Spots

(Copyrighted Laura Liberty 2020)

SPOTS

            Mary Jo Putney loved her new house. It wasn’t just the large kitchen window overlooking Lake Timpoochee, although she loved the view. It wasn’t the well-manicured yards, although her neighbors were always outside toiling away in perfect gardens, smiling, and waving. It wasn’t even the wrap around porch with tiny yellow flowers growing on vines, although their fragrant sweetness drew her outside like a bee to honey. It was the simple fact that 222 Grayson Point was all hers.

            Owning her first home in her late forties was not the real achievement. The real achievement was leaving her abusive husband and making a new life for herself. It had taken her years to pocket enough change to leave him. She worked odd jobs cleaning houses, cooking dinner for her neighbors, and mending clothes, all while he thought she was at home being the dutiful wife.

            Now she could kick back and relax in her new home. Well almost.

            The doorbell rang again.

            “Hi Mary Jo, I brought you some of my famous rhubarb pie,” Melba Thompson said, thrusting a warm pie in Mary Jo’s hands.

            Mary Jo forced a smile. “Thanks Melba. You know how I look forward to your pies.”

            “Did you hear about Paige?” Melba asked, trying to weasel her way inside. Mary Jo hugged the doorframe. There was no way Melba was getting in.

             Paige Clark was a single mom of three. She wore skimpy cut off shorts and midriff tops. Every Tuesday afternoon, she washed her car and all the men on Grayson Street would line up their lawn chairs to watch.

            “No.”

            “She got a boob job, but you didn’t hear it from me.” Melba winked.

            “Thanks for the pie, Melba,” Mary Jo said, starting to close the door. “I’ll see you for Pinochle at the Wilson’s Monday night.”

            Mary Jo hated Pinochle. She only agreed to play because those two hours every Monday night seemed to appease her neighbors’ curiosity about her, and they didn’t bother her the rest of the week with the exception of Melba.

            After closing the door, Mary Jo dumped Melba’s still steaming hot pie in the trash and went to work cleaning a spot on the floor. Since she moved into the house, she had been seeing small black spots on the carpet. “Just needs a little elbow grease,” she said to herself as she scrubbed.

            Those were her husband’s words. Nothing was ever clean enough. He would make her scrub the floors until her hands bled. If he even saw the smallest smudge on a mirror, a crooked picture on the wall, or toothpaste in the sink, he would knock her clear across the room. She shook the painful memories away.

            “This is a new life, Mary Jo,” she scolded herself.

            That night she had trouble sleeping. Every time she closed her eyes, those black spots would reappear. Outside the wind howled between the branches of the trees, it sounded like long bony limbs scraping at her window.  Every noise startled her awake, an engine starting, a dog barking, even the hum of the air conditioner kicking on.

            She woke up tired. It wasn’t even light outside when she shuffled to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. It was Monday, Pinochle night. She thought maybe she would skip it. Overnight, the spots on the carpet grew blacker than ever. They reminded her of sticky drips of tar.

            “What could this be?” she asked herself, poking one black spot. She looked at her finger, but nothing was there. She looked back down at the black spot, and it had grown, bleeding into the carpet like an open wound.  She couldn’t stop it.

            Mary Jo took a sip of her coffee, which was slightly watered down. She had been meaning to stop by the store to restock her cupboards, and now she was out of coffee too. She flipped through the phone book to search for carpet cleaners. She scheduled an appointment for them to come out on Friday. Maybe they could give her some answers.

            She missed Pinochle that Monday night.  The next morning, she left the spots on the floor and went for a walk around the neighborhood. She hoped a little bit of fresh air would do her some good. “Missed you at Pinochle,” Julie Bryce called from across the street.

            “Sorry, I missed it.”

            Julie dropped the spade she was holding and crossed the street. She began to walk with Mary Jo. “Wilma won again.”

            “Did she now?”

            Julie laughed. “She keeps claiming she doesn’t know how to play, and then looks at us in surprise when she wins. So where were you?”

            Mary Jo shrugged. “I had some things to do at the house,” she said, brushing loose strands of hair off her face.

            “My goodness!” Julie exclaimed, looking at Mary Jo’s hands. “What happened?”

            Embarrassed, Mary Jo shoved her blistered hands into her pockets. “Just some spring cleaning. I really should get back to it.”

            “Ok, well stop by for a chat when you have some time.”

            “I will.”

             Mary Jo didn’t leave her house again that week. Some of her neighbors stopped by to check on her, especially when she missed Pinochle the following Monday, but Mary Jo refused to answer the door, even for Melba, who was the most persistent of them all.

            If the doorbell wasn’t buzzing, the phone was ringing. She listened to the machine pick up. “Hi Mary Jo, this is Betty from Simon Jewelers. Where are you? You never showed up for work. Is everything okay?”

            She tried to go to work, but the spots wouldn’t let her. They were everywhere now. She saw them on the carpets, the walls, the drapes and on the countertops.

            Again the machine picked up. “Mary Jo, this is Dr. Dawson’s office. You missed your 2:00 appointment. It’s imperative you call us. The results from your blood test came back, and I really need to speak to you. The number here is . . .” Mary deleted the message before it could finish.

            The last message was from her son. He sounded frantic. “Hi Mom, it’s Brian! Uh . . . Jen’s pregnant. Please call me back. I’m not sure what to do. I’m freaking out. I got my bags packed and everything.”

            Mary Jo let out a long, deep sigh and walked back to a new spot. This time the spot was blood red. She fingered it.

            The spot reminded her of the first time she had left her husband. He had tracked her down and had beaten her so bad; she was hospitalized for weeks. He had broken her jaw, so when he told the hospital staff she had fallen down a flight of stairs, everyone believed him. How convenient for him that she couldn’t speak. His lie was so convincing, everyone believed him to be a devoted husband who rarely left his wife’s bedside.

            Mary Jo knew it wasn’t because he cared about her. He was worried she would tell the truth. Of course, she didn’t. Once she could speak again, she went along with his story. She even enhanced it. When she was done embellishing her tale, Leroy Putney sounded like a prince.

            The second time Mary Jo ran away, Leroy couldn’t hunt her down because he was dead. He had fallen asleep smoking a cigarette. One minute, there was a small black spot in the sheets and the next a raging fire. It was ruled “accidental”.

            Only Mary Jo knew that if someone hadn’t laced Leroy’s whisky with her sleeping pills, he might still be alive. “He deserved it,” she thought as she went back to scrubbing.

Outside, the street lights grew dark. The neighbor’s dog went silent. The road emptied. It was eerily quiet.

Except for Mary Jo’s frantic scrubbing.           

A few days later, Melba stopped by to check on Mary Jo. No one had seen her or heard from her in days. If it wasn’t for her car in the driveway, no one would have questioned the pile of newspapers in the driveway, the bundle of mail by the front door, or the wilting flowers.             

Melba knocked, but there was no answer. She tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so she pushed it open. The smell of urine and feces engulfed her. There on the living room floor, she saw Mary Jo lying in a puddle of her own waste.

            Mary Jo’s eyes were open, but vacant, and her mouth gaping wide. Her white lips were dry and cracked. Her tongue hung out, equally as parched. Only her pinkie was moving, very slowly, back and forth, dragging a rag over a dark red spot of her own blood.

            Melba screamed and dropped the pie she was holding.

            Several months later, Mary Jo’s house was put back on the market. It sold within the first week to a couple from Rhode Island who wanted to soak up some Florida sun. The McHenry’s couldn’t have been happier.

            Jane McHenry stood on her front porch breathing in the fragrant scent of flowers. A paperboy rode by on his bike. Jane stopped him, “Nice day, huh?”

            “Yes,” the boy answered nervously.  He anxiously looked toward the road.

            “Did you know the lady who owned this house?” Jane asked.

            “Yes, she went crazy. Kept seeing black spots,” the boy said, getting back on his bike and pedaling away.

            Startled by the news, Jane went back inside. There on the floor, she saw a small black spot. She grabbed a rag and got down on her hands and knees and started scrubbing. It quickly came up. She laughed to herself feeling foolish. Surely, it was just dirt from when she watered the flowers earlier. She would have to remember to wipe her feet before coming inside.