Mrs. Buttermaker

    I'm lying in bed, water bottle nearby, TV remote beside me, cozy blanket pulled up, and a book.  I'm reading "Life of Pi."   The television is on, but I'm not really watching it, am more interested in the book.  I hear a sound, as if someone is moving around in another room.  Not the cat, I've already put it out.  And locked the door.  Though I know that locked door has been kicked in twice.  I can still see the footprints on the paint of the second ill-fated door, 2 sneaker prints and the outline of a workboot.  (And I know who owned that boot too.)  I mute the sound on the TV and listen carefully. I hear nothing.  Sometimes the refrigerator knocks; that could have been it.  Or the furnace; it's getting old.  Maybe it's because we're letting the fuel tank run low: it's being replaced on Thursday.  I'm not really afraid, but there's this niggling memory of a story I read in "Atlantic" magazine, years ago, even before I was officially old.  That magazine is on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, and it is such a creepy, terrifying story that I'm reluctant to even stir up the magazine.  I leave it alone, and hope the story repays me in kind.  But it doesn't; though I've mostly blocked from my consciousness the sad conclusion of the life of Mrs. Buttermaker, the threat of memory  is ever present.  The ugliness intrudes on me.  I get up and go to the computer, in the kitchen.  I believe that more meet their demise in the confines of the bedroom than at the keyboard.  Fare thee well, Mrs. Buttermaker. You live forever in my memory.