Blue Moon

You can throw away things

You can throw away the person

You cant throw away the memories

Strains of Dean Martin’s Blue Moon wafted across the air, as he sat by himself on the bench by the lake. He could hear his family laugh and make merry in the cottage nearby. He excused himself from the family dinner to be by himself for a while. Blue Moon always reminded him of her.

He took his wallet out of his pocket and very carefully removed a folded piece of paper that looked old and delicate. The folds were really old and tear marks appeared along the folds. Gingerly he opened the piece of paper and placed it on his thighs. He stared in to the waters as he recited the contents of the note without looking at it even once. When he was done, he gently folded the paper in its original form and placed it carefully inside his wallet.

“You didn’t tell me you were married !!”

“I didn’t want to lose you.”

“That’s your excuse? I thought you’d come up with a better one, you creep !!!”

“I really don’t wanna lose you !!!”

HIs thoughts went back to the fateful day when his cover was finally blown. He had successfully hidden it from her for over two years but finally he was caught. To say that she was upset when she found out would be an understatement. She slapped him incessantly across his face in her anger before throwing herself on his chest and crying. He tried to console her, make her understand, but nothing he did at the time mattered. This was a betrayal of the highest kind, as far she was concerned, and there would no looking back after this.

“I want to talk to her, tell her everything about you. She must know who she is married to.”

“Please listen to me baby, let me explain to you. Then you are free to do whatever you like.”

He knew the effort it took him to calm her down that evening. How he managed to drag her from the restaurant to the hotel room, in order to avoid a public scene, only he knew.

“My wife…she’s been paralysed for the last 7 years and a manic depressive at that. Only I know how I deal with her. When I met you I felt I finally found solace some meaning in my life, but yes, maybe I should have been honest with you upfront. I’m willing to pay the price now.”

It was the oldest trick in the world but it worked. Like a charm. She grew closer to him. Her guilt at her anger on him, resulted in more love and affection than he could imagine. He told her to write down all she was feeling, just her emotions on a piece of paper. She ranted her unhappiness out on that paper.

“I feel a lot lighter”, she said as she hugged him.

“I knew this would make you feel better honey”, he reassured her as he hugged her back.

He knew he had to let her go now. He had managed to cool things off for the time being but there was always the danger that one day she would find out the whole thing. He couldn’t take the chance,

It was a winter’s evening a couple of weeks later that they met again. By the lake. They sat in her car and drank till they were both tipsy. She had dozed off in the driver’s seat. He carefully removed all traces of his fingerprints from the car. His gloved hand gently placed the vodka bottle on the passenger’s seat. The arsenic laced ice cube had done its trick. He gently placed the note she had handwritten a couple of weeks ago inside her pocket, as he gently began pushing the car towards the lake. Even if the cops got a washed out version of it, that would suffice. He had kept a photocopy of the letter in his wallet too.

As he walked away from the lake that evening, he heard the car in neutral finally find its way into the waters. He had to walk a couple of miles before he got a cab. He had left his phone in flight mode in his office. He knew mobile networks could be traced to the exact location.

He read the news the next day in the papers. Both he and his wife expressed shock on the news. After all they knew her socially.

“She was way too lonely. No family, no friends. Just an oddball.”

He kept quiet and nodded a yes as he sipped on his coffee, turning the page to the sports section.

“Maybe its time I let her go completely”, he thought to himself as he got up from the bench by the lake. He removed the folded piece of paper once more his wallet and tore it up in small pieces, he flung the bits to the water and turned his back on the water and walked away. Just as he had done that winter’s night.

He was walking towards the cottage to have a dance with his wife, as he hummed Blue Moon to himself.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar