THIN ICE

by Anita Page

When the knock came, Sophia was ready. The house smelled of lemon oil and beef stew. A wife waiting for her husband.

Parallelograms of sunlight stretched across the dark pine floor.

Two police officers, a man and a woman, had bad news plastered across their faces. They looked at her belly and exchanged glances. Sophia knew the woman from high school. Cheryl something.

Cheryl said, “I'm afraid your husband…”

Sophia clapped her hands to her mouth. “I begged him not to take the snowmobile out on the lake. Is he…?” She stopped, as if afraid to finish the question.

The male officer told it to her straight out. “He wasn't on the lake, Mrs. Wisnewski. He was with another woman.”

They helped her to the couch, tears rolling down her cheeks. Big surprise. She'd seen the way he looked at that skinny slut behind the bar at Harrigan's, stopping for a word each time he went to the bathroom, almost getting decked when her husband, a hulk of a Dutchman, came in.

She'd seen it all, and seen something more. Her mother, waiting night after night for her father to come home stinking of beer and other women. This wasn't going to be her life.

When Cheryl went looking for tissues, the male officer said, “The woman's husband came home and surprised them.”

Sophia said nothing, her hands on her belly. She'd asked Tony last night if he was crazy, planning to take the snowmobile out on the lake in this weather. He'd laughed. “What are you worried about? You'll be a rich widow.”

She'd thought about that in bed, listening to his snores. If he went through the ice, the thirty thousand dollar policy he bought when she got pregnant wouldn't make her rich, but it sure as hell would make her free. Still, how could he be so stupid. Five days into the January thaw and he was going to take that thing… Then, a flash of realization. Out on the lake, her ass. She knew what he was planning.

She'd slipped out of bed, pulled on sweats, and made it down to Harrigan's before closing. When the Dutchman pulled into the parking lot, she was waiting for him.

“You're working tomorrow, right?”

He stood with his keys in his hand, staring at her, his breath forming a cloud in the moonlight.

“If you want to know what my husband is doing to your wife, you should get off work early and go home.”

Then she'd gotten in her car and left.

Now Sophia wiped her eyes. “My poor baby won't even know his father.”

But the story wasn't over. Cheryl said, “Your husband's in jail, Sophia. He killed John de Groff.” Then, hesitating, and with a glance at her partner, “Maybe a decent lawyer…”

Sophia buried her face in her hands, a wail rising from her throat. Even with her eyes shut she saw it laid out in front of her, the map of her mother's life.