The Slightly Mad Cuckquean, Chapter Seven

She’s fat though and boring.

She bosses you around.

She’s just using you.

She doesn’t appreciate you.

She doesn’t love you, you know.

She’s all about the money, money, money.

She is so ugly. She is ugly on the inside.

Why do you think she’s beautiful? She isn’t beautiful, even when she smiles.

She looks like a man.

She’s so stupid, what the hell were you thinking?

She is to be pitied

She is pretentious

Narcissistic

Ignorant

Fake

Lazy

Bossy

Nosy

Noisy

Idiot

Dumbass

She’s cheating on you.

Brunhilda’s campaign to turn my husband against me was in full swing. So far, she had tried everything. She had whined and complained, she had been sweet and understanding, she spoke of her love and longing and loneliness. She feigned illnesses and disease. She threatened suicide. She tried to be anything I was not, tried doing everything opposite of the way I did things. She cut him off. She came back to him. She was poisoning his mind against me and our marriage, one little dig and doubt at a time. Now she would try to make him jealous.

Brunhilda’s beard was a much older man, but he was still handsome and fit - for an old guy – and he was taller than her. Perfect. He was a part-time teacher at a nearby school and had just broken off a long-term relationship. They were taking things slowly, getting to know each other as friends first. She made sure that I knew they were not intimate sexually, said it to me nearly every time we discussed him. She wanted my husband to know she wasn’t being unfaithful to him. She was a liar.

Evidently, her jealousy ploy had worked too well. It drove Hub crazy for a while. We went to DC on vacation about a month after she had started “dating” her beard, and that was the first time I felt unloved by my husband. Something was very off on that trip. Hub was distracted, distant, and restless. He looked at me with cold eyes when I would complain that he was running me ragged. He barely looked at me at all. He seemed bored and tense. He couldn’t go enough places, do enough things, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sit still. He seemed like he was about to blow.

We went to the Smithsonian and the first thing we saw was the statue of Diana. Hub was fascinated. He fell in love instantly and snuck several photos with his phone, even though it was strictly forbidden. As we would wander through the museum, separately and together, I would find him there, beside the statue, studying it with an incomprehensible look on his face. Later, when I would show Brunhilda the photo of Diana, she would exclaim, “That looks exactly like me naked! That’s my body type.” It shocked me, because I knew that it must be true, give or take 20 pounds and 30 years.

What would you have done? What could I do? I hung on to my life and watched it disintegrate before my eyes.

The Beard was causing problems between the lovers, not working quite as intended. The new threat made Hub jealous, all right, but he was infuriated that she was cheating on him. Ironic, ain’t it? They fought bitterly, until Brunhilda managed to convince him that Beard was just that, a disguise intended to throw me off track, to reassure me that they were innocent of the affair.

When the issues with the Beard settled down, and Brunhilda’s daughter asked her to come live with her, Brunhilda knew it was just what she needed: the final ultimatum. If Hub wouldn’t leave me, she would leave Hub. Leave him here alone with his ball and chain, with his new doubts about me, about our life together, about our “rightness” for each other. She would leave him in order to make him finally understand that she was “the one”. He would have no choice but to follow, to come after her and bring her home. That was the plan, anyway.

Her youngest daughter had broken the family mold, having married a decent man who was a good provider. He was building her a house, she was ambitious and wanted to work, they needed help with their two children. Why don’t they build on a casita, and have grandma come and live with them to help with the children? Get her out of the trailer park and into a decent neighborhood, where she could meet new people?

Brunhilda agreed in a flash.

She didn’t trust that it would work, though. As the time for her to leave neared, her desperation began to show. She started coming around more often, using any excuse for a visit. She was both nicer to me and meaner to me, swinging between attitudes of condescending indulgence and pure spite. She was adoring and absurdly complimentary and charming toward Hub. She put things in my drinks and food.

I started my new job right before she left. Though I was suddenly busy and active and social again, and though I watched every bite I put into my mouth just so I could get into my work clothes, I gained nearly 15 pounds within the first two weeks I was working. During that time, Brunhilda had been cooking and baking special treats for us. The cuts and bruises were coming more often in my sleep, I was feeling nauseous all the time, would get dizzy when I stood up. My legs started hurting. I began to avoid any food or drinks she made for me after the vein incidents.

I had driven up to see her because I was ready to confront her about the affair. I wanted her to know that I knew, and that I was ready to forgive them both if they would only stop. She made us lunch and we chatted on the patio, while I tried to gather my nerve to broach the subject. Suddenly, I felt a terrible pain in my leg and cried out. I looked down and saw that a vein in my leg was bulging and had blown up to nearly five times its normal size. The pain was excruciating. I watched as it grew, this blue-black worm that appeared to be exploding under my skin. In horror, I looked over at Brunhilda. “What is this, what’s happening to me,” I cried.

She didn’t answer, but the look on her face nearly stopped my heart.

She wore the faintest trace of a smile, her eyes gleaming oddly as she stared at the bulging vein. What is this expression? This is new. Is that . . . satisfaction?

I left that day without confronting her. The vein thing was all over in a few minutes, but the bruise would remain for months longer, as a reminder. I never did see a doctor, although the same thing would happen to me again a few weeks later, with a vein in the other leg. This time, it would happen in front of Hub, too.

Would he freak out, insist that I go to the doctor immediately, or take me to the emergency room, the way he always did whenever he thought I was hurt or sick in any way?

No, when it happened the second time, I would again see that same odd expression on Brunhilda’s face . . . and on the face of the man I loved.

Brunhilda was trying to kill me. And my husband knew.

Stay tuned for Chapter Eight: Was That You, Or, Is It Just My Cell Phone Calling Me?