Part 1 - The Beginning

Walter Hubbard loved his wife more than his own life. It was unfortunate for her that he had tried to commit suicide no less than three times, possibly more. And now, as Mr. Hubbard comforted the love of his life while she wept in grief over the lost love of another man, he considered how difficult it would be to bury himself alive. Granted, he might need some help tossing the dirt back onto his bound up body…he could pay someone to do that…but would that count as suicide? He’d be perfectly willing to dig the hole himself, right in his own back yard, if need be. But those nasty laws of the universe (especially the one where you can’t be two places at once) prevented this plan from developing into fruition. Happily, he realized he’d already been digging his own grave for 17 years, it was just a matter of time before someone else took pity and helped throw a little dirt on his face.
“Oh darling, I loved him so much, and now he’s gone, gone forever and he’ll never come back to me, never! Oh, what’ll I do!”
And there it was.
Walter remained as comforting and as loving as possible through the whole ordeal. The ordeal had, in fact, been of his own orchestration…an ordeal he foolishly thought would bring his wife back to him. One that would make her see how much she needed him, how much they needed each other. It took him months to convince her to ask Stan Meierhoffsteinschmidtberger out to dinner.
“You silly man! Why on earth would I do that?” she declared.
“Darling, if it’s a matter of hurting my feelings, have no fear. I want you to experience the sort of freedom we missed out on by marrying so early.”
“Oh, it’s not that, Walter…”
“Then what is it my sweet?”
“Women can’t ask MEN out. It’s against the rules. I would never ask him out first. If this is going to happen, I need to have a plan. I need to lure him in, not corner him. If there’s anything I’ve learned from fifteen years of…marriage, it’s this: men feel threatened when they’re trapped. No offence.”
“None taken.”
“So what I need to do first, is go shopping. I’ll need new shoes and a killer dress if I’m going to get Stan to ask me out. Give me the credit card.”
“Anything, my love.”
Okay, so it hadn’t taken months to convince her. But Walter liked to think that she would have held out longer if Stan hadn’t told her himself that very day that he would be moving to Flagstaff in two months time to open up another Tasty Freeze franchise. And so it began. Walter Hubbard knew that it would not take much for his darling wife to attract the attentions of another man, if she hadn’t already.
She was quite a beautiful woman, by any man’s standards. Her hair was a tall sort of floofy arrangement of peroxide curls sprayed into place by some not insignificant amount of hairspray each morning. When Walter looked at it, he liked to think of it as a slightly yellow cloud sitting upon the bold brown mountains that were her eyebrows. And, he always loved the way she scraped away excess red lipstick in the mornings with her well manicured French nails. Yes, she was quite beautiful. And Stan Meierhoffsteinschmidtberger was just the sort of man Walter knew would treat his wife with the sort of respect a married woman looking to have an open marriage would deserve…and then be out of town by August. He never thought for a second that she would fall in love with him, or that her love would be the beginning of the end for the Meierhoffsteinschmidtberger line.
Walter looked at Alice Hubbard now as she leaned over her knees, one hand covering her face, one digging into the clear plastic covering on their brown velvet sofa that was their first purchase together after their honeymoon. It was quite a good deal at the time, really. The custom plastic covering cost almost as much as the couch itself. In fact it may have cost more. Walter made a mental note to check the receipts that were still tucked safely under his bed.
Walter suddenly realized two things. First, he realized that this was only the second time he remembered his wife sitting on the couch in their living room. And second, he realized how lovely she was as she sat there sobbing over the death of Stan Meierhoffsteinschmidtberger, the owner of the Tasty Freeze, and the most eligible bachelor in town…until recently.