The Last Photograph

Estelle Drummond sat on the edge of her creaky bed. The springs groaned and squeaked as she shifted. One hand swept crooked fingers through her tight white curls, prim and short from a recent trip to the salon. The other hand shakily held the photograph. It was small, about seven by nine inches and mounted on a thin piece of yellow cardboard. It was black and white and very old. The edges were chipped away and one side was creased. Estelle stared down at the figure in the photo. Her husband, long dead, had been a relatively handsome man. His hair was slicked back, dark brown and thick. His smile was full. His eyes were deep set and framed by a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

It was Estelle's favorite picture of Richard. In fact, it was the only one she had kept of him all these years after his death. It was taken not long after Richard returned from the war. He was young and eager. He had just gotten hired at real estate firm, and two weeks later proposed to Estelle. She did not really know what he saw in her. Young and naive, she was not what would commonly pass for pretty. Her face was too round, her nosed a little too large and hooked, her eyes a little too sunken. Her hair was a little too curly. Her figure was a little too thin, her legs bowed. She was shy and barely knew anything. She could cook a little--the recipes her mother had tried to teach her--though she had little interest in domestic pursuits. In fact, Estelle was not interested in much of anything at all. She was dull.

Her mother and sister advised her accept Richard's proposal. They knew little about the young suitor, but appreciated that he came back from the war and immediately landed a good job. He was young and eager. They saw him as a war hero, and imagined him bravely dodging bullets, saving injured soldiers, directing fire, and winning battles. They thought that he deserved a medal. In reality, he had been a logistics clerk, a paper pusher. He had never seen combat. Still, Richard liked the attention and the illusion of his heroism, and he did nothing to dispel the fantasy that Estelle's family had created. Richard also encouraged the idea that he made a lot of money. While he never explicitly said so, he promoted the belief that he was a partner at the firm. His in-laws envisioned him driving all around the city selling the American dream to families and young couples, closing on houses, drawing commissions. But the young veteran was only employed as a clerk--a paper pusher much like he was during the war--a low level filer doing work that mostly women in his office did.

Richard carefully cultivated the image of himself that Estelle's family. He overspent on clothes, which he wore when he visited. He memorized menus of fancy restaurants that lay around his office, but where he had never eaten. The family urged Estelle to accept the proposal. Estelle was not convinced that Richard really loved her; nor was she convinced that she really loved her. Much of her thought--of her being--went to convincing herself that she loved him. Finally, lacking any other prospects, she accepted.

Despite pretenses, the two lived frugally. Richard maintained his genteel appearance, and so Estelle gave up make up. “There is no need for it,” Richard argued. “I already think you are pretty. Who else are you trying to impress?” He also encouraged her to dress plainly, and she most often wore dresses she found second hand. Her shoes began to show wear. “But where do you need to go?” he asked her.
“To the store,” she responded meekly.

“Do you need new shoes to go to the store?”

Estelle began to save a little. Each week, when Richard gave her money for groceries, she would keep a little change. She kept it in a can hidden in the back of her closet. Sometimes, she would beg a little extra from Richard. “Prices,” she would say. “Everything is so dear.” The extra money went into the jar. She was saving for something--she did not know what. Perhaps new shoes, she thought. Perhaps a new dress. Perhaps some make-up.
When Richard found out about Estelle's little ruse, the leash tightened. He began to accompany her shopping. He gave her no money, but simply paid at the register. Once, Estelle met an old friend while walking in the park. The park meandered along a muddy river. The young couple would often stroll, hand in hand, along the water and watch the gulls dip and bob above the water. If they had a little extra, they would take a heel of bread and toss crumbs to the ducks. Sometimes, territorial geese would chase Estelle, and Richard would bravely put himself between the beast and his young bride.

Tim Hardy was sitting on a bench when Estelle recognized him. He greeted her warmly, a fact that did not escape Richard's notice. Richard stood by silently stewing as Estelle and Tim talked. Tim made her laugh, and she made him smile. It did not matter that the talk was completely innocent, recollections of a long past childhood. It did not matter than both of them were married. It did not matter that Tim was moving out of state in a month. All that mattered in the mind of Richard was that the two were talking, smiling, laughing. He was jealous, but he hid it well. At least until they got home.

After the walk, Richard's emotions overflowed in an uncontrollable wave. He decried Estelle's happy talk with her friend. He excoriated her past. He cried. He yelled. He accused. Estelle was taken aback. She had never seen this side of Richard. She did not know how to respond, so she merely sat and cried. Something began to form in Richard's mind. It was not a conscious thing. It was not emotional. It was done not out of malice or out of spite. It was just done. It was a seed planted in the soil of vulnerability, fertilized by a sense of control over the life of another person. It quickly fomented in his mind. He tightened his grip.

“This is not right,” he would say about dinner, pushing the plate away from him and slamming down his napkin.

“I'm sorry,” Estelle would say meekly. “I have never made it before.”

“That is obvious,” Richard taunted.

“Perhaps,” Estelle suggested, “you could help me by telling me what--”

Richard flew into a rage. “You want me to help? You think it is my job to cook and clean? Is that what you think?” He shoved Estelle. “I go to work every day to earn what I can for us. That is my job. Your job is to stay home and keep the house clean and cook. It's not that hard.”
“I'm sorry,” Estelle replied meekly.

“It's bad enough that you don't get around to sweeping and mopping. Look at the floor,” he gestured wildly at the dusty footprints that led right to where he had been standing. “The floor is filthy.”

“It was clean when you came home,” Estelle objected. “You tracked it in.” And that was when he hit her. Once those first drops of water leaked through, the dam burst. Richard would yell about little things--that the coffee was too weak or too strong, that the eggs were too runny or overcooked. Then he would slap Estelle, or shove her. As before, there were no real emotions to the act. Devoid of any psychology, they were simply acts of control. After Richard had made his point, he simply spun on his heels and went to work or went to bed.

Estelle cried to her mother. Estelle had hoped that her mother would be supportive, that she would weep for Estelle and offer her to return. “I can't believe that Richard would do that,” her mother said. “He is not the violent type.”

“It's true,” Estelle assured her.

“Well then, you need to do better,” said her mother.

“What?” asked Estelle, astonished.

“A man does not hit his wife for no reason. If Richard is hitting you he probably has good cause.”

Estelle slammed down the phone. She put her head in her hands and cried. She was not sure whether the tears were formed by grief, rage, or anger. Perhaps, she thought to herself, there are tears for each of them. She cried until she emptied her mind of all emotions. She cleaned herself just in time to start dinner. She knew that Richard liked her meatloaf, although he would no doubt find something to dislike as an excuse to criticize her. She set to work preparing the meal, checking the time and realizing she was behind. Richard would be home soon. She turned the heat up on the oven and started washing and chopping the salad.

The top of the meatloaf was badly burned when Estelle took it out of the oven just as Richard was walking through the door. She rushed to put a ketchup glaze over the top to hide the char, but the smell lingered in the small apartment, and that she could not hide. She greeted Richard at the door with a gentle kiss. There was no emotion behind it--all of her emotions had been cried out. It was just a dutiful behavior. He kissed her back with the same frame of mind.

As predicted, Richard complained about the burned meatloaf. “How could you burn it? You've never burned it before.”

“I was distracted,” Estelle replied.

“How can you get distracted? You don't do anything but cook and clean. You are just lazy. Maybe that is why you are getting fat. ”
Now he was insulting her weight too. Estelle ate her salad and did not respond. The bitter taste of the greens and the bitter attack brought many of the spent emotions that had left her earlier in the day. Trapped, insulted, abused, Estelle was as burned as her meatloaf. Her soul was blackened char, a shadow of humanness.

“Excuse me,” she said, pushing herself away from the table.

“Where are you going?” Richard asked.

“I forgot something,” Estelle said over her shoulder as she went into the kitchen.

She came back with a large knife. She lunched at Richard from across the room. Before he could react, Estelle had stabbed him through the shoulder. As he went down in a pool of blood, Estelle raised the blade over and over. Her strength returned to her, fed by a sudden emotional awareness. Rage, frustration, anger, fear, hate--blind hate. Estelle was possessed of the great demon of knowing herself. For the first time in her life, she was her own person, and it felt good as she destroyed the symbol of her servitude. She cut his face. She stabbed his torso. She severed his hands. She cut off his genitals. For the first time in her life, she felt free.

When she was finally done, her energy spent, she fell asleep in the pools of blood that stained the floor. When she awakened, she dug out the money she had hidden in her closet, hailed a cab, and confessed to her mother.

Now, fifty-five years later, sitting on the edge of a creaky bed, Estelle Drummond stared at the last photograph of her husband. Seeing the photograph no longer summoned feelings of rage. It no longer elicited any feelings at all. She was free of him, and free of herself. Estelle crumpled the photo in her arthritic hand. Borrowing a lighter from her cellmate, she lit the photo and tossed it out between the bars of her cell.