The Sound of Broken Ribs
Edward Lorn
“I'll tell you all of my fears I'll tell you all of my shame
If you'll just lend me an ear
That's all I want.”
~ Jon Gomm, “Everything”
“And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”
~ The Bible, various authors.
“I’m not a fucking rib,”
~ The Truth, various women.
This novel is dedicated to all the women in my life.
~E.
PART
ONE
In forty-five minutes, she’d be fighting for her life. But, for now, Lei Duncan was typing The End.
She sat back and stretched her arms over her head. Her back popped in several places as did her shoulders. She hit ctrl S and saved the rough draft of her sixth novel. Then she emailed a copy to herself, her husband, and uploaded the book to three different cloud sites. Safe and secure, the book would sit in cyberspace for the next three months while she edited the last one.
She closed her laptop, gazed out the picture window. The lilacs overtook the old lightning oak in the backyard. People said lightning never struck twice in the same place. Lei begged to differ. She knew for a fact that the oak out back had been hit at least three times. By now, the tree was more lightning rod than tree.
Her coffee was cold, but she sipped it, anyway. Black with one sugar. Dad used to drink it like that. Her husband Harry couldn’t stand the stuff unless he poured half a quart of cream in his mug. He liked a little coffee with his half-and-half.
She grabbed her cell phone from where it lay next to the laptop. She texted Harry two words.
I’M DONE!
The excitement present in that text was not shared by its sender. She never got happy after the completion of a rough draft. That would be like celebrating snagging the World Cup after winning the first game of the season. There were multiple drafts left to do. Once the book was constructed to her liking, she’d send it to her beta readers to find out if she’d done a decent job of telling the story. If they liked it, she’d do one last self-edit before sending it to her publisher. After that, copy-editing and proof approvals, and holy shit was she tired of the process. Just thinking about it exhausted her.
But she was a self-proclaimed attention whore. Most authors were. Once the reviews started coming in touting her as the best thing since the invention of battery-operated vibrators, she’d finally be able to relax and consider the idea that this author biz was worth it. Because writing, at the end of the day, is masturbation—the stroking of one’s ego. And, like masturbation, one could do it publicly, but not without backlash. But the idea that someone might want to see such things, that they might applaud your efforts in playing with yourself, had an irresistible siren’s call.
CONGA RATS!!! was Harry’s reply.
Her husband was an idiot. A lovable idiot, but an idiot all the same.
“Retard,” she said to an empty room. Like most people, her political correctness was nonexistent while in the privacy of her own home. She texted him that she loved him and had another stretch before getting ready for her daily run.
*
Belinda Walsh awoke to a persistent knocking on her front door.
She slipped on the pair of jeans she’d left by the side of the bed the night prior, and, still zombified by sleep, shambled down the hallway.
Yawning, she pulled open the front door. A sheriff’s deputy stood on her porch. Her stomach dropped several stories.
Dan’s dead. Jesus Christ, my Dan’s dead and I’m a fucking widow. What the hell am I going to do now?
“Mrs. Walsh?”
—your husband’s been in an accident.
“Yes—Yes, I’m Belinda Walsh.” And then idiotically, she added, “But everyone calls me Bee.” The smile on her face was a nervous, twitching thing—electrified earthworms mating.
“I regret to inform you that—”
—you’ll have to come down to the morgue and identify the remains—
“—you’re being evicted.”
“I’m sorry—what?”
The deputy handed her a thick stack of papers that had been folded into a long rectangle.
“You have until the fifth to vacate the premises.”
“This is some kind of mistake. Our rent’s up to date, I’m sure of—Jesus Christ, this is some kind of joke—right?” She leaned out of the door and glanced left and right, sought the camera crews and celebrity host waiting to pounce. They’d scream, “Got you!” and everyone would devolve into laughter. Big fun, now go the fuck on somewhere.
But there was no camera crew. No celebrity host. Only the black and gold Sheriff’s cruiser parked at the street.
She was dreaming, then. She shook her head, tried to escape this nightmare scenario.
“It’s no mistake, ma’am. It’s no joke, either. Your rent is six months past due. You’re being evicted. You have a week from today to vacate the premises. That’s the fifth. It’s all there in the paperwork. You try to have a good day.” He tipped his obnoxious hat and swaggered his self-important ass down the steps to his silly fucking cruiser.