That storm blew in. I can hear the heavy raindrops pounding on the shingled roof above me, and the raw anxiety I`ve been contending with all day forces me to wonder if the roof will even hold. The way the wind hisses and whines as it whips through the narrow spaces between the stones of the chapel walls adds to this ever growing sense of foreboding. I keep reminding myself that Soward`s mansion has been standing for a very long time. It has withstood many storms- many, many storms- without anything caving in on itself.

　　The snap and boom of lightning and thunder seem somehow louder than normal in this small echo-chamber of bare, rock walls. This is my first storm to weather while living here, so it`s not as though I have a "normal" to compare such things to. It does, however, seem excessive that I jump in the face of every flash and bang. The sound reverberates off the bare stone walls and seems to rumble very deliberately in my chest. Though childish, I bury myself in my blankets, bringing them over my head like a small toddler frightened by the darkness and thunder and seeking to block both out with the paltry shield of cloth and badding. But I am afraid of what things might actually go bump in the night, the tumultuous heavens and clattering of rain only heightening an already existing apprehension with the chaos of noise pollution beating into my skull. My coverings are even less of a shield against murderous men than they are against noise and darkness, so in this way, even a child has more sense than I do at this moment.

　　I shiver in my blankets, the friction heating them through so they can return the favor. My eyes shut tight, clenching at first and easing up over time. The aching of perpetually sore muscles throb to the steady pulse of my heartbeat, an odd lullaby to be sure, but one that is no less effective as, slowly, those same nagging muscles relax&.

　　***

　　I`ve been here before. Yes. I know this place. My old home. My old bedroom. Freshly showered for the day, I make the bed, smoothing the floral comforter and piling on matching sham pillows and an assortment of ruffly, decorative pillows. It`s time to get ready for work. The Iron Horse Credit Union I work at has their sixtieth anniversary today- the sixtieth anniversary for the branch, that is. This bank has survived the collapse of the mine, the only bank to scrape by to be immediately plunged into a series of recessions. Endurance and a determined scappiness got them through, so this anniversary today is legitimately a big deal. I put on my best dress and fitted suit jacket and do my hair and makeup with extra care. "Fred! I`m taking off here soon! Do you want me to get anything from the store on my way home?"

　　The eerie silence is somehow expected in this dream. And I am dreaming. Of course I am. I know because I`ve been here before. I`ve experienced this day. I know how this scene ends. And despite the lucidity of the current replay, I can`t not follow the torturous script.

　　"Fred?! Did you hear me?!" I shout. And he too follows the script perfectly. He doesn`t respond. I get up from my vanity chair, threading my pearl stud earrings through the time-stretched piercings in my earlobes as I move out the bedroom door and through the hallway beyond. "Fred!? Are you downstairs?" I reach those cursed stairs, the scripted shock gripping my chest despite expecting the exact scene now before me. My voice is locked in my throat as I slowly descend the stairs, that shock twisting and knotting my nerves together so my existence continues without sensation. I`m floating, and I am sinking. I am numb and yet in pain. I see blindly and the silence fills my ears with the same jarring shrillness of someone screaming.

　　Fred is lying prostrate on the ground, his head rotated at an angle that is anything but natural, and while his cool, gray eyes are open, I can see at a glance that they are lifeless. And yet I still follow the script- that despicable, unyielding script- and check for a pulse that I know I will not find. Instead I feel the eerily cold and stiff flesh of a corpse. I close his eyes, or at least I close the eyes that were once his. These eyes belong to a mere shell of the man I spent forty-five years of my life with. I stand up shakily, and fight to accept what I have already accepted many times over since the first time this scene unfolded. And then I dig through the purse on my shoulder to locate my phone.

　　"911, what`s your emergency?"

　　"Hi. I just found my husband, um&. He must have fallen in the middle of the night. I didn`t think anything of it because he always gets up before me. I didn`t hear him wake up. He`s cold now&. Already? I think he broke his neck." I swallow, expecting a lump that isn`t there.The author`s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

　　There is a pause on the other end of the phone. "I`m sorry, ma`am, are you saying that you found your husband dead?"

　　"Dead. Yes. That`s the word." The words spill robotically, not yet strangled out by tears that would surely follow soon.

　　"I& am so sorry. Where are you located?"

　　"573 Wanes Burrow Ln."

　　"Stay on the phone with me, alright? I`m sending an ambulance and a squad car."

　　"Right. First responders."

　　"That`s right. Ma`am, what is your name?"

　　"Lottie. Oh. You will want my legal name. It`s Charlotte Evered."

　　"And your husband`s name?"

　　"Frederick Evered, but he goes by Fred."

　　"And have you checked for a pulse or breathing?"

　　"I did. No pulse."

　　"Ok. Lottie, there is a squad car just two minutes from your house. Can you unlock the front door for them?"

　　"Yes&. Done."

　　"Great. Now, how are you feeling?"

　　"I&. That seems like a very strange question, don`t you think? I don`t know, though."

　　"Ok. Ma`am, it sounds like you might be in shock. It would be good for you to sit or lie down while you wait for the officers to arrive."

　　"Ok."

　　Each minute edges forward through a stillness and silence only punctuated by a soft creaking of the floorboards beneath me and the 911 operator checking in every twenty seconds for confirmation that I`m still on the line and otherwise conscious. "They should be arriving now. Hang in there, Lottie."

　　A short knock at the door precedes it swinging open, and two officers poke their heads through the door to announce their presence. "Raesport PD! Mrs. Evered?"

　　"I`m here." My own voice sounds foreign and empty.

　　Two officers enter the sitting room off the foyer where I sit in a wooden rocking chair. Two officers watch me make the creaky joints of the chair squeak with each pendulating movement. Two officers speak quietly at me and then to each other, helping themselves to the bottom of the stairs to speak again in hushed, respectful tones while waiting for the ambulance to arrive with a stretcher.

　　And I rock. And rock, and rock, and rock. I rock through the paramedics entering the home and zipping Fred into his own black body bag like a suit sliding onto the hanger of a dress bag. I rock through the obligatory but sincerely expressed condolences. I rock while a paramedic checks my vitals and struggles to get me to meet his eyes. I rock until someone insistently tugs at my wrists and guides me from the chair to the back of the ambulance, finding myself a confused and unwilling subject of their fussing&.

　　***

　　I wake up in a cold sweat- another line in this haunting script- with rain still clamoring against the high, circular window. These nightmares spent reliving the discovery of Fred`s body come in moments of deep emotional distress. In the beginning, they came almost nightly when the anguish of his death was the most raw. Now these dreams are infrequent but no less upsetting. To have this dream now, I must be taking recent events even harder than I thought.

　　Dead.

　　A small word for such a profoundly simple thing. Everyone who lives will die. In Fred`s case, a quick and sudden death was merciful. A few days before his unexpected demise, we`d had a private meeting with Fred`s doctor. A PET scan had revealed tumors of various sizes throughout his body: an aggressive prostate cancer already entering its final stages. The doctor sent us home with grim statistics. Fred was given a matter of months to live. We could stretch out his misery by seeing an oncologist and pursuing radiation treatments, or we could accept the limited time and do our best to make the most of it.

　　The irony of his death was that the insurance darlings never found out about his cancer, and the life insurance policy paid out for an "accidental death" rather than a "natural causes death". It more than amply provided for me, Fred`s widow, a woman already overdue for retirement with fat 401ks, IRAs, and other retirement-geared financial accounts. The life insurance was an unexpected windfall after a devastating loss, so I started looking for ways to use that money for something good. I found Soward`s mansion, and by restoring it I seek to memorialize Fred and put his "blood money" towards something actually worthwhile and lasting.

　　Fred has been gone for a year already. These dreams, in a way, reset that clock. Now, it feels like it could have been just yesterday that I found him. This too shall pass. In time, these moments of cold sweat will fade like all the others, and Fred will remain in his year-old grave in the meantime.

　　Another crack of thunder draws my mind out of the nightmare, the flash of lightning giving me a snapshot of the things in front of my eyes at that moment: my hands. Trembling hands with developing calluses where the handle of that sledge hammer rubs my sweat back into the flesh that excreted it. Bony hands with long, slender fingers and pronounced veins pushing their way up though sun-spotted, papery skin. Strong hands with wiry muscles and sound joints capable of long stretches of hard work. They aren`t pretty anymore, but they are capable. And they are mine.