Everyone Dies In Alabama

(A Short Story Collection)

*Their Story*

Let’s open with something familiar. Once upon a time perhaps. It does have a certain charm.

Once upon a time, Eric Alan Stanton, and his lovely wife, Heather Sanders Stanton, bought a house. It changed their life forever. The end.

Oh, sure, I could give you more, but why bother. Every story has a start, and at that start things are so much better. Even in the bleakest of tragedies—where beginnings can include murder, or something way too sinister to believe—you still know more tragedy can occur. Characters suffer heartbreak, and sometimes happy never wanders into a story at all, so let’s just leave things as they are.

Eric and Heather bought a house. Let’s make it so their story goes no further.

Or, I suppose, I could give you a little extra. I’ll go back and let you in on their wedding. It was lovely, but Heather felt that her dress was way too tight, and the bridesmaids could have smiled a bit more. I’ll skip even further. I’ll tell you they met in a college classroom, Heather finishing her Master’s degree while Eric was older yet not quite as far along in his education. There are so many milestones I could talk about, but their story truly does begin with that house.

It was on Fulhurst Avenue, just a mile or so from Peach Street. It had four baths as well, two of them full, with a nice sized kitchen and a great den that sat right next to an even greater living room.

It was also paid off as they signed, an inheritance hitting Eric three years into their marriage, leaving him, and Heather, feeling—for a time—rather comfortable. And there you go. Their story is deeper, the characters richer, and hopefully that will be enough.

But…wait…you still want more? Well, okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Eric and Heather buy their house in autumn. It’s the kind of day people remember as picturesque, the sky behind their two-story house a fire of yellow mixed in with a last gasp of heated red from a way too stormy morning. Yet when the realtor hands them the deed not a cloud is in sight. In fact, the horizon has those yellows and reds, but also a much darker blue than what their pale blue house holds.

Eric takes his wife’s hand as they walk to their front door. There are so many possibilities. Maybe, now, some kids, or at least a dog, perhaps the book Eric is sure is inside of him will be written. Perhaps Heather will quit her father’s accounting firm and take a leap, teach college like Eric does, or return to school and fulfill a secret longing for a doctorate she has yet to tell anyone about. In that moment, every avenue is open.

Eric and Heather go inside and look at their den. It’s an empty thing to the right of them. It lets Eric dream.

He sees how perfect a large flat screen television will be in there. There are three walls nearby, things the color of cool alabaster, and though Eric could have picked any to put his flat screen upon, there is a fireplace along the bottom of one, and the other has a window at its center. But the third holds nothing but white, and a promise of endless entertainment, and nothing else is as perfect.

Yet that flat screen isn’t all that Eric dreams. He also sees a recliner set just so—where the glare won’t be too bad—with small tables scattered nearby so he can reach easy for a snack, or perhaps a few sodas. Eric sees friends coming over to enjoy the Super Bowl, the NBA finals, baseball as well if some interesting teams ever do make the post season. He envisions so many things, and he isn’t even over the threshold of his front door.

Heather moves first. As Eric closes everything behind her, she heads for the den. She is lost in some dreams as well, some of them surprisingly similar to Eric’s while others are vastly different and much more likely to be achieved.

She sees the wall that would be best for a flat screen—her ideal television a spot-on match to her husband’s—but where Eric imagines a recliner, she wants a couch, at least two, and a few throw rugs to cover the ripples in the wood. Heather does love her sports just as much as her husband, but in her mind any large event is done to perfection, the room no longer empty but instead filled with so much more than what Eric has in mind.

But maybe you still want more. Well, okay, here goes. I’ll tell you how, seventeen years later, their daughter Becky comes home in a rush. She can barely hold it together, her tears only going unnoticed due to the water falling off her in a torrent of large, fat, drops that instantly soak through a mat that now resides in her front hall. She is fourteen, and there was a guy, someone she trusted, someone she was sure would never betray. Yet a quick kiss in his house, a place she wasn’t supposed to be, turned into something much more than she was expecting.

She feels the bruises on her arm and remembers how he grabbed her. Remembers too how she screamed. How that suddenly gave her an insight she wished had never arrived.

That day she saw the truth of passion. How it was supposed to have been like in the movies, and in her dreams, something nice, and magical, a sweet kiss followed by maybe a few more, not hands that had reached too high, and a tongue she hadn’t known would make an appearance.

She turns to the den. Heather is on one of those couches that had been dreamt of so long ago, and Becky catches her eye. She notices how Heather puts down a cup of coffee she’s been enjoying, how she stands and begins to walk her way. In an instant, there is only the need for a hug, and the comfort of a parent. Becky is sure her mother can see her pain and will take it all away.

“What’s wrong with you,” Heather asks as she doesn’t exit the den. She only goes to where the hall is about to begin.

“I,” Becky says. She is not prepared for this. “I need to—”

“What you need to do is think,” Heather says, seeing water, and wet, the ruination of a throw rug. “If it’s raining, why didn’t you take an umbrella with you? And why are you standing instead of getting a towel?”

Becky looks at herself. She hadn’t known she was soaked. “Mom,” she says. But the TV is on—how had she not noticed that before—and something loud is happening upon it. Their den, such an empty place once, takes all of Heather’s attention.

“Just get a towel,” Heather says.

And now you know more, does that make you happy? Becky turns out fine—I’ll tell you that as well—but she never told what happened to her. In fact, until the night she was sure she was with the man she would marry, she told no one about that day. Everyone could only whisper about why she never dated in high school and hardly had any boyfriends during college. Are you sure you want to continue?

If you do, I understand. It’s the allure of a story. The sway it has on your soul. The narrative of your life can have abrupt endings. That girl you knew would be the one who would never leave your side, she ups and kicks you out of her heart—her life becomes an epic you will never finish—but in this story, most everything will get a conclusion. Feel free to read on.

Eric and Heather leave their den and decide to forgo the kitchen. They angle past a stairway that is just across from their front door. They go to a room at the back of their house.

It’s a place filled with empty shelves, and another fireplace. They walk into their living room.

It’s larger than their den. The oak wood floor they find here is something they could get lost inside of they have so much more space and Heather, for a moment, is caught in the wild rush of childhood. She wants to skate.

Sure, she thinks of more rugs, and a few other couches, maybe even that recliner she already knows Eric would have wanted in the den could reside in here, but the scope of what is before her is too enticing. This floor begs for her to act young.

Heather reaches down to slip off her shoes. She may have taken the day off from work, but she is still too accustomed to her father’s rigid standard of business suited excellence. In stark contrast to her husband’s much more jeans-and-a-tee-shirt attire, she is in a very nice outfit—sharp-looking skirt and sheer stockings to cover her legs, a blouse hugged tight by a form-fitting jacket, and heels she can fling aside so fast.

Heather takes a quick step, rushes past Eric, and glides with a whoop of laughter. She sees how this place stretches into the backyard, how it breathes into areas that could have made their den a bit bigger. She even ponders if maybe she and Eric should roll up their sleeves and take out a wall. Maybe they could remake their den into something better.

Heather turns as soon as her momentum ceases. She looks over at her husband.

He’s by the fireplace, imagining years gone by—a time when his father used to conjure up stories on an old typewriter that once sat on a desk near to a fireplace not unlike what he is looking at now. Of course, that fireplace hadn’t been in a room this size, but Eric remembers how no matter how small everything may have been, that room still had had enough space for everyone to enjoy a whir of ribbon, and the click of letters, that had always filled the air.

Eric wants a desk. He is sure this living room needs it, something also wood but not oak, maybe mahogany, or perhaps spruce. Eric doesn’t know what a desk made out of that kind of wood would look like, but the words seem as loud as what his father used to type upon.

At the university where he works, Eric lies about the next great American novel he is about to finish. Something deep that deals with family, or sexuality, he keeps saying he hasn’t yet decided which. He tells everyone in the English department he will be the next scholar to win award after award—someone who doesn’t care about being a bestseller, someone who only wants to woo the world of academia.

But in his desk, if he puts it right to the side of a fireplace just as his father once had his, Eric is sure he can hide the many notebooks he’s been scribbling on for decades—things filled with fantasy tales about princesses in tight outfits who are saved by space cowboys from other planets. His true heart beats with the same pulp ideals that once were the life blood of a man who typed furiously as Eric played with his toys and longed, but never asked, for his father to give him some attention too.

His father always made up the best adventures yet then threw them all away, and went to get yet another beer, after only reading them once aloud before declaring—quite terribly—that they were wretched. But in this room, things will be different. As his wife looks at him with a mixture of bemusement and confusion—just what was he thinking about—Eric picks the spot where his desk will be. He chooses to remember the love he had for how his father wrote, not how he hated most everything that came after.

“What,” Eric asks as he finally turns, and catches Heather staring.

She smiles and goes to slip back into her shoes. “Nothing,” she says, “just wondering about some stuff.”

“Me too,” Eric says. He nods at the floor, and the walls. “Do you think our books…”

There are some windows, and that fireplace, but on-the-whole the walls here hold those abandoned shelves. Eric is no longer thinking about his desk, he is wondering about the many boxes he and Heather own, things kept safely hidden in a storage shed, things filled with novels that are desperate to once more greet the light of day.

Heather sees his nod and suddenly knows exactly what’s on his mind. “I think the books would look great here,” she says, “I even think I know of a place where we can pick up a cheap desk, something for you to—”

She doesn’t get to finish. Eric takes her hand and brings her close. They enjoy their first kiss in their new house, and when it’s right—not too long, not too short—they break free.

They head back the way they came, go to their stairs, and slip quick to the second floor. There were, however, other amazing—top ten level of great—kisses that took place in that living room. I suppose I can tell you about them too. Most stories do have a touch of romance.

Eric and Heather spend many nights in their living room enjoying the silence of a house not yet filled with kids, and then a house filled only with children that have already been put down for the evening. It seems that having a first kiss there makes the room quite special, and often late nights find them at his desk, Heather moving his laptop aside, and taking his face in her hands, to draw him near.

I’ll let you know that they alone occupy spots ten through three in that long list of great kisses, a rather sweet accumulation of quick hellos—and many an “I love you”—that quickly gets followed by other, sumptuous, bits of passion. Spot two, however, belongs to their youngest, Daniel. It is here, when Daniel is thirteen, that he will convince a nearby neighbor to kiss him—at first a slight peck, but then something longer that does involve tongue but he’s prepared for that.

The girl Daniel kisses is sixteen, a lonely young thing from a house down the street. An old friend of his sixteen-year-old sister, this girl knows better but Daniel is cute, and persuasive, and he promises it will be a peck.

But though he occupies kiss number two in that living room, Daniel never kisses anyone else in his house. After that sixteen-year-old comes to her senses, slaps him and leaves, he meanders through girl after girl that are mostly his own age. He sleeps with one fourteen-year-old when he is fourteen as well yet also starts up an affair with a married woman when he is seventeen, and she a should-have-known-better forty-two.

I’ll go on to tell you that Daniel makes his way through three marriages by the time both his parents are dead. How he has three kids from two of those wives, all of them barely on speaking terms with him since he never gets full visitation rights. Being caught in affair after affair makes finding sympathetic judges not much of a possibility, but Daniel is on wife, and kid, number four and maybe he will do better.

I could tell you so much about Daniel, but let’s go back to that living room, and the kisses that took place there. It’s another cheat of a story, how time is yours to control, and you can hit fast forward—see Daniel as a drama-filled adult—or you can go back and see what altered this poor young boy’s view of love.

It happens at a dinner party being held to celebrate Eric’s second novel—his house still big enough for Daniel and Becky to not be a bother yet, honestly, they both should have been put to bed ages ago. Becky complains, for a time, that since she is eleven she should be able to stay up even longer, but her mom insists and—as usual—Daniel offers no assistance to her pleas.

It’s because Danial is only eight, and unable to understand the concept of why being in-the-midst of all these adults could ever be fun. He just stays silent and watches as Becky huffs, seems on the verge of tears, before she looks around at all the guests who are very distinguished. Even the pretty young student that has been helping their father in his classes this semester looks prim and proper, and Daniel finds it amusing how Becky’s almost tears dry up rather fast. It’s clear she will just have to enjoy as much culture as she can before she’s sequestered away.

Still, however much Daniel may not understand some things, he does already understand the concept of stealth. He’s a smart boy, one on the verge of figuring people out. It’s why he likes to stay silent, and watch—he doesn’t even really speak until he is certain he has complete mastery of the subjects being said around him—and, even at eight, he already knows the best way to enjoy a party.

He goes to bed right when Becky and he are finally told its time. Without a hint of protest, he even tucks himself in, and quickly pretends to sleep, until at least twenty minutes have gone by. It is only then that he slips back out to find that most of the guests are still in the den, the fireplace there alive with a dance of licking flame as they enjoy drinks, ignore the television, and chat softly while he watches from the stairway.

It’s just the best spot. Daniel has a high vantage that lets him catch everything, and with all the upstairs lights off he is safe in the shadows. It’s why his father also never spots him when he and that pretty young student slip away—unnoticed as well—and head for the living room.

Feigning a conversation of taking her to look at his manuscript—some false words that even an eight-year-old can tell don’t sound exactly right—Eric leaves, and Daniel follows. He slips quickly down the stairs and pauses only once to see for certain that his mother is oblivious to the world since she is busy keeping the rest of the party happy.

His father is at his desk. The dark-haired girl is there too. She is kissing his father hungrily, her chocolate skin somehow alive in the shadows of the room. Daniel has never seen a woman like her, so passionate, so real. She is consuming his father more than doing anything gentle or nice, and Daniel doesn’t understand, yet he can’t look away.

It’s like not understanding why his sister would ever want to be surrounded by all those adults. What he is watching is just something he hasn’t begun to think about.

“Your wife,” the girl says.

“If you’re silent,” Eric replies once he comes up for air, “she won’t hear a thing.”

The girl smiles, and leans back, Daniel sure she must be able to spot him, but she too sees not a thing. “No, silly,” she finally says, “this is fun, right?”
“Absolutely,” Eric says.

“But not love?”

A frown hits Eric’s face. It hits Daniel’s as well. He’s seen kissing before. His mother and father do it every so often, not in the face swallowing kind of way that this fascinating woman is employing, but Daniel has seen kissing. Doesn’t doing something like that mean you’re in love?

“Do you? I’m married,” Eric says, his frown deepening, “I thought you knew this—”

“Relax,” the girl says, “I know this isn’t love, but I was…do you love her?”

Eric smiles, his frown forgotten in a quick laugh. “Absolutely,” he says before resuming the passion Daniel can’t believe no one else is hearing.

Yet as he slips back upstairs, not bothering to be silent or secretive, no one—again—notices him and maybe that is how his father is able to do what he is doing. For a while now his mother has been teaching at the same university where his father works, but she is still a part time professor, and Daniel knows she wants more. It’s something bigger, and better, a hushed and special word called tenure and everyone in the den seems to be some Dean, or Administrator, she has long talked about at their house. Perhaps this party wasn’t only for his father’s new book. Maybe it was also for his mother’s career.

But in all honesty, Daniel barely thinks of those things as he walks back to his room and slips back into his bed. Remember, he is only eight, and what eight-year-old do you know that ponders such lofty notions as his mother’s career?

Still, in a story, you can sneak inside a character’s head, it’s a special talent, so I’ll let you in on a secret: Daniel did think about what his mother might be up to, but it was brief. The word tenure was there, as was the notion that every person in the den was someone she’d mentioned before, but that all fell away—quite quickly—because what Daniel really thought about was love.

He’d believed it special. Like his sister, he’d thought that love, and maybe passion too, was magical—important, life altering, and especially that kissing and stuff should mean more than just kissing and stuff—but after that night he decided he’d been wrong. At only eight he saw something from a vantage point no eight-year-old should ever find. He saw how love could be selfish. He even saw how that looked like fun.

The number one kiss that took place in the living room of Eric and Heather’s house was an illicit one between Eric and one of his students. I’ll even let you know it wasn’t the first affair Eric had, but it was—surprisingly—his last. He ended it, and truly never had another, after Heather found a bra that wasn’t hers in his car, and swore she would leave him if he didn’t straighten up.

Yet all that shame is another epic for another time. Let’s go back to Eric, and Heather, as they finally reach the top of their stairwell, and turn to their left. They peek into what will become their bedroom. It’s a large place that may hold oak at their feet yet a dark red carpet, something overly large and fluffy, cascades along each corner they can spy.

Heather imagines cold mornings here, waking with the heat not yet on—they’ll keep it low at night to save on energy. She sees herself getting out of some perfect bed too, and how each time she does it will always feel new simply because she already knows that when she touches bare feet onto red fluff she’ll sigh relief no matter how often that occurs.

Heather embraces the encroaching tide of time. How it will run in, gathering her up so fast she won’t understand how deep into its current she is until it’s way too late, the red carpet gaining so many tiny eddies, winding streams she and Eric will make after endless trips from that perfect bed to the doorway they stand in now, or to a bathroom tucked far in the back.

But time is for later and, right now, Heather moves on. She imagines just where in this room she will place a nice vanity. How a mirror will be centered upon it. How it will also sit far from that doorway yet how the glass will reflect the image of children, or maybe Eric staring at her in a deep longing as she puts on some make-up. How she will even playfully ignore until a rising flush of red will make her turn and purr for him to come close.

Right here the future has an unknowable depth, and Heather couldn’t be happier. Let the tide pull her away. She understands that sometimes she will get lost, sent deep before she knows it, yet time will also take her back to shore, leaving her wondering when it will return for the days have grown long and she is ready for a change.

Heather sees so much as she steps into the room, tempted once more to take off her shoes and not slide but instead feel the fluff as it caresses the soles of her stockings. Eric follows, his mind just like hers was way back in the living room: he knows exactly what she’s thinking.

But he is a tad more concerned. Just like Heather he sees that perfect bed, and the cold mornings, the hot ones as well where the summer stretches into October and winter begins to feel as if it is a blessing. But he also moves on to enjoy mournful laments over rainy evenings—and leaky ceilings. Up on the second floor it just hits him, how being this close to the attic will make it so much easier for a trail of water to find its way through the roof before sending slow drop after slow drop right onto his head.

Eric flips to gale force winds, and white outs, blizzards that send temperatures plummeting until the cold steals inside and takes whatever heat this poor house can give. He follows a sudden darkness, the future still bright but holding at its edges the same amount of storm clouds he found this morning. It’s a shudder of terror that sends him to Heather’s side as she stands before a few windows on a far wall.

There are three of them there, windows wide enough to peer out onto some neighbors beyond, but that’s about it. Eric leans his head into Heathers’ neck, takes in the whisper of her perfume, a rose scent he’s never bothered to name. In his mind it’s just Heather, just love, and perfection, and caresses in the night whenever he kisses her. Nothing but Heather fills his heart, and he is sure—as she leans back into him, and they both stare out into the beyond—that she’ll always be the only woman he’ll ever desire.

But you already know this isn’t the case, yet maybe a question does remain. Why did he cheat? It’s a loose end that does deserve some attention, yet another fair warning must also be given. This is where a story gets tricky.

It might be better to not know the whys. One day Eric stood with Heather and thought she would be the single woman he would ever desire…and then he was different. In a sense, it’s the best version you can get. It keeps him the villain, the fool who hurt poor Daniel and set him up for a life of easy sex yet hard-to-find love. Eric bad, Heather good, except for when she was cold to her daughter, but that just makes her more human so maybe you can forgive that.

But what if Heather cheated first and Eric found out but never said a word? What if, before their marriage, she’d had many partners and Eric hadn’t? Maybe he’d waited—thought it was no big deal she hadn’t—yet, finally, her past made him selfish. He decided he needed to catch up.

There are so many possibilities. Some make Heather worse. Some make Eric vile. Any story can take you anywhere, but any good story isn’t about every possibility. If it was then every story would be a mountainous textbook devoted to giving paragraph after paragraph that would explain every avenue a character could ever take. Everything would have to be obsessed over until every story became too long to ever finish, and why would anyone want that?

Let’s keep it simple then. I’ll let you peer down one—tiny—avenue.

Heather truly hated her accounting job, and when she finally quit—when Eric had tenure and that combined with the remainder of his inheritance meant they really could stop worrying about money—she was so consumed with success she let him go. She liked sex, she loved him, but she wanted to work, and to be with the kids, and if Eric got ignored because of that so be it.

I will even let you know that the bra in the car wasn’t the first sign she had that Eric was stepping out. Our Heather wasn’t stupid, she could tell, but once, in her bedroom, she stared down at a neighbor and made a decision.

It’s that quick. Heather is five months pregnant with her first child, the inheritance Eric attained dipping slightly due to a few bad investments. She is worried.

There had already been some talk of her quitting her father’s firm a little earlier than expected, but then Becky made an appearance, the slight stomach bug Heather was sure she’d caught turning into something much more surprising even though she’d seen this future coming. Things changed.

Heather stands at a window in her room, that perfect bed exactly where she’d imagined it would be, the red carpet already well-traveled and filled with eddies too. She can feel Becky kicking, the slight tumble she makes as something exciting causes her to jump. Already, Heather is in love with her about-to-be-born little girl, but she is also, surprisingly, upset. It is something she hadn’t ever imagined.

She looks down and sees a neighbor. A young thing, some girl who married up when she was eighteen—a beauty who still has her looks though she has given her husband four kids. Heather sees how this girl runs around being the most perfect stay at home mom ever.

This isn’t the woman that will one day send over a lonely sixteen-year-old that will kiss a thirteen-year-old Daniel, but Heather watches her in awe none the less. Her four kids were born not that far apart. They form a gang that tears into everything as toys litter the yard and dirt, and fallen trees, lie about in ragged clumps that bear witness to the storm of two boys, and two girls, who never stop moving.

Heather watches how this perfect stay at home gathers her kids, how she feeds them, keeps them safe, how outside her yard may be a mess but how inside her house doesn’t appear too disheveled no matter how Heather looks this way, and that, to try and catch a broken lamp, or an upturned chair, through the open drapes she can spy. This young thing looks as happy as happy could ever be, yet when Heather sees her, she only feels fear.

The young thing never leaves the house, or at least she doesn’t leave until her husband comes home. The feelings Heather has then are a tumult of passions that were not seen when Eric once reached her side and leaned into her. Back then, as Heather stood in front of this very same window, she was ready for the future of kids, and cold mornings, the house filling with possibilities—but not this. Is she doomed to be a prisoner too?

Heather feels Becky kick, and she knows. Again, it will be perfect. Some things might slide, but she can do it. If she focuses, she will have her kids, her marriage, and her career in a field she’s longed for. She will even get her doctorate, though she has yet to tell Eric about that dream.

And there you go. The story moves on, and you have one more answer. It is an amalgam of possibilities, all forming into a whole. Heather did nothing wrong. She wanted a career, and kids, and she went for it. The fact that Eric felt slighted is simply on him.

He had no right to cheat, yet he did, and still I will say that Heather knew but she didn’t care. Her career had become more important, and she really had been more adventurous with a few people before he’d placed a ring on her finger. Who was she to judge?

She was even glad. He wasn’t pawing at her while she graded finals. He wasn’t pouting or sighing disappointment as she went over and over the last bits and pieces of her doctoral thesis. Another life ago she would have left, kicked him out of her heart, but she had to learn to be more mature. All those professors she would soon be working with, and all those Administrators and Deans too, were often surprised that she and Eric had even gone through with such a childish notion as monogamy, and marriage, anyway. She just thought she should think the same.

Is Heather worse in your eyes because of this? Is she better? Their story is just their story. It only tells you what it knows. So why would you ever get upset over the actions of a character you didn’t even have to read about in the first place?

Yet I will give you one more twist. The only reason Heather confronted Eric about that bra, in his car, was because she was tired. Not jealous, or upset, just tired. Being more mature suddenly felt as if it was the thing that was childish, and she finally understood how love should have always been magical and more, something of commitment and purpose, something that shouldn’t have been all about her, or all about Eric, only something that should have been all about them, together, from the moment he’d placed that ring on her finger. Their story doesn’t condemn her for that either. Do you?

Eric and Heather stand by that window in their bedroom. Perhaps their story goes on. They linger in the room, and hold each other, then move to a bath down the hall.

And there it is, a bit of Eric, and Heather, who on a bright autumn day will buy a house and feel as if the future holds endless possibilities. But, if we dig, we will find heartache. So, why dig?

Let us return then. We’ll go back to the start—where there is a certain charm.

Once upon a time, Eric and Heather bought a house. It changed their lives forever, and that is all we need to know.