The Facial Spa
The Solution
Marvin was a man who did his best to prepare for everything. His goals were lofty, but he was often successful and rarely bogged down by the few failures he had endured.
He always said it was due to his carefree optimism. And he did always hope for the best. But only a fool would believe his success was due to anything other than his diligent planning. He prided himself on having a contingency for every detail of his life. He even made a safe room for himself and for Cherry. Inside of which he had several catalogs of self written disaster scenario ‘in case of’ books.
He had hoped for the best. But this time, though, he had not in the slightest thought of what the worst possible outcome might be.
Despite all his meticulous planning, Marvin didn’t have a casket picked out for himself. Despite his ailments, he had never made plans for him actually dying.
There wasn’t much in the way of a will. The prenup that had been drafted and signed only took into account causes for divorce. He knew Cherry was a gold digger, he was just worried she’d take his money and run. He didn’t much care for what happened to his wealth when he was gone. It wouldn’t be his to enjoy anymore. Marvin had intended for Cherry to have everything, eventually.
He might have changed his thoughts on that had he known she was going to kill him.
Certainly his last words wouldn’t have been “I love you, Cherry.” had he known that she was about to push him down a flight of stairs.
She didn’t even cringe as he cried out in pain at the bottom of the steps. Cherry just casually pulled out her phone and called the police, reporting that he had fallen and to send medics.
Oh sure, she made a show of having a worried voice over the phone. But there was no remorse in her eyes.
Laying on his back, feeling his body go into shock, Marvin could see Cherry descend the staircase, phone still to her ear. She eyed him coldly the entire way. Her act on the phone no doubt entirely believable to the dispatcher. She calmly walked down the steps as she spoke in panicked airs answering the dispatcher’s questions.
Marvin looked up and tried to call out, but he didn’t have enough strength.
“Oh god! He’s not breathing! Yes, yes I know CPR! I’ll start right away until the medics get here. Please hurry!” She said, then hung up.
She straddled his chest one last time and traced her fingers down his ribcage. Finding his sternum, she measured out two fingers, then placed her palms one on top of the other. “Goodbye, Marvin.” were her final words before compressing on his xiphoid process.
The crunch of his ribs was disturbing enough to make even Cherry shudder. But she was sure not to just stop after a single compression.
For Marvin, it was not a quick death. Not one that he had, or anyone else, would ever deserve despite their sins.
With his ribs now broken, his liver and lungs punctured, Marvin painfully suffocated on his own blood.
The EMTs arrived as soon as they could, but it still would have been too late. The scene before them like many they had encountered before. A dead body resting at last below the hands of an inexperienced person performing CPR.
There was no reason for the EMTs to have expected foul play when they encountered the woman weeping as she continued her compressions on the dead body.
They might have thought her his daughter, perhaps his caretaker. There may have been some suspicion of foul play had they known the young woman was now a widow. But an old man falling down the stairs was not unheard of. Their job done, the EMT’s looked forward to a quiet ride home bearing no guilt of their own.
Tears flowed down Cherry’s cheeks until the body had been packed away. The paramedics leaving her a pamphlet with a grief counseling phone number and a list of mortuary homes.
With the ambulance gone, Cherry at long last let free a smile of her own will.
Marvin was dead and she was now the sole heir to all of his estates.