Gilded Cage

Jenny sensed the change in her body while she was delivering the lecture to her advanced human anatomy and physiology class. A fluttering in her chest.

Probably anxiety.

She was carrying a hellish class load this semester. On top of that, her husband’s mood the past week had her on pins and needles.

The wispy tickle in her chest distracted her. She lost track of what her students said in response to her questions. As soon as class ended, Jenny stuffed her materials into her bag and rushed out of the classroom.

The drive home only made it worse. On the best of days, she dreaded coming home, never knowing what to expect from Matthew. Was he going to be the thoughtful, loving man she married three years ago? Or was he going to be the angry, dismissive dictator who had begun to take up residence in their house eight months ago?

Now, though, the weird feeling in her chest exacerbated the dread. She pulled into the driveway. Matthew’s car wasn’t in his spot, so she relaxed.

Once inside, she tossed her bag on the floor and ran to the bedroom. As she pulled off her blouse and skirt, she padded over to the mirror that hung on the closet door.

Jenny screamed at her reflection.

Where solid flesh had been just hours earlier was a birdcage. Somehow its top melded with her scapula and clavicle. Its bottom connected to her lumbar vertebrae. Everything above and below the birdcage looked normal, covered in healthy-looking skin. Where her heart and ribs should be was this golden cage. It imprisoned a bright red bird.

The bird inside the cage was a cardinal, and it rested on a perch in Jenny’s torso. It tilted its head and stared at her with very round, black eyes. When she touched the bars of the cage, the bird flapped its wings. The fluttering sensation tickled her chest.

Jenny backed away from the mirror until her legs met the bed. As she sank onto the mattress, her reflection did the same. Reaching into her chest, she ran her hands up and down the cold metal bars.

The cardinal began to sing a trilling cheer-cheer-cheer.

Jenny opened her mouth to sing along, and the back door lock clicked.

Matthew.

She jumped from the bed and grabbed a sweatshirt. She pulled it over her head, then gently shimmied it down to cover the birdcage. After sliding into some jeans, she checked her reflection. In the mirror, her body appeared as it always did. The shape of the cage beneath her shirt was not apparent.

“Hey,” Matthew called from the living room. “You home, Jen?”

“Yes!” She stepped out of the bedroom and found him kicking off his leather Oxfords.

Matthew flopped down on the couch and grabbed the remote control for the television. “Jesus, what a day. Kids turned in their philosophy papers. I’m sick of Kant! Hey, get me a beer from the fridge.”

He mashed a button on the remote. The television screen brightened. The familiar banter of two sports commentators filled the air.

I’ve got something inside of me.

And you don’t even know it.

She crossed her arms carefully against her chest. A full minute passed before Matthew realized she hadn’t moved to the kitchen.

“Did you hear me? I said, get me a beer.”

It’s time.

“We need to talk.”

Matthew turned his head. “About what?”

“I need…I want you to move out.”

When he stood and walked around the couch, she felt wings batter the cage that served as her ribs. Arms still crossed, she pressed her back flat against the wall next to the bedroom doorway. Even though she didn’t understand the physical transformation she was experiencing, she was sure of one thing. She didn’t want Matthew to know what was going on inside her body.

He moved to stand in front of her. The top of her head was level with his shoulders, so he seemed to loom over her. “What do you mean?”

“I want a divorce.”

“Why?”

“You know why.” Her voice trembled when she said, “You hit me.”

He sighed and ran his hands through his thick hair. “I don’t mean to, Jen. I love you so much that I get carried away sometimes.”

“Like when I came back from that conference?”

Matthew had forbidden her to go, but she went anyway. She and Jason had spent two months preparing their presentation. On her return to the house, Matthew had smacked her so hard it loosened one of her back teeth.

Now he grabbed her by her shoulders. His fingers dug into her skin, making her wince. The wings within her beat so furiously that she was afraid he would hear the noise. But he didn’t seem to notice.

“You can’t do this to me,” he said. “I need you.”

“That hurts! Let go of me.”

She tried to twist out of his grip. He moved his hands down to her upper arms and shook her so hard that she inadvertently bit her tongue. A metallic taste flooded her mouth. She swallowed blood.

“I’ll do more than hurt you if you leave me.” He shook her again. Her head rocked back and banged against the wall. “I’ll kill you, Jen. Do you understand? I’ll kill you before I let you leave.”

When she nodded, Matthew released her. She stumbled away from him and into the kitchen. At the sink, Jenny slurped some cold water straight from the faucet and swished it around inside her mouth. She spit into the sink basin. Her stomach roiled at the sight of the red sputum sliding into the drain. She started to tremble.

“Grab me that beer like I told you,” Matthew said. He walked back to the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table.

Still shaking, Jenny retrieved a bottle from the refrigerator and carried it to him. He nodded as he took it from her. “Why do you make me do stuff like that, Jen?”

When she started to walk away, he grasped her wrist and pulled her down next to him. His arm harnessed her shoulders. They sat that way for the next few hours, only moving when she got up to get him another beer.

Matthew drank a six-pack plus one before he was ready for bed. He leaned on her as she guided him to the bedroom, then he flopped down on the mattress and began to snore. Jenny crawled onto the bed and lay at the edge of it. She placed her face against a pillow and screamed into it. Then she cried herself to sleep.

She awoke to a sharp pain in her chest. Rolling over, she found Matthew still passed out. She crawled off the bed and tiptoed to the bathroom. After closing the door, she pulled up her sweatshirt.

The cardinal rested on the floor of the cage. The sheen of its wings was dull. The bird’s dark red beak parted, and it pecked at the bars of the cage. When it did, Jenny recognized the sharp pain.

She stuck her forefinger through the bars and caressed the bird’s crest, which had started to droop. It flapped its wings slowly. It opened its beak as if to sing, but croaked instead. It pecked at the bars again.

Jenny pulled down the sweatshirt and left the bathroom. She climbed back into bed. Lying flat on her back, she counted the tiles on the ceiling. Her eyes watered.

A nearby rustling noise startled her. She rolled over and peered at Matthew, but he hadn’t moved. He sounded like a chainsaw. His snoring always got worse when he went to bed drunk.

Whissp. Whissp.

That noise again.

She sat up.

Whissp. Whissp. It was close.

Matthew lay on his back. Jenny rose to her knees and leaned over her husband.

Whissp. Whissp. The noise was coming from him.

Jenny laid her hand against his chest. It moved. Not the regular rise and fall of the breath, but a shifting. Fingers trembling, she slowly unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, then pulled away. He didn’t stir.

She slipped the next button out of its hole, then a third. She jerked away from him when he snorted. He smacked his mouth, then resumed snoring. Jenny continued unbuttoning his shirt, then pulled back the fabric to reveal his chest.

She mashed her fist against her mouth to bottle up her scream.

Larger than hers, Matthew’s birdcage had rusty iron bars. Confined in his chest was a hawk. It clutched its perch with sharp talons and stared at Jenny with baleful red eyes. It ruffled its feathers and moved sideways. When she touched a bar of the cage, the hawk nipped her with its hooked bill. She cried out.

Still, Matthew didn’t move.

Jenny rubbed her wounded finger against her sweatshirt, smearing it with blood.

She crawled off the bed and crept to the kitchen, where she searched through a cabinet drawer. After retrieving two oven mitts, she pulled them onto her hands, and she returned to the bedroom. She paused in the doorway, fearful that she may have awakened Matthew. But he was as she had left him, still snoring.

When she got back onto the bed, the hawk gave a shrill call. Jenny froze, sure now that Matthew would wake up. She didn’t move again until she was sure that he would continue to sleep.

Muttering a low prayer of thanks that he had passed out, she fumbled with the latch on his cage. The oven mitts hindered her dexterity, but she finally got the cage open. She shoved one hand into it and grabbed the hawk. It flapped its wings and screeched when she withdrew it, so she used her other hand to hold its beak shut.

The hawk struggled for its freedom with savage ferocity. One of its talons scratched Jenny’s cheek as she fought to subdue it. She sensed blood streaming down her face. She clambered from the bed and crouched on the floor, somehow managing to pin the bird’s legs and wings beneath her. Using her teeth, Jenny pulled off one mitt at a time, then placed her bare hands around the bird’s neck. She glanced at Matthew, but he hadn’t stirred.

Jenny peered into the hawk’s blood-red eyes. She found death there.

She tightened her grip on its neck. The bird thrashed beneath her.

Tighter.

The hawk was strong.

I’m stronger.

She crushed its throat, dimming the dread light of its eyes. Its talons flexed, then grew still. Panting, Jenny fell back from the dead bird, kicking it across the room. It hit the closet door with a feathery thump.

Jenny crawled over to the bed and pulled herself to her knees. Matthew’s chest had returned to normal. Skin stretched tight over muscle, blood, and bone. However, his eyes were wide open and set, his lips blue.

She laid her head against his chest. No heartbeat.

She grasped his wrist to take his pulse. As she did so, she saw a bracelet of a bruise on her wrist. Jenny let his arm drop back to the mattress.

Why am I taking his vitals?

He’s dead.

She staggered to the bedroom mirror and pulled up her sweatshirt.

The cardinal swung on its perch. Its feathers gleamed.

When Jenny stuck her finger through the bars, it preened itself against her fingertip.

The bird whistled, then it began to sing.