She woke at her usual early morning hour. The warm tropical air pouring into her bedroom smelled of bougainvillea tinged with the faint aroma of night blooming jasmine. Something was different. It was quiet, so quiet she could hear a gecko chirp in the hallway. She remembered why it was so quiet now. It made her smile.

Then she stretched and slid her hands over the new satin sheets she had put on the bed for the first time, something she had longed to do for years. The satin was soft and gently caressed her skin exactly how she had imagined.

She was alone. No pressing business, no immediate tasks to attend to. No need to rush. She smiled to herself, stretched again, closed her eyes and dozed.

She awoke, glanced at the clock, then slid out of bed and made her way to the bathroom, avoiding the mirror. It was too early to contemplate the ravages time had visited upon her once-athletic body.

She took a long, uninterrupted shower, caught herself checking for bruises out of habit and laughed out loud. No longer any need. She decided to do her stretches in the shower for the first time in years. Glorious.

Dressing quickly, she confronted herself in the mirror. Today would be a no makeup today, as in no-more-need-for-makeup days. No need to put cover up on discolored skin. No need to wear a scarf to cover her neck. No need to wear big sunglasses to deflect attention from ugly dark circles.

 

She stood in front of her sink and gazed out at her garden, her pride and joy. Gardening was one of the few delights she had been allowed, and she made the most of it over the past two years that they had lived in Panama. Plants burst out in all directions, almost filling the space she had been allotted. Spectacular, bright tropical flowers were everywhere, crowding up against taller bougainvillas, flanking a wild assortment of flowering plants including orchids, Mexican Asters, anthuriums, Jewell Pagoda Ginger, hibiscus, bird of paradise, and peace lilies.

The last two, her current favorites, were tucked away in the far corner. They were the gorgeous flowering plants Angel’s Trumpets and Atropa bella donna. Quite common in this area of Central America, their attractiveness hid the fact that all the parts of the plants were deadly poisonous. The Atropa bella donna was named for Atropas, one of the Three Fates in ancient Greek mythology who controlled the destiny of both gods and humans. Atropas’ task was to cut a person’s thread of life, symbolizing the end of their life.

The ancients knew of the poisonous qualities of these plants and history is littered with their use. The Roman empress Livia is thought to have used the plants’ poison to kill her husband, the emperor Augustus. In more modern times, pharmacologists have isolated the tropane alkaloids such as atropine and scopolamine in the plants to use in medicines to regulate heart rates, motion sickness, and for such diseases as Parkinson’s, which she had discovered in her gardening research and found to be particularly interesting.

Two days ago, she had served him his coffee as he required it, then departed for a scheduled appointment with a local female physician, one of the few outings he allowed her to go unaccompanied. She had spent a leisurely meeting with the doctor having her second physical of the young year, then refilled his prescription at the local pharmacy, and dawdled afterward in the public library, searching for another novel from a recently discovered mid-list northern New Mexico author whose thrillers had caught her eye.

When she returned home, she found him sitting in his rocker, quite cold, his hard fists now relaxed in repose, his harsh voice silenced.

She emptied his coffee cup, placed it in the dishwasher, took out another cup, half-filled it from a jar of day-old coffee, placed it in front of the body, and hand washed the jar before replacing it in the cupboard. Next, she took a new coffee maker out of the closet and set it up. While it made another pot of fresh Boquete coffee, she carefully carried the old machine to her car and placed it in the trunk for later disposal.

The police investigation was perfunctory. Unpopular with the locals, her husband’s spotty heart medical history had been well known. The local doctor obligingly signed the death certificate, and the mortuary people arrived to collect the body.

This was Tuesday, market day when people swarmed her normally quiet Panamanian mountain town. Farmers would arrive with their fresh produce, artists with their crafts. She had never been allowed to wander and socialize, had always been pushed or pulled, harsh words in her ear, stopping only long enough to buy, not browse.

Today would be different. Her husband’s body was scheduled for cremation just after noon. More importantly, this would be her first market day visit as a widow.

She looked forward to it.