Maintain

She smelled of another man. That was the first thing Phil noticed as his wife Nancy got in the bed and kissed him on the cheek. She sat there burning it into him, that smell.

"I'm going to make some coffee," he said. He got up and she groaned.

"It's late, baby, come back to bed," she said. Her eyes were half shut, her hair mussed with a few strands hanging down over her face. He wanted to press those strands back with his finger and secure them behind her ear like fastening the drapes.

"No right," he said softly.

"What?"

"Nothing. I need coffee. It helps me sleep."

"Okay, baby, whatever."

He stepped down the hallway, the white carpet irritated his bare feet. It was a mistake, getting that carpet. There were stains and cigarettes ash burns everywhere. She quit a year ago after her father got mouth cancer and she had to visit him in the ward. Phil said he quit two months ago. There were more melted dots on the carpet than there were two months ago. He was pretty sure they weren't all his.

"Maintain," he said, but the hall was empty and his voice died in the forest of fibers at his feet.

He walked on, passing the kitchen. In the living room, he opened a drawer. In the drawer, behind some old photo albums, there was a gun. It was his father's revolver and it was loaded. Phil saw his father put down a wild hog with that gun. They had trapped it. He was twelve. The hog was a baby, hardly older than a piglet. Its face had bloody grooves on it. It had smashed its head repeatedly against the metal bars of the trap, attempting to get out.

The bullet made a hole the size of a quarter going into its forehead, and made a ragged tear the size of a tennis ball going out.

Phil popped the cylinder and carefully took five of the six bullets out of the gun. He put the bullets behind the photo albums. Then he snapped the cylinder shut and spun it, placed the nozzle of the pistol on his left eye, and cocked it back.

"Maintain," he said.

Click.

Nothing.

He put the gun back in the drawer, slowly pushed the drawer closed, and went back to bed. His wife snuggled up next to him. The smell was gone.

The next morning, Nancy made Phil breakfast and kissed him before he went off to work. Once he was gone, she checked the drawer. With sure fingers, she popped the cylinder of the revolver out and looked inside. There was only one bullet in the cylinder, and there was a dent in the center of that bullet.

Her hands trembled now. She rushed to the phone and dialed a number.

"Dr. Spenser please, yes Carey, it's Nancy again. Thank you, Carey. Okay, you too."

A moment passed while she was on hold, and Nancy spent it fiddling with the phone cord.

Another voice crackled on the line.

"John, is that you? Yes, I'm fine. He did it again last night, John. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't changed the bullets like you said. I don't want to think about it."

The voice crackled again.

"No, I don't know, the meds didn't work before, it just made it worse last time."

A pause.

"Can I come see you, John? Please, I really need the support."

Another pause, and then a crackle.

"Okay, baby. I'll be there soon."