At the Harrison household Jay’s wife, Susan is busy sewing. After this she plans to have a long nap. She did the cleaning of Jay’s party aftermath on her own and now she’s drained as hell, even the sewing feels like a labour of weight lifting. She sighs at her palms. Her phone on the arm of the sofa rings.
“Hello? God morning.”
“Morning, Susan. How are you? How’s Jay?”
“Jay is out. He went to the butcher. What about you.You don’t sound right. What happened? ”
“Is it really that obvious ? Well, I have some terrible news.” A pause of three seconds. “It’s about Rose.”
Susan senses she’s not going to be pleased at what she’s going to hear next. Jasmine tells her anyway: “I phoned to inform you about Rose’s passing,” Jasmine says.
“What?”
“She killed herself. Police found her this morning. I also called Violet to tell her.”
“Oh, God,” Susan’s hand to her mouth. That tired feeling of needing a long nap is gone. “Are you serious? When–when did this happen?”‘
“Like I said, this morning, I think. ”
Jay walks in with two plastic written Jay’s Meat. He owns a couple of butcheries around town and he’d occasionally come in the mornings to check how business is going. “Who you talking to?” He asks.
“I’m talking to Jasmine. She was telling me about Rose,” Susan says.
Jay rolls his eyes at the sound of that name, remembers how everything was going good last night until the witch wet his face with wine, how he had to endure the eyes bored at him as Susan dried him up. His party celebration was almost ruined. “I think it’s best if you no longer mention that woman’s name around here. Do me that favour.”
“She killed herself, Jay,” Susan tells him.
He only freezes in a loss of words, with a stare of confusion like what he’s just heard was told in a foreign language. He finds himself and shrugs.
Susan returns the phone on the ear.”Jasmine?”
“I’m still here. Is that Jay you were talking to?”
“Yeah, he has just walked in. I realy can’t believe that Rose would..commit suicide. I mean that’s just..”
“Shocking. Unbelievable, I know,” Jasmine says.
“We need to go check up on Violet. She can’t be left on her own right now.”
“You right. Wait before you hang up. Do you happen to know anyone named Romeo? Rose’s friend?” asks Jasmine.
“Romeo?” Susan looks up in thought for a while. “No. Romeo? No,” she shakes her head, “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Are you sure?’
“Yes I’m certain. Why? What happened?”
“Nothing much. Bye.”