On the edge of midnight, Luke parked his jeep a block from the house where the ink was still fresh from a restraining order. Beneath a broken streetlamp he angled along hedgerows until he cut across a lawn to his wife's driveway. After all he was decorated police officer, and most everyone in the neighborhood knew him on a first name basis. He was the "Neighborhood Watch Group."

Luke slipped up the blacktop drive, wearing his dark hoodie. With a full moon over his back, he focused on how to get inside. He looked back in disgust. The grass needed mowing. His hedges needed trimming. The driveway needed a power wash. His mind pinballed over all the outside chores that would be neglected. Even the white trim around the front door needed a coat of paint. The anger inside him was like molten lava, needing a place to escape and vent. A piece of paper wasn't going to keep him out of his house.

Some restraining order, Luke thought. Maybe he should arrest himself, since he was an officer, an officer without a home. He smirked over it, as he looked under a rock for the key. Not there! Smart. Maybe she did have an alarm system put in on her first day. Even so, he figured the police wouldn't get there in time.

Cole decided to see if the garage door was latched. It was another something on his list of things to do. He hooked his fingers and pried under the door. With a grunt or two it gave.

Luke's heart raced as he jimmied the garage door open enough to roll under it. Sharon's SUV was there. He crept past it where he put a penlight in his mouth at the inside door. He turned the knob where it opened into the kitchen. From there he leaned into the hall. Sending a shaft of light toward his wife's bedroom door.

His light found the mugshot of a pug-nosed bulldog. He rose, saliva glimmering from his jaw, a low steady growl turned into a slight whimper, as he scampered toward his master.

Luke rewarded him with a dog cookie in his pocket, chicken flavored. Bugsy ate greedily, a few small chunks scattered, but he found them and licked them up into his ugly jaws of death. "Nice boy, good boy."

As Bugsy buried himself between Luke's legs, he wondered how she, his wife, Karen, could think it was okay to keep his dog. Maybe she felt safer with him, but it only stirred his anger and thoughts back toward the restraining order, and the notion that she needed to fear him, that he was not the protector, but she could trust Bugsy over him. Jealous. Luke stalked down the hall and put his ear to the bedroom door. Bugsy followed. The old wood framed clock on the wall ticked and reverberated down the hall.

As he fingered the doorknob to see if it was locked. He knew it would be his last night with her.

Turning the doorknob, it opened and swung forward on silent hinges. He blocked Bugsy from going further, as his eyes strained and spied the fetal shape of Sharon's body turned toward her nightstand. As he pinned Bugsy back and crouched a little, he watched her tender doe-like body rising and falling under the bedspread with each breath.

Luke shooed the dog away but rewarded his silence with another dog cookie. He slid it down the hall where Bugsy scampered toward it, sniffing it out in the faded moonlight filtering through the stained glass beside the front door. He closed the bedroom door. He stood erect and looked back at his wife and what was left of his fourteen years of marriage.

Bugsy scratched at the door and whined. Luke stood in the bedroom several feet from his wife, listening to the dog's whimpering, until it subsided. He listened to her hard breathing, a slight snore, giving him confidence, he could spoon with her one last time before she had the awareness to resist.

In the deeper shadow of the room away from the faint light through the thin veil of curtains, the room smelled of fresh linen, and mix of Sharon's favorite perfumes so strong it stiffened his nose, almost pungent when he approached closer beside her vanity table. He looked in the half-dark and caught her reflection with her hips, her hourglass body. He thought to himself. "What I've done now, I can't undo."

As Luke froze and studied his face in the mirror, he noticed how the loss of his family, his daughters, the divorce, it all aged him. It made his mousy brown hair show signs of gray along his thin sideburns. Even his eyebrows showed signs of gray, as he strained to see the person, someone who changed into someone lost. He smirked at the thought. He realized he belonged in a hardback pew not where his broad shoulders stood. He should be going down an aisle, ramming up to the altar, praying to be forgiven.


As Luke leaned over from his side of the bed, and watched Sharon's breathing rise and fall, she'd left his space, his empty place beside her. She chose not to face his side of the bed, to dive into her dreams, to hide from what love they could forge. How could their marriage be over? How could one manila envelope of legal papers have sealed their fate? Pieces of paper can't end a marriage.


Luke peeled off his clothes until he stood in his boxers. He gently pulled the cover back until it parachuted off the small of his wife's back and hips, revealing her hairless, pearly skin beneath her bathrobe. He loved her so much. He loved her more than his job, more than life itself. Was it too late to make her understand? No matter what, he'd have this one last night-together.

******

Sharon never heard the commotion in the hallway, the playful way Luke took care of their pet bulldog. She never heard him open the door, or knew when he stood over her, him edging close enough to touch her. She'd taken a sleeping pill. But when Luke lifted the cover, it was the unnatural breeze, unrelated to air-conditioning system. She'd felt the cold chill sweep across and then seep into her consciousness.

Her eyes flicked open a sudden rush of adrenaline laced fear pulsed through her. She froze in her curled position head still but eyes shifting from the light on the clock that said twelve twenty-two am. She held her breath, as she'd heard clothes plopping on the carpet floor. She listened. Ears perked.

The loaded gun and a Glock was within her reach. But she wanted it to be a dream, she wanted it to be a ghost, and then the horror, the thought of how it could be her husband, made her body stiffen. More fear, a fear of unknown, the thought she might die at any moment. It had to be him. But she was afraid to reach for the gun. She hoped, reason would prevail, that no one had to die, that she would live to see another sunrise. But what if he has a knife? What if she could die within the next moment?

She listened hard, like a safe cracker would to every click, every snap. She might as well have been naked. Please let it be a dream. She wanted to scream. She just didn't want to kill or be killed. She understood then, what it was like to be paralyzed with fear. What if she was about to be raped?

The bed shifted. She heard the body slide on the fresh linen, until him, her husband a stranger, or both in one, spooned beside her, made his flesh, his hair fit and conform to her body. So, she did the next best thing she could think of, she pretended to be asleep, she wanted it to be so, as he squeezed her and breathed on her neck. "Karen, I know I'm not supposed to be here. I...I just want one more night with you, that's all, just one last night."

It was her husband, and she should have sighed, but her heart felt like it beat in a vise, and her eyes pleaded in the dark. She gulped, swallowed the fear. What did he mean by one more night? Would he take her life, maybe a murder suicide? She couldn't believe she feared the man that much, the only one she ever slept with, the father of her one and only child. Was she the irrational one?

As he hugged her and molded to her side, she wondered with a fear that sent shockwaves through her veins. Does he have a knife or gun? The touch of his hand sent chills down her spine. It was hard to believe, she'd made love to this man in this bed so many times, only to fear him like a stranger, a rapist, a creeper. But she filed the order, and he must have been furious, he must not have cared about his job. She figured his job, his duty, his stellar record would have kept him intact, kept him from unraveling, but not so now.

He burrowed his chin into her neck and buried his face in her hair, he questioned her rights. "I love you, how could you just put me out of the house?"

She knew it was useless, pretending she was asleep, pretending he might not have a blade prepared to plunge into her backside. "But, but... what about your job? They will write you up. Take your badge."

"Not to worry. I took a leave of absence. I've got nothing but time on my hands, time enough for us."

She felt the vice in her heart tighten, until she thought it would explode. As he spooned with her, she simply existed, breathed, tried to live through the night. She was resigned until morning, when perhaps she could pry herself away. But all she had to do for now was to live, survive. Unexpected tears filled her eyes. She disappeared inside herself and imagined floating somewhere on a cloud of freedom.