She had seen better days. Hell, she had seen better decades. Slumped on the front lawn, she let the sun bake her, no longer caring about its effects, not longer interested in concealing all of the flaws that come with being damn near 60. Didn't matter. Jim still loved her. No matter what she looked like. And even now, even looking like she did, she still garnered attention from men who sometimes spent hours looking at her.
She wasn't always so broken down and beaten up.
She could still remember the days when she was young, when she first met Jim. Back then, she spent her summers with athletic young men with a lust to see just how many stupid antics they could perform on their waterskiis and wakeboards before injuring themselves. She liked those lakes in New York. She liked those boys. But she loved Jim.
She and Jim had been together for decades. True, they had some hard times. They even separated for a few years, thinking that the relationship had run its course. But she came back to him -- with a little plastic surgery, but still the same warm heart he had come to love. And he was devoted to her, attending to her day and night, letting her sunbathe in front of the house (not really the type of lawn ornament the neighbors liked to see), making sure she was happy.
But, you see, Pat didn't like her. Secretly, Pat rejoiced when they split up and hoped she would never return. Wives are like that. She was understandably not happy when Jim told Pat "she" was coming back. So she devised a plan.
"I'm going to get rid of her," she told her dearest friend, Ann. "I dont' know when, but I'm telling you: she's going down. And if it that right time comes when you are around, you're helping me." This was not the sort of thing Ann would ever be apart of. She didn't really see herself as a criminal, an accomplice. But she loved her friend. And she knew how irritated by the situation Pat was. Ann knew that if it came to that, she would help Pat do what needed to be done. Consequences be damned. Friendship mattered more. And so they plotted.
One day, when they were all out on the water, Pat intended to drown her. She didn't know when, but she knew that one day, the conditions would be right, and she would send that decrepit old lady deep into the ocean and she would make sure the damage done would be permanent. She would break her. She would bury her in a watery grave.
Because, honestly, after having her husband's attention for fifty years, after deceiving him into thinking her broken down body was pristine, beautiful, and just like the day he met her, Pat was done. It was her or the boat. The boat that man had sold, for God's sake, and then bought back. The boat that marred the front of their house. The boat that constantly needed fixing. No. the boat was going to go. It was just a matter of timing.
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