The Vow by Amra Pajalic
Elizabeth climbed on the chair and put her head through the noose. She’d tied the rope to the rafters. As the rope tightened around her throat, she took one last breath, and kicked the chair out from under her.
It began with a knock at her door that morning. Elizabeth had been getting ready for work when she’d opened the door to find two police officers on her doorstep.
“We regret to tell you that your husband was killed in a car accident.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You must be mistaken,” she was shaky and weak, like she’d just recovered from the flu. “Greg left for work an hour ago.”
They took her to the site of the accident. A truck had hit his car five minutes from their house. His car was compressed like a concertina file. Tim, a friend of Greg’s owned his own rig. She knew from his stories that the likelihood of car passenger surviving an accident with a truck was 0 to 0.1%.
“Is that your husband’s car?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t want to believe. “I can’t see his licence plate.”
One of the police officers stepped out of the car. He returned a few minutes later and handed her the licence plate. As she read it, her vision darkened.
She didn’t realise they’d returned to her house until the police officer opened the door for her. “I want to see him,” she said as he walked her to the door.
“He has to be identified from dental records,” the officer said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” she met his eyes. The police officer seemed familiar.
“Is there anyone we can call?” he asked.
“No,” Elizabeth shook her head, closing the front door.
After she called in sick at work Elizabeth pulled the telephone cord from the wall. She wouldn’t be using it again. She made a to do list:
1. Clean house
2. Write and post letters to friends and family
3. Box up belongings
4. Collect will and other important
documentation
5. Go to chemist and buy enema
6. Make breakfast date with Nancy
Nancy was a nurse and she was well used to death. She wouldn’t flinch from finding her body. It was because of Nancy’s work stories that Elizabeth knew to buy the enema. There would be no post-mortem accidents to ruin her perfect death.
After she’d completed all the items on her to do list she showered and dressed, before taking the rope to the garage. After stringing it through the rafters she stood on the chair.
“I’m coming my love,” she said and kicked the chair.
As her feet thrashed and the rope choked her she remembered her vow.
Tim’s wife had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“I would kill myself if anything happened to you,” she’d whispered against Greg’s shoulder as she hugged him. “I don’t want to be in this world if you’re not in it with me.”
When the garage door lifted and Greg appeared she thought she was crossing over. Blackness descended and her vision faded. When she came to she was lying on the garage floor and he was kneeling above her.
“I had to know how much you loved me,” he whispered as he pressed kisses on her face.
She stared at the rope swinging above her. It had been Tim’s rig that she saw on the street. They’d smashed Greg’s car and set up the car accident. And the police officer had had seemed familiar because she saw him at a Christmas party at Tim’s house years before.
“I love you more than life itself,” she said, the words a whisper as she forced them past her bruised throat.
He smiled and helped her stand.
As she held onto the workbench she saw the remote control to close the garage door. She pressed it and the door creaked down.
Greg turned toward her. “Why-” he started to ask.
Elizabeth thrust the stanley knife in his heart. She held him as he bled out and gently lay him down on the floor.
Elizabeth stood on the chair and put the rope around her neck. “I’m coming baby,” she kicked the chair out from under her.
