She hated her husband, hated him with a loathing that was both deep and profound. She’d been considering the options open to her for some time, tap dancing around the most obvious solution. Finally, it crashed onto the beach of her consciousness with the force of a tidal wave. The only real solution was to kill him. In the end, it seemed almost inevitable.

The knowledge of how much she hated him came to her gradually over the years. It wasn’t some sudden light bulb of realization. It was a slow death rendered by a thousand shallow stab wounds. It was like the myth of the frogs submerged in water, gradually being boiled alive. One looks at the other and says, “Does it seem hot in here to you?”

At some point, her hatred blossomed like crystalline drops of spring water trickling up through parched layers of earth. Over time, it became a geyser of such power and ferocity that she found herself awed and bemused by its majestic height. 

For a long time, these  secret feelings of bitterness festered and spread through her entire system like a malignant cancer. She wasn’t sure when those feelings turned murderous.

He would drive off to the store for pipe tobacco or beer and she would find herself praying for a fiery car crash, for him to meet some violent and unimaginably painful end. So far, her prayers had gone unanswered. She supposed that, as a general rule, the Almighty was not very favorable to requests for death and dismemberment.

His very presence became as abrasive to her as sandpaper against the skin and she came to the conclusion that no horrible accident would ever befall him. He would almost certainly live to a ripe old age, well nourished by his self-absorption.

She couldn’t remember exactly when the idea of killing him occurred to her, couldn’t pinpoint the day or even the month. She just knew that life with him was prison and life without him would be freedom. If he were gone, she might finally be able to breathe. Who knew what pleasure existed without his poisonous presence whispering across her skin and filling her nostrils, her lungs, her every cell? She could imagine the pure joy of life without Nick in crystalline clarity.

It wasn’t that she never considered divorce. Of course, she thought about it. She thought about it often. It just didn’t seem like an achievable goal. For starters, she didn’t work and didn’t have any money of her own. Nick liked having her at home where he could keep her under his thumb. She had tried working for a couple of years, finding a brief respite from the misery that was her marriage. Eventually, Nick’s demands had escalated from unreasonable to crushing. In addition to her work, he expected her to maintain a flawless home, run all the errands and get a gourmet meal on the table every night. Between the dual pummeling of sheer bodily exhaustion and her husband’s caustic comments, she finally gave up her job.

She owned next to no possessions. She let most of her things go when she married her charming, psychotic husband. She didn’t really have friends or family who could take her in and help. In a beautiful piece of irony, her husband was a divorce attorney. The thought of trying to find and afford an attorney who could prevail against her husband was only good for amusement value. It would never happen. The first time she threatened to leave him he merely looked at her, an arrogant smile curling across the sensual beauty of his lips. “Mallory, you’re not going anywhere until I get good and ready to let you go.” Years later, even the thought of that moment could leave her shaking with rage. He would never be done with her. She understood that now.

She hated the way he said her name, drawing out every syllable. He made it sound like some exotic disease. Her mother, while sweet and beautiful, had liked the sound of the name ‘Mallory’ as it danced across her lips and tongue. If she had ever looked at the name’s etymology, she might have reconsidered. Mallory was an English surname which meant unfortunate, unhappy or unlucky. Her mother didn’t seem like an especially deep or complex person to her daughter, but clearly she was a prophet.

At some point, Mallory began to consider the idea of murder. She became obsessed with the story of George Smith, a Greenwich man who vanished from his honeymoon cruise in 2005. George Smith’s family was convinced that foul play was responsible for his disappearance but no one was ever tried or convicted and the authorities eventually closed the case.

She was flabbergasted to learn that of the 200 annual deaths of cruise ship passengers and crew, a whopping 5 percent belonged to people who died after falling overboard. Eventually the impossible began to seem possible.

She suggested to Nick that they take a cruise. She made this suggestion, indolent and uninvested, not really daring to believe that he would so easily place himself in her metaphorical gun-sights. He agreed to this suggestion with stunning haste. He was picking up absolutely no signals from her that were either threatening or out of the ordinary. He had been a predator for so long he was unable to consider himself prey.

Could she actually get him drunk and push him over the side of a huge ship without anyone seeing? There was no real way to know. They would take the cruise and she would leave Nick’s fate in the hands of whatever dark serendipity was guiding her.

The first full day on board the huge cruise ship was perfect. Her husband wanted to go rock climbing, try parasailing and maybe even visit the sports complex. As he told her his plans, her face remained serene. Her eyes were limpid green pools, hiding the deadly forces that hummed underneath. It was her belief that all married women understand on some fundamental level the paper thin line between love and contempt. She planned to spend the day at the spa, far away from her loathsome spouse. The voice of her hatred had been overwhelming for so long, she hadn’t let herself consider any possible reprieve. Now, she was getting a peek of possible sunlight through the clouds. Instead of being happy, she was filled with unbearable tension. What if she couldn’t go through with it? Even worse and, more likely, what if the opportunity never presented itself?

She resurfaced in their stateroom to find her husband fastening the buttons on the cuffs of his shirt with the quick, snapping motions that meant he was angry. They were seated at the captain’s table tonight and he wanted his favorite suit. He hadn’t brought it because she hadn’t picked it up from the cleaners. What did she do with all her time during the day? He answered his own query with a crude suggestion.

She thought about her days, cleaning, running errands for him, working out at the gym to keep in shape so he would still find her attractive. Bitterness flooded her throat like acid. Like most emotionally abusive people, Nick never considered himself at fault. She was to blame for everything that went wrong. If the checking account didn’t contain the amount Nick expected to see, he would fly into a fit of rage. He left the financial management of the accounts to her. Over time she came to understand that the checking account was simply one more convenient club with which to beat her over the head.

If something bad happened at work, her husband was never to blame. If Nick got into a fight with a friend, it was always the other person’s fault. No matter how monstrous he acted, in his mind some external stimulus was responsible. He drank because his wife and his job added to his stress. He said cruel things because Mallory occasionally dared to make a mistake or commit some tiny infraction which displeased him.

He could probably find a way to blame her for a defective bottle of soda. Luckily, she was too young to be held accountable for Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance.

Even now, it would never actually occur to him to make sure that he had his favorite clothes ready to take on this trip. How could she possibly know what clothes he wanted to bring? He expected her to be psychic but she was a sad sight away from anything approaching heightened perception. If she had precognitive powers, she would have run a mile the first time she met him.

After dinner, they returned to their stateroom because he was well-fed and pleasantly buzzed and his mind had turned to romance. As she had on so many occasions, she swallowed her animosity and let him do as he pleased. Her time was coming.

The third morning of their cruise, they docked at Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic. They were spending the morning swimming with the dolphins and Mallory’s every cell revolted at this prospective torture. She didn’t care that dolphins were always depicted as friendly and helpful in film. They were still slimy, fish-like and disturbingly large. She would have much preferred lazing on some picturesque beach.

Of course, she and Nick had an argument when she dared to express her disinterest in his chosen pastime. He couldn’t just go do what he wanted and let her do what she preferred. No, she had to be his constant companion and witness to his greatness. He might have let her off the hook yesterday but she wouldn’t be so fortunate again for the rest of the cruise.

After the argument, she sat on the balcony of their stateroom. Not even the azure expanse of water and the calming ocean breezes could lift her spirits. Her cheeks were flushed, her stomach in knots, her throat thick with loathing.

Nick was a narcissistic control freak. She had long suspected that he loved having her walk on eggshells, living in constant tension, fearing his next outburst. Her whole world was supposed to revolve around Nick and his needs.

She couldn’t understand how she ended up in this mess of a marriage. Frequently, she would think back to the year they dated, searching her brain for some missed clue that would have revealed the level of his disturbance.

She always came to the same conclusion. Her husband was a talented chameleon. He had been solicitous of her every need, charming, funny, caring. Even with the distance of time and knowledge, she understood that he had never shown a single crack in his Prince Charming facade.

In the past, she had been considered an intelligent woman. Once upon a time, in a land far away, she had been extremely independent. That independence had been slowly leached from her, the way sunlight bleaches bone. His torture of her seemed to grow with every year that went by.

She sat there, her fists clenched in her lap and tried to tell herself that he wanted her to feel miserable. He was a mean, miserly human being and the only joy he took in life was knowing that he made her equally miserable. She told herself several times a week that she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. If she had five dollars for every time he’d made her feel this way, she would be independently wealthy and could buy herself an escape plan.

She didn’t enjoy swimming with the dolphins and Nick took great pleasure in her thin-lipped suffering. The pendulum of his mercurial nature oscillated back into an upswing and he was happy and good natured. He whistled between his teeth in a way that made her want to throw a concrete brick at his head. Tomorrow, he planned for them to go parasailing in St. Thomas. The day after he wanted them to go zip-lining in Puerto Rico. She couldn’t take one more day of her husband. She couldn’t take one more minute. Every time he came within ten feet of her, her skin prickled with repulsion. She couldn’t look at his face without wanting to pick up a glass and bash him in the face with it, grinding the glass against his expensive dental work.

When she finished dressing for dinner that night, Nick ran a critical eye over the dress she’d selected and insisted that she change. There was nothing wrong with the dress she had on. It was an indigo cotton whose deep color and elegant cut made up for its humble fabric. Aside from crisscrossing bands of material, it was essentially backless and with her hair up, it made her look stunning.

She wasn’t more than mildly perturbed by having to change, though. Verbally assaulting others was a way of life for Nick. She suspected that he was driven to pick apart her flaws as a way to avoid acknowledging his own.

She changed her dress to a black and white silk that she knew he loved and thought, “Tonight. It has to be tonight. Even if I thought I could get a divorce, I wouldn’t. He would drag that process out and put me through months of suffering before it was finished.” The laws of the land might not condone vigilante justice, but she was working under a much simpler principle. Some people did not deserve to live.

When she suggested they stop at the bar on the way to dinner, Nick gave her a perplexed smile. She wasn’t usually much of a drinker and she finally managed to surprise him. She gave him a brilliant smile. “It’s a beautiful cruise. I’m here with a handsome man. I feel like celebrating.”

As drinks progressed to dinner, fate seemed to be on her side. She urged drink after drink on her husband until finally he was slurred and almost stumbling. Throughout each excruciating moment, she smiled with angelic sweetness. She poured her drinks into planters and added water to them when he wasn’t looking.

After dinner she looped her arm through his and suggested a moonlight walk on the lower deck. She didn’t intend to push him over there. The possibilities of being seen were too great. No, she planned to stage an argument with him and she wanted it to be noticed. She would stalk away and after his incredulity faded, he would come after her. She knew her husband. He would stand on the deck for some time, letting his rage spiral upward like jet fuel. He would give himself plenty of time to think of her many faults, feeding the flames of his anger. She would wend her way back across the ship, making sure she was seen alone by as many people as possible.

Their suite had both a bedroom and a sitting area, adjoined by a balcony. The balcony railing was only about four feet tall. Nick was never careful in the grip of a rage and if she could just get him up on the railing it would be a simple matter to push him over in his drunken condition. The cameras in the hallway would show him returning to his stateroom, but there were no cameras on the cabin balconies for privacy reasons. Tomorrow morning, she would report him missing.

It wasn’t very far down to the water but Nick didn’t swim. To add to the chances of Nick’s demise, they had seen a school of sharks in the water, earlier. She felt like the stars were finally aligning in her favor. A sickening mixture of dread and anticipation sent sweat slicking across her palms and beading along her hairline.

Nick made a clumsy attempt to kiss her neck. She pushed him away and said coldly, “You’re drunk. I hate it when you’re drunk.” He looked at her with astonishment and joy shimmered along her nerve endings. Her recklessness pushed a cold smile onto her lips, curving them in the shape of a dagger. For good measure, she gave him a little push, raised her voice and said, “GET OFF ME.” She was inwardly pleased to see the cautious concern on the faces of several passengers who had also decided to go for a moonlight stroll.

She turned on her heel and swept back along the inner corridors to their suite, feeling the echo of every heavy rhythmic heartbeat. Once inside, she went directly to the  balcony, lifting her fact to the salty breeze. Her real life was about to begin.

She didn’t have long to wait. She had left the balcony door open and she could hear the crisp sound the door made when it closed, proof of his anger straining its leash. She could hear each precise measured tread.

She knew him so well. She would only have to taunt him with his fear and his inability to swim to get him to climb onto the railing. It would be like taking candy from a baby. It would be so perfect, just like the rest of her life. The sickening crack of a heavy object reverberated against the back of her skull. Her husband lifted her slender figure at the waist and tossed her over the railing.

Nick watched the waves close over her head. You could still see the surprised look on her face. He couldn’t help grinning. He hated his wife, hated her with a loathing that was both deep and profound. He could have told her that, statistically, women were at far greater risk of being homicide victims at the hands of their partners. It wasn’t his first choice of solution, but in the end it seemed almost inevitable.