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Overview

Mistaken Identity: Misery, his daughter always says. Why look for it? Why be alone in this big, dark house? Sell it! You know you're not well. Should I get a real estate agent? Are you taking your meds, Dad? Sometimes, but rarer and rarer, he admits (only to himself) she's right. And after Julia passed away after a long illness, things have become a lot harder: making a cup of tea, forgetting the shrieking kettle after the water comes to a boil, instead thinking it's weird the factory a couple blocks over is closing so early--why would they sound the end-of-day whistle at 10 AM? He should know: he's pretty sure he worked there all his life. But is it really 10 AM? Occasionally he'll talk to the nice Meals on Wheels lady when she delivers his dinner, but remembering who she is, or keep his train of thought going in a straight line is a massive undertaking, ideally requiring three locomotives, and he has only one. Hell! Normally he can't even remember Julia's voice, what she looked like, let alone find a photo album, but tonight! Tonight it seems she's not dead at all, merely resting in their bed after a shopping trip. He must've been confused all this time, his brain cocooned in an everlasting fog, running out of fresh air. Maybe she stayed with her sis in Indy for while. Who else could it have been when she walked in with his daughter, buried underneath presents and other stuff one seems to need to throw a wedding party. She shouldn't be out of bed, though, not with her fragile condition. “Dad? You sure it's okay for Jules to stay the night? That way she can be up and ready to rock and roll at first light. Important day!” But he doesn't understand what she's talking about. Rock and roll? Staying over? Is this a hotel, or a hospital? That's it! She went to see a doctor, and now she's back. The boxes contain her meds. For more heartbreak, more suffering. It has to stop. Why prolong if the tumor in her brain is inoperable? For profit, dummy! *** “Misery,” he mumbles to himself, making his way to the garage. No more! He's not going to allow the doctors to prolong the anguish. Not remembering the location of the light switch, he stumbles around the dark space, on his way to the tools, feeling like a blind man when he tried to find it by feeling. Cobwebby, rusty cans filled with screws and nuts and bolts and nails crash to the concrete floor. A chisel takes a bite out of his thumb. He grunts when he finally finds what he's looking for, the heft smooth from the years of use. Then he's on the way to the bedroom. On a mercy mission. *** “It was very nice of you to let Heather sleep here last night,” his daughter says when she enters the house the next morning at the ungodly hour of 6 AM. “Don't you think she looks a lot like Mom? And to use Mom's tiara is the cherry on the cake. She's so happy to get married to Gene. He's a wonderful and”—flipping on the lights, her gaze roams around the room, looking for her father who's still an early riser despite his long retirement but likes to hide in the dark recesses—“he'll make a wonderful”—and it takes less than a second to find the old man, in his usual Lay-Z-Boy, but the realization of what she sees takes a little longer: Dad sitting straight up, his face and glasses and hair and shirt and pants splattered with blood, nearly congealed, shimmering in the light, the ax laid across his lap, the business part still dripping blood. And she screams after she sees Heather's head between his knees, and he says, “I thought I'd spare your mother further suffering. Less misery, as you like to say, dear.”

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