Sleeping Single

Buddy had his hands at 2 and 10 cautiously transporting the newest winner of the county short story contest, his 15 year old daughter Ida Mae. Though the trophy was small and had a plastic feel, Ida was mesmerized by its painted gold flecks and beaming with pride that something represented her craft.

In competition with the sleepy farming counties of 100 young writers, it was still a honor to be chosen by the local teachers. Though most weren't big city learned, they enjoyed Ida's natural wit and observational tales of growing up rural and regarded her as someone who was meant for something bigger.

Buddy always wondered how Ida got into creative endeavors. Her Mother, Tula, was a church organist who said very little. Sundays were solemn moments of prayer. A Mennonite convert who chose to opt out of simple living for a dishwasher and perhaps a hi-fi stereo. She loved her Barbara Mandrell albums.

"Thinking 'bout college, Ida?"
Ida looked up to her father, and smiled. The thought had not crossed her mind as she knew his life as a tractor repairman didn't exactly put them in a college sensibility.
"I dunno, pa. I guess."
"You should go. You've a very good brain, and wouldn't want it to go to waste."

It was high praise from a man who was typically stoic. And seemed to unnerve Ida that he would be so forthright with his compliments.
"Thanks, pa.
"'Aint no business in this shitburgh town that could get you to where you need to get. I think you should study to tell stories too."

It really threw her off this time. There was no real practical sense of telling tales from a man who worked with his hands. Hell, even shown her how to take apart a distributor cap.
Buddy fiddled with his John Deere cap, smiled at her "all them kids didn't have what you had, baby." Maybe he was building her confidence, but Ida blushed regardless.

"I just got lucky is all."

Buddy made a sudden turn towards the side of the road and jammed it into park.
"Don't EVER sell yourself short. All them kids' folks would've been damn near plastering banners about them. Damn proud of you. That wasn't luck. That was you." His face had gotten as red as the devil.

Ida reeled back, shocked at the sudden outburst. She was speechless. A lot of heavy kind words delivered aggressively yet seemed to want to deliver a point. Never had she heard these things from anyone. Not even from her Mother. Maybe it was because Buddy never saw what thoughts shared between people could mean. That his own drunken abusive Father would rather hit first and ask questions later. That he was built to toil in hot sun while collecting a menial paycheck to get by. It seemed her own Father understood what he had spent his efforts on and it was her success that he could hang his cap on.

The beaten Oldsmobile sputtered down the backroad in silence and disappeared over the next hill

The police report would read different. The account typically rarely includes the lead up to what actually occurs. It's just the facts. And the facts were, that Buddy had gotten home that night, and after a dinner of meatloaf and biscuits, took his Stoeger double barrel shotgun and killed his wife. Then he turned it on himself.

Ida had gone to sleep early that night. Mandrell's "Sleeping Single In A Double Bed" was still playing when she was awaken by the first shot. She'd raced down to see her Father had turned the barrel towards himself. Ida would later write that he was still wearing his John Deere cap. At the dinner table. A no-no in Mom's world. And something that she would tell therapist decades later, he had winked at her before pulling the trigger.

In her 40's now, Ida sits at the dinner table in the suburbs in Ohio. Her house the biggest on the block. A framed photo of the cover of her best-selling collection of short stories hangs behind her husband, who at this moment shovels meatloaf into his mouth from bone china, reading something off his smart phone. Her two daughters playfully bicker. A gentle tune plays throughout the house.
Ida smiles to herself. Content at life. "Alexa, play Barbara Mandrell"
"Sleeping Single In A Double Bed" kicks in. "Mom! I hate country music" one of her daughters whines.
Her husband looks up at her...did he just see her wink?