Sixteen: Clairvoyant

   She received the phone call at noon, on her lunch break. The children were filing, single file into the cafeteria, Mary Jane's and dirty, light up sneakers clicking against the cold, speckled linoleum, as the bright florescent lights, cheap lighting, the kinds that the public school board could afford to install in the elementary school, as she answers the unknown number, exhausted. It's an old school, made of limestone and concrete blocks, the construction materials the seventies favored. Everything was painted white, white paint that was peeling, flaking onto a floor that use to be bright white and is now yellowed, like a smoker's teeth stained with nicotine and despair.  

Familiar... Something about this, was familiar... I was looking, watching a scene from a movie that had yet to be written, yet to be produced, yet to be published, yet I already knew the plot, knew the ending.

   The voice on the line was gruff, tired, matching her attitude. 

I knew this voice... She was standing their, holding a phone, listening to a man I knew speak. 

   The school district was poor, the children who attended poorer. They'd be going home- home to broken homes filled with malnourished souls, barren of hope- for winter break, where Hanukkah, Christmas, Yule, the holidays would all pass, as the cheery, five year old faces, their skin hanging haunt from their cheekbones, they haven't ate anything but Ramen and canned tuna since they left school, would sit in their rooms, waiting for January to come. She knew this was the routine of her students, she knew she couldn't remedy it, she couldn't afford to, with the divorce proceedings, finding a new apartment. There were budget cuts going all around, one of her coworkers, a blonde, slightly plump coworker, was laid off.
   Things weren't easier for the man on the line, either.

Where did I know him from? What was I watching? This isn't the right plot.

   The sugary cinnamon gingerbread, the sparkling lights, the dazzling displays in the mall, they brightened the spirits, but he dampened them, calling, giving the news to those who still had a tiny light, a tiny sense that, perhaps, this holiday season would be different, lingering within them.
   "Ma'am, I'm calling about your husband-" 
Husband. I knew who this was, who she was and who she was married to.
   "Ex-husband." She scoffed.

Ex-husband? I didn't know this story, I thought I did, it's so... So familiar. 

   She glanced at a lunch lady, elderly, lines of regret, of happiness, lines forming an outline of face on her life. The wedding ring, modest silver on her left ring finger, covered by plastic gloves, a finger that belonged to a hand that was clutching a scoop, as she methodically gave schoolchildren one serving of green peas, lukewarm, from an industrial sized, metal can. This lunch lady had a minimum wage, but perhaps she had a loving spouse at home, a loving spouse who gave her a ring when the job of serving children was just her starting out, just something to pay the bills until she found something better.
   She had a ring, a gorgeous, vintage thing, it was her husband's mother's.

My ring, my ring, why did she have my ring? 

   She had to give it back when they declared that they were separated. She mailed it to him, in a manilla envelope, with a note, detailing her feelings towards him in a rather vulgar way.
   They were still separated, horrendous courts, moving slowly. They were supposed to be divorced by the new year, a new year he'd celebrate by getting hammered at the annual office party that was held at some cheap dive, he'd get a bit too smashed, he'd grope the bartender, who was always some sort of petite, dark haired girl, who moved her for college and was just moonlighting temporarily, hoping being busty would earn her tips, hoping that men and women ogling over her small town beauty would make up for her not knowing the difference between a screwdriver and a mimosa or how to make anything that didn't end in -tini. He'd be suspend for the sexual harassment.

I thought I knew her husband, even drunk... Even drunk, he wasn't the groping type. What changed? Why were they separated?

   She'd celebrate by dressing up in leopard print pumps, a scandalous black dress, taking a swig of Everclear, and stumbling into her friend's party an hour late, a party she was only invited to out of pity. Her friend was pretty, her coworker, a raven haired girl who was recently engaged, holding her first party as a fiancee. She's drink champagne, tell humorous stories of her journeys as a kindergarten teacher, a job with no room for promotion, to the friend's sister, a guest also in animal print pumps, a guest also in a tight black dress, a guest also invited out of pity. They'd talk, they'd dance, at midnight they'd go to the guest bathroom, one of them would prop themselves up on the sink, they'd get to third base before one of them, both too intoxicated to think, would stumble, pulling them both onto the floor, where they'd wake up the next morning, smelling of alcohol and shame. They'd look at the other person and realize that they were more attractive, their skin smoother, their hair shinier, their bosoms bigger, when their blood alcohol levels were higher.
   Instead of this pathetic celebration each divorcee would take part in, she was stuck, separated, telling people he was her ex when, officially, they were a few signatures away from that being true.

   "Ma'am," he sighed, his tone filled with despair, now was not the time for untrue technicalities.
   He spoke slow, as she felt her heart reach her throat, her intestines twist into knots, as her revulsion of the term husband was replaced by melancholy, she ran out of the building, as her breaths quickened. Her driving was manic, as the snow fell faster and faster, obscuring her vision of the road, she slid on the black ice, barely making it to the scene alive. She scampered out of the car that she left haphazardly running, the keys still in the ignition, past the yellow tape and the voices yelling at her to respect the crime scene.

   She ran in her black tights, her brown ankle boots, her rust red dress that was inappropriate for the bitter winter weather, but the only thing she had in her closet that passed as work appropriate; her teacher dresses were dirtied, her washing machine broken, she was broke, she couldn't afford a replacement, she couldn't afford the laundromat.
   His body was spread across the billowing white snow, snow that had already begun to partially cover his navy uniform, the silver badge with his name engraved upon it, glistening in the bleak afternoon sunlight.

What was going on? Why, why was she running towards him, why was he lying on the hard, frigid ground?  

   She looked down at him, his angelic blonde hair, his sharp features, tanned skin... His chest, you could almost see his abs through his tight uniform. 

Look at his chest, not his abs, dammit! Look, look, he isn't breathing! Dammit.  

   Had he started working out? Her eyes moved from his stomach, to his chest, where she saw what everyone already knew. It was moving, it wasn't moving rhythmically, up, down, up down, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
   "No..." The whisper was soft, it barely escaped her chapped lips.

   She collapsed onto the snow, taking his cold hand, feeling his wrist for a pulse. She was cold, his skin was colder. She ignored their cries of pity, demanding that she step away from the body, she's contaminating the crime scene, she'll get hypothermia.

 
   "Get an ambulance! Why has anyone called a fucking ambulance?" She keeps screaming, as she clutches his hand, intertwining her fingers with his lifeless ones. There isn't a pulse, she knows it too late, by the time anyone called to report a body, he was already gone.She seems the crimson blood that stains the innocent, crisp white snows, as tears begin welling up in her eyes and nausea, a nausea that had returned every morning since she went jogging and had been dehydrated... She thought it was something it wasn't, but she couldn't bring herself to believe that her symptoms were caused by what they were, not now, not with him, a few months ago, yes, but she couldn't find out now.
   She wouldn't have known so soon if it hadn't been for the fact that he hadn't removed her as his emergency contact, a simple mistake, or an endearing sign that he still had hope for them... She wanted to believe the second option, as despair filled her, hot tears rolling down her cheeks, burning her frozen skin. He was gone.
   What had she said last to him?
   I hate you.
   I hate you.
   I hate you.
   I HATE you.
   I HATE YOU.
   I fucking HATE YOU.
   I FUCKING HATE YOU.

Why? Why had she said that to them? Why were they getting divorced? Was it his job? This... This was too familiar. Déjà vu? No, no, this a sense of what's yet to come, not the repetition of what had already occurred.

   "James..." She whispered, kissing his hand, tenderly.
   "Ms. Mumsy, I'm sorry, we're going to have to ask you to please, come with me away from... Away from him." The cop, a nameless face holding a Styrofoam cup of burnt coffee gently placed their hand on her shoulder, as she began screaming that she should have never stormed out of their apartment, she should have accepted his apology, she shouldn't have reverted back to her maiden name.

She was me. The body was James. This is why it was familiar, it was us, we'd, we'd fought, we'd... Our future?

   My eyes darted open, as my heart beat faster and faster, and the shrieks burst from my lungs, as I screamed, I screamed louder and louder, as if I was the one who had been ruthlessly murdered, as if I was the one who had been mercilessly shot. I heard the clamoring feet,the gruff voice calling my name, asking if I was alright.
   I was.
   Alternative-universe-nightmare-me was not.

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