Double-stitched

The storm is past — but she’s not free. She's not even alone.

Aveline sat mending her worn cotton blouse with practiced calm. He’d torn it the night before – the cloth had given way before she did.

The air was heavy with humidity and thick with the smell of river mud. Lantern light glinted on the needle as she drew it through the fabric again and again. Each stitch was precise, her hands steady. She breathed calmly.

Night draped over the houseboat, pushed way up a hidden creek into the trees for safety – the weatherman on the radio kept saying there was a hurricane. The wind was blowing the moss and rippling the water but up here she’d be fine. Wouldn’t no hurricane ever touch her here – and wouldn’t nobody ever stumble across what she was gonna have to do.

In the next room, Jacques was raging drunk, shouting at shadows, slurring in that Cajun French of his. Tonight it was so thick she couldn’t understand it even though she’d been listening to him for years. She heard bottles knocking over and falling to the deck.

Calmly, Aveline rose from her chair, set her sewing down, and picked up a fresh bottle of cheap corn whiskey. She moved deliberately through the galley as the radio warned of the hurricane’s progress in a detached, ominous voice.

“...category four… one hundred and forty miles per hour… getting stronger… Do not take this lightly, folks.”

She stepped quietly, navigating the chaos of overturned furniture and broken glass. Jacques had done more damage here than any hurricane ever would – had done more hurt to her than any enemy ever could.

“Here, Hon,” she said as she held the bottle out toward him. “I got you a little extra hurricane party here.” She held the bottle by the bottom and extended the neck just inside his reach. She wanted him to grab the bottle, not her. The houseboat rocked and Jacques stumbled back, bracing against the wall. His eyes were suspicious, hateful, demeaning. He snatched the bottle and twisted the cap open.

Aveline nodded once, and returned to her blouse, settling back at the table with the calm that came from knowing she’d soon be rid of him… forever.

Later, when he had finally collapsed into their bed, snoring open-mouthed, Aveline dragged a cinder block from under the bed. She had to lift it with both hands. She set it on the bed between Jacques’ sprawled feet. The mattress bounced a little bit but Jacques just snored on.

She went back to the galley and pulled her sewing bag out from behind her chair. From the bottom of the bag she pulled a four-foot length of spare anchor rope she’d cut the week before. She had carefully whipped the end of the remaining coil and put it back into the locker just as it had been, in case Jacques had happened upon it before…

Stepping back into the bedroom she gently looped a bowline around his ankle – snug but not tight enough for the discomfort to break through his alcoholic haze. She threaded the other end of the rope through one of the holes in the cinder block and threw a snug bowline around Jacques’ other ankle. That ain’t goin’ nowhere.

She had sewn two sheets together – overlapped and double stitched, and when she’d made up the bed she’d tucked the extra material under the mattress so it looked like a normal sheet. Now she pulled it out from under one side and laid it across Jacques. She went around the bed and straightened the sheet so it lay even. Then she pulled the excess out from under that side and laid it across her husband’s sleeping form. Except for his face, he was swaddled in two layers.

She reached up and pulled the needle out of her pocket – already threaded with several feet of floss. It did not take her long to stitch and double-stitch along one side of the shroud. Her hands knew where every stitch belonged – had known for years. She moved around the bed to start stitching the other side – and Jacques snorted.

Her hand froze. You’d better not wake up you son of a bitch. Just you lay there like a good little asshole. Aveline held her breath until he snorted again, turned his head to the other side, and sighed back into his toxic stupor. Then she continued stitching.

Every stitch she made was another memory, another humiliation, another insult. The countless nights of pain… fear… blood… Like when he would come back to the boat already sloppy drunk but still strong enough to bend her over that goddam galley table and… Or the times he would come back with his own greasy funk mixed with some whore’s smell. The times he’d fouled the sheets so bad she’d wanted to throw them away – but they couldn’t afford new ones because he couldn’t hold a job. The times she’d told the hospital people she just fell and she saw in their eyes they knew the truth – Aveline was a pitiful bitch.

When she had the entire shroud stitched – except across his face – she stood looking down at him.

How did we get here? We wasn’t always this fucked up. There must of been some good times… Aveline turned to look at herself in the mirror and sighed. I guess them first few months was pretty hot – and you was a hell of a lot better lookin’ back then…

“Hmmph,” she concluded, and threw the corner of the sheet over his face, pulling the other corner to straighten the sides. Jacques snored as Aveline carefully placed the last few stitches. When she was finished, she moved around the bed, running her hand along the stitches, carefully checking her work.

Then she paused for a long moment.

You dumb-ass bitch. How am I supposed to move him now? She stood there, hands resting on the edge of the bed, trying to think.

Jacques snorted.

His body shifted, startled, and the sheet twisted tight around him. He kicked once, hard, and the mattress lurched but his legs stayed where they were.

His hands pressed up under the cloth, palms flat, fingers splayed.

“Ave…”

The sound came out slurred and panicked. He sucked in air and shouted again, louder, and his hands found the seam. He pushed again and she heard a stitch pop loose.

No, no, no.

Aveline stepped back. Then she turned and went into the galley.

She pulled the locker open so hard it banged, and grabbed a big cast iron skillet. It was heavier than she remembered. She gripped it with both hands and went back into the bedroom.

Jacques had torn a short gap in the sheet. His mouth was pressed against it, dragging at the air.

In the half-light, she took one sliding step and brought the skillet down on his head with a clang, and his body jumped against the mattress. He made a muffled noise and tried to turn away.

She swung again. This time there was no clang, just a dull, heavy sound.

After that she didn’t remember for a long while.

When she finally dropped the skillet, her hands were shaking so badly she had to press them to the edge of the bed. She had gripped the handle so hard her fingers hurt.

The Jacques-shaped lump in the sheet lay still.

She waited.

Nothing.

Aveline wiped her hands on her skirt and looked at the bed. The room smelled like sweat and whiskey and… something. The candles had burned low, wax pooling on the dresser.

“Alright,” she said, to nobody. “We still alright.”

Try as she might, she could not slide him off the bed.

She went around to his head and grabbed the corners of the sheet, twisting them in her hands. She was able to sit him up, head slumping toward his knees. She pulled and backed away and the body dropped off the side of the bed with a thud.

As loud as they’d been with their fights over the years, as loud as she’d been when she’d hit him with the pan, when he thumped against the floor she hunched her shoulders up around her ears.

She stood quietly for a moment. Ain’t nobody out in the swamp at night in a hurricane, bitch. Get on with it. Still she listened as the wind sighed in the trees and water sloshed against the bottom of the boat.

Switching between the top and bottom ends of the improvised sack, she managed to inchworm Jacques’ weight across the floor and out onto the deck. She dropped the load and leaned back against the wall, breathing, listening into the night. The announcer on the radio was still talking about the hurricane.

“...landfall at Avery Island… swung east across the Mississippi near St. Francisville… beeline for the new Winsome Reservoir...”

Hear that, Jacques? Storm’s already come an’ gone. We home free now.

Aveline dragged him to the side of the boat, her arms screaming from the weight. She pressed her hands to her knees and bent over, catching her breath. Every sound – water lapping, wind sighing through the trees, the creak of the houseboat – made her flinch. She felt like she was being watched – like the darkness had leaned in close to look at her and Jacques.

She paused, hand on the cinder block, staring down at him.

Is one cinder block enough? She pushed it a couple of inches, gauging its size, remembering its weight. Need something heavier. Gotta sink him deep.

She went to the locker where she’d gotten the rope. Her fingers closed on a length of heavy chain. Dragging it out of the locker she dropped it on the deck beside Jacques. Under the deck, she found a spare anchor. She returned to him and, with jerky movements, wrapped the rattling chain around Jacques’ shrouded body, over and over. When she ran out of chain she drew the two ends together and padlocked them to the anchor. The click of the lock rang out across the bayou and made her heart skip.

Someone must have heard that.

Something in the wind, in the black water, made her shiver. Ain’t nothing but gators out here to see anything.

She leaned over the shrouded body again and tugged on the chains, testing the loops.

And then, almost imperceptibly, the bag shifted. Jacques was moving, groaning.

“Av… Ave…” His voice came out slurred and slow. She froze, wide-eyed. She could hear it now – pleading. Bargaining. Her stomach turned. She thought of the years she had spent bruised and humiliated, of waking sore and sticky and ashamed.

She shoved him.

Feet first. Over the edge.

The bag hit the water with a heavy splash, sank, then bobbed back up.

The cinder block and anchor held his feet down but there was a big bubble of trapped air inside. The bag stood upright, vaguely man-shaped, lolling in the water.

Aveline stood gripping the rail, chest tight, watching. Slowly, the fabric darkened. Bubbles frothed along the seams. The anchor and the cinder block took hold, dragging the shape down until the black water closed over it.

She leaned on the railing, breathing hard, wet hair stuck to her face. For a long moment she watched the ripples spread and fade, the surface of the bayou smoothing itself back out. The wind whispered through the cypresses and the houseboat creaked behind her. She swallowed and let the quiet settle, let the night press back in around her.

“Hmmph,” she said, with a satisfied nod.

Only then did she realize it was raining.

Not a sudden downpour – just a steady soaking she must’ve walked out into without noticing. Her hair hung wet down her back. Her blouse clung to her skin. She stood there a second longer, rain slicking the deck, then turned and went inside. My boat now.

She locked the door. Then the next one. She checked the latches twice before she let herself breathe.

In the candlelit galley, she peeled off her clothes and dropped them in a wet heap on the floor. My floor. She thought of the scars along her ribs and thighs, pale and crooked, some old enough to feel like they were from a previous life.

Naked, she took the scratchy towel from its hook and rubbed at her skin – hard. Rain drummed on the roof. Wind soughed and seeped through the cracks in the old houseboat, flickering the candles. The boat shifted under her feet.

Then she heard it – a creak.

Not the hull. Not the ropes. It sounded like… the scuff of a boot on the deck. Slow. Heavy.

Her heart pounded.

Aveline spun, clutching the towel to her chest with one arm as her other hand snatched the butcher knife off the counter. She stood there, breathing through her nose, the blade shaking just a little.

“Jacques?” she said. It can’t be – I watched him sink. I sank him deep.

Nothing answered her.

Just the rain rattling on the roof. The wind worrying the moss. The soft, familiar sounds of the houseboat working against the water.

She stood there another long moment before she lowered the knife. Her hands were still trembling. She set the blade back where it belonged and finished drying herself, slower now, more careful.

Ain’t nobody here.

Still, when she dressed again, she pulled out a pair of lanterns and lit them – one for the galley and one for the bedroom. Then she made her rounds again, checking the doors, the shutters. Everything was still locked. She poured herself a double shot of Jacques’ whiskey and settled into his chair. My chair.

The cushion sagged the way it always had under his weight. She wrapped her arms around herself and forced herself to sit still – and listened.

The boat made its usual noises. A loose shutter tapped somewhere aft. She waited for something else – a footstep, a scuff, a breath that wasn’t hers, but nothing came. She held her breath, then let it out slow.

“All right,” she told herself. “We still alright.”

The radio crackled. She hadn’t realized it was still on until the voice cut through the static, sharper now, urgent.

“… interrupt this broadcast with an emergency announcement. Residents downstream of the Winsome Flood Control Reservoir – this is not a drill… severe stress… multiple fatalities at the site… cannot confirm whether the dead are workers or… ”

The signal wavered. Popped. Came back.

“… failure is likely. If you are anywhere downstream of Winsome Reservoir, you need to move to higher ground immediately. I repeat…”

Aveline stared at the radio without really seeing it. The words slid past her, piling up senselessly. Dam. Workers. Downstream. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, listening hard – not to the radio, but to the houseboat.

She was sure she heard something from the bedroom.

A breath. Low. Wet.

Her head snapped up. The wind sighed. The radio hissed. She could have sworn – just for a second – she heard snoring. A familiar hitch and rattle, the sound that used to set her teeth on edge at night.

“Stop it,” she muttered.

The sound didn’t come again. Instead there was a soft scrape behind her, like a chair leg shifting on the deck. She turned in the seat, heart thudding, knife already in her hand before she remembered picking it up.

Nothing.

The galley was just the galley. Table. Sink. Her blouse folded where she’d left it. Rain streaking the windows. She swallowed and set the knife down, palms flat on her thighs.

The radio voice rose again, distorted now, words tumbling over one another.

“…structure compromised… in the floodplain… ”

Floodplain. That word snagged in her mind, for just a moment, then slid loose. She shook her head, annoyed at herself. Ain’t no floodplain up here. They’d pushed the boat way up the creek for a reason. Miles of trees on all sides. Protected water. Safe.

The houseboat shifted, tilted.

Her stomach lifted. She grabbed the arms of the chair as the floor dipped, slow but unmistakable, the world leaning a few degrees to one side. Somewhere outside, something boomed – a deep, distant sound she felt through the soles of her feet more than heard.

“What?” she said, softly.

The radio dissolved into static. The lights flickered. The boat tilted again, farther this time, and she could hear the water changing its voice, rushing where it hadn’t rushed before.

Aveline stood, very carefully, and felt the floor still moving under her.

The houseboat rose.

Not a tilt this time – not a gentle sway, but a clean, stomach-lifting surge, like the bayou had taken a deep breath and was holding it in. Aveline cried out as the floor slid under her feet and the world went sideways. She hit the wall hard, the air knocked out of her, and somewhere behind her glass shattered.

The bayou exhaled and the dark water roared, a living thing forcing its way where it had never been. The boat lurched again, higher, and then the tree branches were clawing at the railings, moss ripping free, wood screaming as the hull slammed broadside into the cypress trunks. Something cracked below her and the deck rolled under her.

She grabbed for anything—counter, chair, doorframe—but the boat was already going over. The world inverted. Water poured in, cold and black, and she was flung hard against the ceiling as it became the floor. She tasted blood. The lanterns went out.

The houseboat settled on its side with a grinding sound, pinned fast in a tangle of trees. Water surged through the broken windows and vents, then slowed, creeping, rising to her waist. When the boat stopped, it was done for good. She knew that the way you know when a bone is broken. There would be no pushing off, no drifting free.

Aveline clung to a cabinet, shaking, water dripping from her hair and chin.

Silence followed. Not peace, but a heavy, pregnant quiet. Miles of swamp in every direction. Gators. Mud. Skeeters. Trees.

Well, we ain’t goin’ nowhere fast. She laughed once – a little broken sound – and then clapped her hand over her mouth.

She knew she’d heard it that time – a creak. Slow. Familiar.

Not water. Not wood settling. A footstep, and a… a rattle.

Her breath caught. She stood very still. The sound came again, closer now, the weight of it wrong, deliberate. She could almost smell him – whiskey and sweat and the sour rot of old anger.

“No,” she whispered. “I sank you deep.”

Something shifted in the dark. A low sound followed, wet and rattling, like breath dragged through waterlogged lungs. Like air frothing through wet cloth. Like a man snoring.

Aveline squeezed her eyes shut, nails digging into the wood. When she opened them again, there was nothing there. Just the wrecked galley. The rising water. The trees pressing in close, crowding the boat like witnesses.

She stayed where she was, trembling, as the swamp settled around her and the night leaned in all around.