Phantom Spouse Syndrome

by Karl El-Koura

The detectives showed up again Friday morning. He didn’t tell them that Marie was haunting him; he tried not to say anything at all. There were two of them: a short, fat white guy with a bowling ball for a head and a dark-skinned guy who looked like he played for the Bulls. The fat one asked questions while the tall guy walked around, looking for clues and trying not to hit his head on the ceiling.

When they finally left, half-an-hour later, Marie said to him, “Why don’t you tell them? Why don’t you tell them you killed me?”

He turned to face her. She was as ugly in death as she had been in life. Even dead, she still wore that horribly faded nightgown that made her look like his grandmother.

“Leave me alone, Marie,” he said, sighing. He headed for the kitchen.

She followed him without walking. She wouldn’t leave him alone. She’d never leave him alone. That was why he’d killed her, hoping her nagging would end. But her voice had only gotten more shrill. She had more energy and more time now, too: she didn’t need to sleep or eat or spend two-and-a-half hours in the bathroom trying to get her bowels to move. She no longer had bowels.

If anything, he’d done her a favor by killing her. He could see it on her pale, bloodless face. He’d seen it in the way she had grinned as he choked her. He’d gone to bed one night thinking what it would feel like to kill her. He got up the next day with his hands around her throat; he woke her up that morning to send her to sleep for good.

It was still there, that death-grin, mocking him now as it had his efforts to kill her. At the time, he’d thought she was saying with that grin that he couldn’t kill her. But now he realized she was saying it was futile to kill her, because it wouldn’t get rid of her. He’d never get rid of her.

“Till death do us part”—those were the vows he’d taken. He’d waited for as long as he could for death to part them, and then he’d taken matters into his own hands. But, dead as she was, Marie refused to leave him alone.

“Drink beer and watch television, that’s all you do,” Marie said, chasing him back to the living room.

He turned on the set and cranked the volume.

“Don’t you ignore me,” she said, floating in front of the screen, misting his view of the game. “First you kill me and now you ignore me? What kind of husband are you! You’re no good, that’s the kind: a no-good husband. My mother was right about you!”

“Okay, Marie.”

“They’ll be back, you know. Those detectives know you killed me; the glass was kicked out, stupid! All that television and you’d think you’d pick up a thing or two. They’ll be back for you, just watch!”

“Okay, Marie.”

“Don’t you okay me, Steven Tunnig! You’re a no-good murdering s.o.b. and I should’ve never married you!”

He sank lower on the couch and closed his eyes. He’d never get peace, never. He’d killed for peace, but it wasn’t enough. What more could he do?

The answer, of course, was to kill himself. It was clear to him now what he should have done: he should’ve asked Marie to kill him. Instead of wrapping his hands around her throat that morning, he should’ve put her hands around his own neck and made her kill him. That was the death that would part them, his death.

But now—how could he die now?

“I know that look,” Marie said. “You’re scheming!” She laughed hysterically. “You think you can concoct some plan to fool those two nice detectives!” She laughed again, that high-pitched shrieking sound that made him glad he was half-deaf, but sad that it was only half.

“I’m trying to think of how to kill myself, Marie,” he said quietly. She never did understand him. She always thought she did—she treated him like an open book she could just read from—but she never, ever, not once got it right.

“Jump out the window,” Marie offered.

“Too painful,” he said. She didn’t think about that, about his comfort. To her, it was get the job done, no matter the cost.

“Coward,” Marie said. She floated in front of him again, obscuring his view of the television, making the picture hazy.

“I’m trying to watch my show, Marie,” he said.

She didn’t move at first. After a while, as if deciding this particular fight wasn’t worth it, she floated slightly to the side.

“Why don’t you confess?” she said. “We’ve got the death penalty here.”

He shook his head. That wouldn’t do at all. Why couldn’t she understand? It had to be something quick and painless.

At the next commercial break, he looked up and saw that she was holding the electronic gadget he’d bought her last Christmas, for carving up turkeys.

She floated toward him, the gadget in her hand, its blade whirring like mad. The unplugged electric cord trailed behind her like a wedding dress. The death-grin on her face expanded with every collapsing inch that separated them.

It hurt for the first minute or two, as she was carving out his heart. When they were first dating, he’d told her she would have his heart forever. He tried to laugh when he thought about that, but only coughed up blood.

It was hard to know exactly when he stopped living and started dying. He’d had his eyes closed while Marie was carving. Shortly after he no longer heard the whirring sound of her gadget’s engine, he opened his eyes.

Marie was gone. He was lying on the living room floor. The television was on, casting its gloomy flickering light on the quiet room.

He pushed himself across the floor and climbed onto the couch. He watched television for a few hours, twice turning to tell Marie something that the television made him think of. He laughed at himself both times. If she wasn’t around to listen to him, at least she wasn’t around to nag him either.

Soon, the television showed the band of colors that meant they’d run out of programming for the night. But he was wide awake.

He walked around the house, looking for Marie. But she was gone. That was just like her—to be there when he didn’t want her, and disappear when he did.

He walked around the house aimlessly. He went up the stairs, down the stairs, into their bedroom, into the kitchen. That’s why ghosts wander, he thought; there’s nothing else to do.

He got into bed finally, but couldn’t sleep. He lay awake all night, tossing and turning, but always keeping to his side of the bed even though the other side was empty.

It went on for three days, just like that. Just wandering the house and lying in bed. He knew she’d be back, eventually; she was just trying to teach him a lesson. But he’d show her when she finally did come back—because then, he wouldn’t talk to her.

On the third day, there was a knock at the door. He thought it was Marie, but the door burst open and it was only the detectives.

After the paramedics carried his body away, he really was alone in that large house. Soon the government would sell it off, and someone new would move in.

He and Marie would be forgotten. Their stuff would be thrown away into the garbage or garage-sale-sold to someone who didn’t know anything at all about him or Marie. Would it matter to that person that the oak desk in his office was his great-grandfather’s? Would it matter that it was at that desk that he’d written all those love poems to Marie, the poems that had made her want to marry him? They didn’t even write love poems anymore, the kids. They just made babies and decided to marry if the tax benefits were good. Would it matter that the picture on the nightstand by his bed was taken of him and Marie the day a man walked on the moon for the first time? They’d probably just take out the picture and use the frame to shelter someone else’s memories.

That was the worst thing about death, he thought: everything would be forgotten. All the memories and thoughts it took you a lifetime to accumulate, all the experiences you’d had—all gone in the flash of an electric turkey carver. Everything that made you you and made your life unique and special—all that was gone as soon as you were gone. It seemed entirely unfair. Those things should count for something. It was like training all your life for the Olympics, and then being told there wouldn’t be any Olympics. Or saving all your money in a bank account, and then being told money was being eradicated. What was the point of it all?

Suddenly he wished he weren’t dead. Being dead was terribly lonely. And it made him far too philosophical. That’s what happened when you weren’t thinking about how tired or hungry you were, or which parts of your body hurt the most—you started thinking deep thoughts, which sunk you deeper into loneliness.

“Marie?” he called out. He’d done so a thousand times before, but this time was different. This time, there was an answer.

“What?” she said. He couldn’t tell where her voice was coming from.

And now that she’d answered, he wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted to tell her that he missed her. Instead, he said, “Thanks for killing me.”

“Don’t sound so glum,” she said. “You killed me.”

“I didn’t use a gadget to do it. I used my bare hands, the ones God gave me.”

Suddenly she was standing in front of him, the death-grin on her face as always.

“So now I can’t even kill you properly?” she said, screaming in his face. “Have I ever done anything—anything!—and you didn’t answer me with a critical word?”

“Do something proper for once in your life,” he said, “and I wouldn’t have anything critical to say.”

She didn’t answer, but turned around and walked into their bedroom. That’s where she went when he had crossed the line—when he’d hit a nerve with her, said something he really shouldn’t have.

He followed her into the bedroom. There she was, like old times, lying on their bed with her big butt turned toward him.

He lay down beside her and they stayed that way until morning. As usual, she stayed in bed while he went to watch the morning news. There was a new pill out, that might have helped their marriage. He chuckled to himself.

“Are you going to sit there all day?” Marie said, coming out of the bedroom.

He didn’t answer. She moved in front of the screen, to semi-transparently block his view, but he just ignored her. She got tired of standing there eventually, and floated away.

“I don’t know how you can just sit there,” she said, “like some brainless vegetable, staring at that screen like it’s the sun shining down its holy rays.”

“Okay, Marie,” he said, reflexively.

“You’re impossible to live with, you know that, Steven Tunnig?” she said, floating back into his view. “My mother was right about you.”

“Okay, Marie,” he said again, with a sigh. “Now please get out of my way.”

When she finally did, and wasn’t looking, he smiled.