Winning Isn't Everything

WINNING ISN’T EVERYTHING

 

 

Amy stared across the frozen lake, squinting in the reflected glare of sunlight off the

blue ice. She had walked—maybe ten feet—beyond the end of their dock, trying to clear her head in the frigid temperatures of a late February afternoon. She didn’t want to wander any farther out; there had been several ominous cracking, groaning sounds deep in the ice. Getting her emotions under control was proving to be difficult. She just couldn’t be wrong.

Amy pulled her winter coat tight around her as the frigid wind plucked at her, but its icy fingers were clearing her head. Her asshole husband, Roger, managed to ruin everything somehow. She knew she was right; she felt it. He had to be wrong. The smug son-of-a-bitch was always right. Big-shot lawyer. It would be just like him to fix it so she would stay a loser.

Amy had struggled to make it through high school and was working as a waitress when she and Roger dated. He’d said he loved her—still said it as a matter of fact—but she knew deep down he considered her beneath him and embarrassed when they were together in public. She felt he was always condescending towards her; it seemed he always had to explain things to her. Things always managed to go wrong for her, but this time it should have been different. It had been her chance to shine, to be a winner.

The ice moaned a low and painful sound. Amy looked down at her feet, her expression frozen as if in sympathy with the ice. Her eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, my God, it can’t be, it can’t be,” she whispered. She dropped to her knees and pawed at the ice with her gloved hands. Her sour expression thawed with the flushed excitement of anticipation.

The waters of the lake were pristine and, when frozen, still afforded several inches of clarity before the ice caused a gradual distortion—like looking through an ice cube in a glass of water. With her nose almost touching the lake’s glistening surface, she peered at the object only inches below her gawking eyes. She could see it clearly. Although she believed with all her heart, she was still in a daze at the enormity of it, the impossible odds of it. Her arrogant husband was wrong; her blind faith justified her belief. Wait until she told him.

Amy jumped up, causing another, sharper crack; she’d have to be careful. But what to do? Roger wasn’t due home from the office until late after dark. She knew she should wait for him, but she wanted, no needed, to flaunt her find in his face. Besides, there was no way Amy could keep her emotions, her surging euphoria, in check. She’d get the axe and hack it out herself. Amy smiled and headed back to the house and the shed in the backyard. “Wait till he sees this; he’ll never look down on me again,” she muttered.

 

After Roger arrived home that night and couldn’t find her, he searched the area around the house illuminated by the porch and security lights. Amy wasn’t spontaneous by nature; although her car was still in the garage, he called everywhere she might have gone. He knew she felt deficient in their relationship, their marriage, but Roger could never seem to lessen her inferiority complex. Still, her obsession this last week had been unsettling, probably because the deadline was fast approaching. She kept insisting she was right.

After exhausting his options, Roger finally phoned the local police to report her missing. The police dispatcher advised him that the normal waiting period was twenty-four hours before taking a missing person’s report. Further, a moonless night and lack of lighting around the rural area would make an immediate search unrealistic.

Roger’s panic was rising. “You don’t understand. She would never go anywhere like this without telling me. Her car is in the garage, and I can’t find her anywhere. Something’s wrong. I’m afraid something’s happened to her.”

Maybe it was the near hysteria the dispatcher sensed in his voice. “Calm down, sir. Let me get a little information, and we’ll get officers out there at daybreak to look around. Let’s start with your name and address….”

 

Shortly after dawn, the search party, composed of several officers and a group of volunteers, started their search while Roger monitored the phones at home and waited for news. He didn’t have long to wait. They found Amy in the lake, a dozen feet beyond their dock. She had broken through the ice and had either drowned or frozen to death.

Roger stood mute, in shock, as the Sergeant droned on with condolences, information, suggestions, and directions. His words finally broke through the choking fog encasing Roger’s mind. “…and we found this clutched in her hand,” the Sergeant said.

Roger took the soggy scrap of paper, stared at it, read it, and remembered it. The color drained from his face. “Oh, my God.” His hand went to his mouth; he collapsed onto the couch. “It can’t be.”

The Sergeant stood waiting, silent.

Roger was moaning. “Oh no, oh no, oh no…” He stopped and wiped at the tears in his eyes. “She used to save them, and I’d periodically throw out the old ones. Sometimes she’d get upset with me; it was her ‘thing.’ This one hasn’t expired yet. The deadline is midnight tomorrow. I must have accidentally mixed in with all the losers I threw in the lake a couple of weeks ago while I was fishing from the dock.” He choked back a sob. “Jesus, I remember the numbers; she kept repeating them like a mantra. I must have made a mistake and read the numbers wrong. She was right, after all. She really did pick the winner in the Million Dollar Mega Lottery.”

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Impressum

Texte: John C. Laird
Bildmaterialien: istockphoto.com
Lektorat: Alexandra Laird
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 31.07.2012

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