Payement

Jack carefully pushes the cream-covered blanket off of his cold body. He slides his right leg over the side of the mattress, checks to see if his wife is still asleep, then follows it with the left. The little black clock flashes little blue numbers menacingly: 10:33—10:33—10:33—10:34. Jack tries to locate his shoes with his socked feet, too afraid that turning on the light would wake up Mary.

He stands, shoes on, and watches as Mary’s naked back undulates with each breath. Her blonde hair spills across the pillow, curled like it has been every day since they were children. He tries not to cry, tries not to think about Mary asking him if they could name the baby Elizabeth, after his grandmother. Jake slips on the leather jacket she gave him for his birthday and hates the cold touch of the doorknob.

“I love you,” he whispers into the blackness of the bedroom, illuminated only by the weak blue glow of the clock.

The night had been just as cold three years ago. Then, Jack had pulled his torn jacket tight around himself, the wind still managing to chill him. He’d gripped the stolen pink hair clip tight in his fist, as if it were his only tether. 

“Hey! I’ve come to the crossroads every night for a week! I’ve prayed, I’ve sacrificed! What else?” Jack yelled. He was ready to go home, to forget he ever tried this, to continue pining after something that would never love him. “Just,” he sighed, “please.”

Jack groaned at the silence, kicking his boot into the old, graying asphalt. A laugh sounded, lusty and vibrant. Jack whipped around, trying to locate the source in the blackness.

“Have I teased you for too long, boy?” A man emerged from the shadow of an oak tree. His hair was long, dreadlocked and his skin seemed to absorb any light that might've made him less threatening. Jack took a step back. The man was leaning on an ivory cane. He clothed himself a pinstripe suit, a fedora with a purple feather, and shiny black dress shoes. Jack thought he looked like some sort of retired pimp. “Don’t run now, boy. You called me.” The man's voice was deep and thickly accented with something Jack didn't recognize.

Jack held out his hand, the pink hair clip lying in his palm. “I came to ask you for Mary. She’s this woman—”

“You want her?”

Jack nodded quickly. The man took the clip very gingerly from Jack’s palm.

“You realize the payment right?”

“Eternal damnation?”

“Better. Eternity in my service.”

“What's my time limit?”

“Three years. Love takes years off a life.”

Jack nodded quickly.

“Three years from today you come back here. If you don’t, I send the hellhounds.”

Now, Jack waits, twisting the shiny gold wedding ring on his hand. His watch says 11:56—four minutes until his sentence was up. He has four minutes left on this earth until Papa Legba comes to collect him. He wonders how Mary will react in the morning when she finds him gone. Now that the deal was over will she still love him? Will she still want their baby? The baby is the one thing Jack doesn't want to think about. He hadn't planned on children the night he made the deal, just Mary. 

“Papa Legba missed you, Jack.”

He looked up at the shadow of the oak tree. A figure began to form—hazy, then the cane and the fedora came into view.

“Hate to say it, but the feeling isn't mutual.”

The creature laughed, throaty and warm. “How've the last three years been?”

“Heaven.”