Rachel Swirsky - 01 - Fields of Gold by Hugo 2012 Nominee Novelette

Author:Hugo 2012 Nominee Novelette
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-04-24T09:04:48+00:00

The morning of November nineteenth was three days before their thirteenth anniversary and two months and five days before Dennis’s thirty-fifth birthday. Karen Halter (née Worth) proposed they stay in that Friday night to celebrate both occasions. She proposed an evening of drinking and making love. Dennis liked having sex when he was drunk, and although it wasn’t Karen’s preference, she tried to indulge him from time to time. She knew it reminded him of being young.

Fifteen years ago, when they’d started dating, Karen had carefully reviewed the guidelines for mixing type one diabetes and alcohol. The liver was involved in both processing alcohol and regulating blood sugar, and consequently, a type one diabetic who got carelessly drunk could preoccupy his liver with the one so that it couldn’t manage the other. Glucose levels required a tricky balance. If they went too high, they could damage a variety of systems. If they went too low, one could become hypoglycaemic or even fall into a coma.

It was trivial to give Dennis more insulin than he needed. She let him inject himself, just in case someone checked later. Not that they would. Everyone knew Dennis was too irresponsible to take care of himself.

She worried when he started puking, but he didn’t suspect anything. He just thought he was drunk.

The sleeping pills were his idea. He was feeling too sick to get to sleep on his own. He asked if he could borrow one of her Ambien and before she could say yes or no, he’d pulled the bottle out of the medicine cabinet. She watched him drunkenly struggle to unscrew the lid.

She hadn’t meant to go this far. She’d wanted to shock him. She’d wanted him to see how bad things could get and grow the fuck up. Yes, she wanted him to suffer a little, too, just so he’d know what it felt like.

If she let him take the pill, it’d be more than that. He wouldn’t be awake to monitor his condition. He wouldn’t be able to call an ambulance when things started going really wrong. He’d get sicker than she’d intended. He could even die.

Karen had matched Dennis drink for drink. No one would suspect her of wrongdoing. At worst, they’d think she’d also been too drunk to notice his symptoms.

With a shock, it occurred to Karen that maybe she’d been planning this all along. Maybe she’d been slowly taking the steps that could lead to Dennis’s death without admitting to herself that was what she was doing. She knew how self-denial worked by now; she’d been married to Dennis for thirteen years, after all.

She eased the bottle from his hand. “Let me do that,” she said, unscrewing the cap. She poured out two pills: one for him and one for her.

Now neither of them could call for help.

In the morning, memory clear and heart pounding, Karen called 911 in a genuine panic. She rode with Dennis in the ambulance, weeping real tears. She cried because she’d become a murderess and she didn’t want to see herself that way.

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