Sunbleached

As Roald sat in his dingy house with his hard working wife, the only thing that he could remember tasting that evening was the dust that seemed to settle down upon everything that the desert held inside of it. The mountains, the cacti, the animals, the roof, the cars, the sun-bleached metals that gave away from the paint that people always painstakingly put upon them, only for the color to fade anyways. It always tasted like dust and iron in his home, and even the dry chicken sitting in front of him smelled faintly of the sun’s powerful rays. And worst of all, he could hear that old washing machine groaning and trembling down the creaky old stairs to their basement. Oh, how he hated that sound. It made Roald grind his teeth inside his skull and it made his wrinkled hands twitch.

His wife looked up, giving him a thin lipped smile as she ate her dry chicken with crooked, slightly yellow stained teeth, residue of lipstick from the morning still stuck to the backs of her canines. It made it look a little like she had been drinking the blood of some unsuspecting fool, and Roald kind of liked the thought of that. His bloodthirsty wife, their dry marriage, their dryer home, and this chicken. Seasoned with extra air, if he had to guess. At one point, they had been a handsome couple. His hair had been thick and curled, a sandy brown like all the tourists’ photos of the dry, dry desert. Her hair had been red, deep, deep red. Now it was a faded silvery color, though she still looked dignified. He was bald and fat now, and she had deep set wrinkles over her skin that ran like rivulets of water through mud.

And they were both sun-bleached. His skin was dry and cracked and her hands were brown and the nails tough. It made them both think about the days of their youth when Roald and Maude had been optimistic, when they had passion between the two of them.

“You like it, jellybean?” She asked with a soft little lilt to her deep voice and he shrugged his shoulders in response.

“Tastes like chicken and potatoes to me, Maude. You know I ain’t the type of man to ever complain about what you make me.”

But that doesn’t make her smile more, surprisingly. Roald watches her honey green eyes glint in suspicion.

“Now, jellybean — Are you lyin’ to me?”

“I ain’t a damn fool, woman. I’m a hungry old man, and that means the chicken tastes fine.”

A sigh made her nostrils flare as she shook her head and continued back to her own dry chicken. Silence hung between them for a moment as Roald drank some water and found that sand had settled in that, too. Damn grains. You couldn’t be anywhere in the desert without drinking or eating at least a little sand here and there.

“I’m havin’ problems with that washing machine again, jellybean.” She stated, as though he were oblivious to the sound it made, the grinding of metal on metal, the shriek of soap and the groan of a creature they should have pulled the plug on years ago.

“What’s wrong with it this time, Maude?”

“Catchin’ my towels and wringing em out. Can you take a look after dinner, please?”

He sighed hard and heavy, and nodded silently, running a hand over his bald head and scratching his beard. Contented, she shoves the last of her food into her mouth while he pushed his plate away.

“And while you’re lookin’ at it, I can get dessert out.” Now that piqued his interest. She watched his thick, unkempt brows raise, a telltale sign of his interest in her baking. “Don’t go lookin’ at me like a dog now, jellybean — It ain’t nothin’ special. Just one of my old cherry pies, with some vanilla ice cream.”

She knew it was his favorite, her grin becoming sly on her wrinkled features. He grunted in response, getting to his feet as she took their plates away. Chipped porcelain with faded flowers, long since washed away by their dishwasher. The worst part, he knew, would be traveling down their aging staircase and into the darkest pit of the house.

His boots weighed heavy on the old wood and the house shuddered and whined as he made his way to the washing machine. It was screaming and screaming, rattling like something was caught in it, trying desperately to get out. He wished they’d thrown it out years ago, but Maude would have none of it. He approached the infernal machine with a heavy sigh and began to pat the top of it, as though it were a rampaging animal only calmed by the touch of its caring owner. “Whoa now,” Roald muttered to it and wondered if he’d royally lost it, “What’s the problem, you old hunk of junk?”

The washing machine did little but groan and shudder under his touch, rattling and seeming to writhe with malcontent. Roald ignored the warmth of the old machine and began to poke around in its insides, looking for a loose something or other inside the drum of it. He wondered if he was hallucinating the breathing sound it made; like someone gasping for air with their lungs full of water. Of course he had to be hallucinating, it wasn’t like the machine was actually alive. But it made him wonder about when the drum filled with water and began to violently tremble and rattle, rotating and stretching the lungs thinner and thinner each time that the clothes cycled through it. Of course, his curiosity was alleviated when he found the item that had been stuck: a little pack of quarters wedged into the rubber seal. He deftly removed them one by one, and this time he heard the sigh from the washing machine, like someone had just removed a splinter from the fragile skin of an adult. Roald drew back and gave the old machine a look, noting how the outside of it had become rather rusty with age and how the door was cloudy and tender.

Was he losing it? The man certainly hoped not as he stepped back a little further, coins jingling in his hands. He shut the door and it screamed again, creaking and groaning with the weight of the old motor behind the drums kicking into overdrive. He wondered why Maude didn’t want to get an upgrade, but he also didn’t know when she bought the damn thing. It felt like they always had it from the very first day that they met and now, several years and children later the old thing was still kicking. He shook his head and began up the stairs, listening to the shrieking of the motor and the rattling of the drum.

“Maude,” He started and she poked her head out of the kitchen. “Damn thing’s fixed.”

“Oh, jellybean! Thank you so much. Now I can finish washin’ the sheets and the pillowcases.” She presented him with a picturesque plate of warm cherry pie and cold sweet ice cream, pressing a kiss against his wrinkled skin with her red mouth. That made it worth putting up with, he thought, Maude was a good baker, and an even better wife. Someone like her could have surely done better than him, but for better or for worse, they were together and he appreciated that.

“Thing’s right creepy, Maude. Why don’t you get a new one already? It ain’t like we don’t got money.”

“I like the old girl. Adds a bit of charm to the house.” She got a slice for herself and skimped on her own ice cream, joining him on their old couch, “What was wrong with her anyways? Couldn’t see nothin’ causing her to wail like that when I went down to wring out the shirts.” They didn’t have a drier - they had no need for one. The sun dried and faded all their clothes better than any drier could.

“Quarters stuck in the rubber seal.” He handed them to her, and she counted out precisely $2.75.

“All that fuss over a couple’a quarters!” Maude giggled, sticking her fork into her pie afterwards and taking a big bite. “Well thank you anyways, jellybean.”

“You’re welcome, Maude.” They ate in silence and Roald turned on their favorite evening program, Saturday Night Live. They laughed and they shook their heads as the program went on, finishing off their pies and setting the dishes on the little coffee table Maude had bought when they had their first son. Eventually, Roald fell asleep on the couch, snoring with his mouth open. Maude, who was used to it, gathered their dishes and popped them into the dishwasher, the only new appliance in their whole house. Their children pitched in to buy it for them, growing tired of watching their mother wash mountains and mountains of dishes by hand. Such generous boys they were, and she was dutifully proud of having brought them into this world.

It wasn’t until she heard Roald snoring that she took the carving knives from the drawer and the laundry detergent, burying the knife between the sheets and starting down the creaking, rickety stairs to their basement.

The washing machine seemed to shudder when it sensed her, and she ignored it in favor of throwing the sheets in, setting the carving knives aside and pouring in floral detergent once the sheets and pillowcases were stuffed in. The sun had turned them all white anyways, so she didn’t care for mixing colors, or anything like that. No, anything out here soon became white and faded. Maude ran her fingers along the top of it as it began to gargle with water pouring into the drum, tapping her nails against the frame while it began to rotate and groan with the weight of the sheets inside. She took the knives back to her basket and hummed to herself, making sure that Roald was still snoring and soundly asleep. He was, and no doubt dreaming of something sweet and delicate as her cherry pie.

Maude ran her fingers along the wall until one of the ruts hooked under her nail and she pulled it, watching the old mechanism open into a room that she kept hidden. She stepped downstairs and shut the door the same way, needing no light to proceed forward. Down a long hallway she crept, knives in hand, until she came to a padlocked door. Her old hands turned the key in the lock and she stepped through the door, into the little room that she’d prepared.

The young man before her rattled against his chains, sweat pouring down his forehead as Maude drew the largest knife from the set, testing it by running it along her fingertip. Her hand bled red as her lipstick and a gurgling whimper came from him. He was a brunette with pale skin and green eyes, naked and bruised from straining against his captor’s restraints. His name was Timothy Lovell, and he was terrified. Timothy had been camping in the Arizona desert when Maude found him and offered him a place to stay. He was a friendly boy, and he accepted almost immediately since the prospect of spending at least a little time inside an air conditioned house was a luxury.

A stifled noise met him as she kneeled down and pointed the knife under his chin to make him look up.

“You know, son, my husband almost caught onto me today.” She began slowly, savoring the look of terror on his face. He made a muffled pleading noise deep in his throat, followed by a groan and a rattle of the chains. “But lucky for him he don’t know what I make my famous chili out of, don’t you think?”

Maude ran the knife along one of his legs and tsked softly when he jolted. “Now now, don’t struggle none. It’ll be over before you even know it.” Her smile was toothy. Timothy sobbed, choking on the gag in his mouth and shaking his head, pleading with his eyes and with his whole body. Ah, the innocence of youth. She hated to rob him of it, but there was nothing to be done. Maude took the carving knife into both of her hands and began her work, his shrieks and wails covered by the rattling of the old washing machine.

Maude woke up late the next morning and said she was going to get more ingredients for her chili, having taken their old truck the several miles out into the desert landscape in order to get to their singular grocery store. Roald was working in the blistering sun, wearing high strength sunscreen and a wide brimmed hat along with old, round sunglasses. Their dusty soil grew little but cacti and aloe, but all the same he liked to poke around in the rocks and the dirt. One thing that they could grow out here was the corn, which Maude always liked to put in her chili. It was unusual, but it added a sweet taste and he had a sweet tooth the size of his tongue anyhow. He wondered how she had so much energy, both of them being as old as they were.

Roald’s mouth watered when he thought about tonight’s chili. Whatever meat Maude used was always so tender and carefully cut into cubes, albeit a little salty, but he figured that was because of the seasoning. She never told him or their sons what the special ingredient was, insisting that it was one of her ‘womanly secrets.’ Whatever that meant, he was sure that she would eventually pass it onto their oldest, as mothers always did with their children and grandchildren. She had a lot of secrets, but then again, so did he.

They matched each other that way. There were always limits to how much of yourself you truly showed to the people closest to you. Roald’s hoe clunked into the dirt and pulled back the stark white and red rocks of the Arizona landscape, meshing them into a shape that was familiar to him and anyone else that visited them: a saguaro cactus with the three tines poking towards the house. His rock garden was his pride and joy of the landscape, and last year he had even fashioned the rocks into a lizard.

He heard the pull of the truck’s motor from a distance and knew his wife had come home with all she needed to make her chili. He looked up and saw their rusted old brown truck lumbering down the dirt road kicking up sand and debris as she drove. Maude was wearing a red scarf in her hair that day to keep the sun from her sensitive skin. Roald smiled and waved, earning a wave back with her fingers as she pulled closer to the house. He again thought of the meal they were going to eat tonight as she drove into their driveway, parking the car and watching the dust settle before he wandered over to help her carry the groceries inside.

“That was a quick trip,” He noted, taking bags into his arms as she did the same.

“Oh, store was pretty empty today.” He didn’t notice the dirt under her nails, or he didn’t think much of it, since you were always covered in a thin layer of it out here.

“So it didn’t take me very long, jellybean. Did you set the beans to simmer?” He nodded, and she smiled.

“So all it needs now is my secret ingredients. No peeking, Roald!” Maude smacked his hand away from the bags as he tried to look into one of them, carrying the groceries into the kitchen. He grunted a response, pausing only to get a cup of room temperature water to drink. “Your rock garden’s looking cute as ever, jellybean.”

“Been workin’ on it since you left.” He answered, rubbing his beard as she began to put away the food she’d gone to get. “And it’s the damndest thing. I ain’t heard that washing machine rattle once since I fixed it last night.”

“Maybe you’re a miracle worker.” Maude laughed, “Sometimes the old girl just needs a fine set of hands to set her right. And you’ve got just the right kind of touch for these old machines.”

“Mm.” Roald wrapped a hand around her waist. “You think the kids’ll make you get a new machine again?”

“I sure hope not,” She answered a bit too quickly. It made his brow raise. “I’m attached to the old girl like a baby and its favorite rattle.”

“Hopefully, they get that.”

“Hopefully.”

Roald gave her a kiss on the cheek before he meandered back into the garden for the day, since he had more rocks to shape and more dirt to play in. Maude began to season her chili, using the juiciest, reddest meat she had from their freezer. She cut it into neat little cubes, tenderizing them by letting them simmer. And in the basement, the old washing machine didn’t rumble or quake, but instead it twisted and turned silently, quietly as a newborn turning over in their bed, blissfully asleep. The sun had bleached a lot of things in the desert for certain, but the old washing machine wasn’t one of them. No, she had aged finely like a wine and turned into a part of the house that would always be there in the bowels of it, groaning and turning and turning and turning.

Maude soon gathered the clothes from inside it to hang them in the blistering heat outside, which was quickly turning Roald’s hat a bright white compared to the brown it had been when he started. Dust settled on the house as a hot wind began to stir, and Maude counted herself as a lucky woman.

After all, she had her husband, her children, and her old washing machine to keep her company. What more could she ask for, really? Life was good, and if she had any say in it, it would stay that way. From now until the day that she and Roald joined the dust and the rocks in the sand and the sun bleached their bones white as the pearls in the ocean.