigarette and slumped into the cracked plastic deck chair.  They hadn't been intimate in months.
         Martha wailed with glee, followed by “No. No. No, Flower...” in a tenderness Virginia had not used in a year.
         Intimacy.  Vanished.
         “What about me?” settled quietly off Paul's tongue.  He was astounded by the sound of his own blatant selfishness,  but the truth was out.  The lied, the hidden, the subconscious was no longer.  Paul stared the cold in the eye and realized that he could never again look away.
         “What about us?”  he turned to the window and caught Virginia's eye.  She smiled big as a star with her best jester grin, fading to sincere love for her hero.
         'You can never know,' he thought.  'I can never take away that smile.'  He smiled back, for he truly loved her.  He smiled for her.  Paul rose and surveyed the lawn one last time, and one last time the grass shuddered in the storm front gust.
         “Alone...” the grass hummed in a haunting goodbye.  Paul snubbed his cigarette and tramped back to the house. Cries and laughter and frantic lunchtime activity awaited him. 
         Before his mask went back on, he let himself be selfish one last time. 
         “...lonely...”
         He walked into a full house.
         Alone.

         
         The wood laden public library surged with furious toddlers being chased by exasperated mothers.  Running the length of the building's center, the community computer terminals thrived with activity normally reserved for a hive.  It was Tuesday, and Paul should have been in a tree across town.  He crouched in an ancient oak swivel chair at the last terminal, as though cloaked amongst comparative dwarves.
         The computer usage policy was painfully simple.  Sign in and use the computer for one hour.  At the end of the hour, sign in again if additional time was needed.  Wait.  Paul was on his third round.
         Paul's monitor flashed photos of cockroaches which had been exhumed from the ears of defenseless infants.  Roaches find the ear canal tempting, warm, wet, and dark.  At best, though, they create little more than and intense ear ache and a great deal of screaming from the helpless victim. 
         Paul abandoned the web page as a library attendant lurked past the computers looking for lewd material.  Porn.  Nuclear weapons designs.  Under age chat rooms.  Paul's safety screen was a local news site.  Early on he discovered a clerk hovering over him as he read about the deadly and effective properties of Ricin.  Paul scrambled, describing a related fictitious news story which spurred simple clarification.  He quickly grew radar, doubling his anxiety in an attempt to appear undisturbed. 
         Poisons seemed the most logical choice.  There would be practically no physical exertion necessary, and once administered, one needed only to brew a pot of coffee and read a magazine.  Paul ran through the gamut; arsenic, anthrax, botulinum toxin, bleach, and a half dozen others.  Ricin seemed the most favorable.  The most minute amount was lethal.  It attacked cell division, so visible symptoms would be minimal.  And best of all, detection through autopsy was unlikely, even on the coroner's most infallible day. 
         The fatal flaw lay in acquisition.  Tree trimmers rarely have the sufficient background in chemistry required for such a task, let alone the materials needed for refinement and processing.  Paul might as well have wanted to enrich uranium, which brought him back to the basics. 
         Cockroaches and fingernails.
         Angelo De Luca, the driver of Paul's tree truck, humorously chronicled the fingernail death of his great second aunt.  She clipped to the quick, and according to Angelo, air must have been forced into the wound and “...poof, dude.  Heart failure.”  Paul spent half of his final session looking a single anecdote to back Angelo up, only to learn the most aesthetically appealing method of cuticle care.
         A scampering child bounced off of Paul's chair as he ran from an exhausted mother.  With lightening precision, Paul switched back to the home page of his safety site.  To enhance indemnity, he scanned the headlines. 
         The standards were all available for the easily appeased reader;  so and so murdered.  Smoking Kills. Pollution debated.  Sudden Infant Death Syndrome on the decline.
         SIDS.  Paul felt the fire reignite.
         “What if she just....died?”  Paul didn't realize he had spoken the words until he looked to the next station and met the eye of a perplexed young mother. 
         “I'm doing character development for a book,” he said, and quickly went back to his story.  It contained a cornucopia of warnings about SIDS for avoiding danger.  No sleeping on the stomach.  No soft bedding.  No second hand smoke.  Before Paul was an instruction manual for achieving homicide quietly.
         The story went on to explain the occurrences had dwindled, but babies were still faced with a decent amount of danger in the first year of life.  Then it hit him.  The answer had been at his finger tips from day one.  Paul's face lit up with an elation that did not escape his puzzled neighbor. 
         “Of course!  How simple!”  The group around Paul paused for the conclusion of his thought, pregnant with anticipation over what could only be some supreme revelation.  Paul coyly grinned and craved a pat on the back.
         Victory was at hand.
         In his moment of glory, Paul watched his wife and daughter stroll through the front door of the library and slowly walk toward the non-fiction isle.  Paul slid to the floor and fled with the cowardice of a wounded hound.


         On a Indian summer Sunday, Paul dipped his toes in the tepid water off the dock at Falls Lake.  He smoked and watched his family sunbathe and play in the shallows nearby.  Virginia scooped water in her palms and danced it down Martha's hairline, bringing fresh squeals with each new load.  The baby splashed and kicked naturally, possibly tapping the fading memory of the womb. 
         A pile of flat smooth stones slowly disappeared from the dock as Paul launched each one at speed.  Once bored with simple skipping, targets came quickly into focus.  A crab pot buoy.  A retreating mud snake.  Martha.
         “Sorry!  Lost control.” was his answer to the heart piercing scowl from Virginia.  She went back to dribbling, and Paul spotted a floater fifty feet out.  It limped slowly in with the current.
         “It's wasn't supposed to rain today, was it?” Virginia mused rhetorically. 
         “No.” Paul mumbled.  They used to ramble on about Shakespeare and Bob Ross.
         “Do you think we've been out too long?” Virginia asked.  “I wouldn't want Martha to sizzle out here.  Skin cancer by age two would be a pretty solid case of neglect.  We'd probably even do jail time.”
         Now they talked about the weather.
         “Neglect...”  Paul launched another stone at the floater.  The current carried it in another twenty feet, bringing into view a small stick with a lump on it's side.  Paul launched again, thinking of Martha.
         “So, listen,” Paul started hesitantly.  “How about a movie or dinner tonight?  You know, a little us time?  We haven't...”
         “You know we can't go out on such short notice.  Who would watch Martha?  And even if we could go, we're so tired we'd just sit there dazed.  If it weren't for Martha...”
         “Yeah, I get it.” spat Paul, then launched another stone.  At ten feet out he could make out a black shine bulging from the center of the stick.
         “What would you suggest, Paul?”  She had stopped playing in the water.
         “Ricin.”
         “What?”
         “Nothing.”  He launched.  “I just miss you, that's all.”
         Virginia's features softened as she looked back in time.  “I miss you too, Paul.  More than you know.”
         “Well...”  Paul looked down at the stick dancing at  his toes.  He palmed the last of his stones and took aim.  Below him in the water was a petite length of river birch with a stranded refugee.  A Japanese beetle clung longingly to the bark, trapped on all sides by violent tides.  Paul scooped the raft out of the deluge, feeling a little like God.  Divine Intervention.
         The perfectly preserved green and gold insect gripped the stick as it had in it's last throws of survival.  Antenna hunkered low, body pressed flat, legs reaching wide for maximum security.  But the beetle had expired.  A victim of chance.
         “You ready?  I'd hate to have too much neglect in one afternoon,” he said, still trying to will the elegant insect back to life.  Had he found the castaway an hour or even minutes earlier when it still shared his air, Paul would have gently placed the stick on the shore and released the captive from it's doom.  Triumphantly.  He yearned for a time machine.
         Virginia gathered Martha and headed toward the car wordlessly.  Paul skipped his last stone, then placed the stick gently on the shore.


         At nine o'clock, Virginia put Martha in her crib for what would be her short evening nap.  Paul could count on no more than three hours before the night shift began.
         “She's so beautiful,” Paul offered as Virginia's head hit the pillow.  “I think she got your looks.”
         “Absolutely not!” she announced with alarm.
         “I didn't mean...”
         “Oh, I'm sorry honey,” she lightened.  “I'm just really tired and not feeling particularly pretty right now.  Besides, she definitely takes after you.”
         “I'm sorry, Ginnie.  Get some rest.  I've got the wheel now, so rest.”
         Virginia rolled over without a sigh.  Silence.  Paul gazed at the ceiling dreading his choice, but could not see past the disruption it had caused.  He needed his wife back, no matter the cost.  They could get past the loss, he knew it.  Maybe they could try again another time.  Maybe one day he wouldn't be so selfish.
         “Damn it!” Virginia yelled.
         “What is it?” he asked, but she was fast asleep in a dream.
         'That's enough,' he thought, and turned out the light.  In a few short hours, cries from the baby monitor would begin the end.
         Dreams were harsh as the stress mounted.  Poisons, fingernails, cockroaches, kidnapping – Paul chased down the demon with everything in his arsenal.  The demon, though, never stopped eating, and shitting, and crying, and growing.  It only got bigger until all Paul could dream was a gargantuan Martha playfully taking her first step.  And as it hit, Paul broke in the shock wave.
         “Paul!  Paul!”  Virginia shook his arm, half yanking it from it's socket.  “You're dreaming!”
         “What?” came out groggily.  “Is the baby awake?”
         “No, but you were talking in your sleep.”
         Paul rubbed the sleep from his eyes and slowly focused on Virginia.  Sheer horror tore the lines on her brow. 
         “You said...” she paused to collect the sentence, not wishing it free.  “You said 'Die, bitch, die!'  You said 'Damn it, Martha, why won't you die!?'”
         Paul offered nothing in his daze.  His wife waited without a twitch for reply.  Paul clamored, half asleep, for some word or phrase that could ease the moment. 
         “It was only a dream, Ginnie.  I don't even remember it.”
         “Are you sure, Paul?  Are you sure there's nothing really wrong?  If there is, you need to tell me, and you need to tell me now!”
         Anger.  Anger did not define his wife for as long as he had known her.  Grain of salt was more like it.
         “Now!”
         The monitor next to the bed squealed.  The commotion had awakened Martha prematurely, too abruptly.
         “I'll be back.  Or maybe we'll talk about it tomorrow.”
         “Talk about what, Paul?”
         “Tomorrow.  I promise.  Tomorrow.”  Paul slid out of bed and down the hall, but not before he heard the faint sob behind him.
         'It isn't supposed to be this hard.'
         Martha wailed in her beach clad crib, flailing in the dark for some sign of comfort.  Paul  sank low to console her.  “We have to let Mommy get some sleep, okay?”  Martha focused on her father and pruned in another tantrum.  He recoiled in revulsion at his most recent failure to soothe.  To Parent.
         Paul switched off the monitor and grabbed the seat cushion from the rocker next to the window.  He wrapped the baby's blue blanket around the pillow to absorb any spit, discharge, or sound.  He had to be careful.  Suffocation had to look like an accident.
         As Martha continued to cry, Paul crept down the hall to check on Virginia.  Hard valleys dug into her brow, but she was asleep. 
         Tensely he returned to his daughter.
         “It's time, Flower,” came with a tenderness reserved for his wife.  Paul bent in to whisper “I'm so sorry,” but the soiled diaper made his eyes water.
         “Damn.”  Paul couldn't leave her soiled.  He imagined the experience of Virginia finding the baby amplified by the smell of stale feces.  He scooped up Martha and changed her with the efficiency of a seamstress.  Once fresh, Paul lifted her up to his eye.  Then the moment came, but it wasn't quite what Paul had expected.  There in the dark, murder weapon near, he was caught red handed.
         As Virginia lay sleeping soundly two rooms away, under the fog of silence and black, Paul finally realized what he had become.  A hero.
         For all of his strife and selfishness and disconnection, in the end all it took was a little love.  He knew it when he looked into Martha's eyes and saw happiness.  Happiness and true love because a great big man came along and did what she could not.  He took away her pain.  He met her needs completely, and she smiled.
         Paul hoisted her into the air and kissed her toes, turning the smile to a full giggle. 
         “I'm sorry,” he said with a tear in his eye, then placed his new found daughter gently down on the shore.
         
         The next morning, Virginia smothered the baby with a pillow and the blue blanket.
         
         They were always the same.  Two peas in a pod.