Ann Woodward woke up that morning feeling like hell.
She always felt like hell, but that morning of October 9, 1975, the sky appeared grayer, the air colder, her breath more of a waste than it had seemed the day before. She had a headache; she’d had a headache for so long, she knew she’d feel worse without one. It was a companion. One of the few she could claim.
The headache, the ostracism, the entrapment—for she really was an animal in a cage, a gilded cage, but the bars were well constructed by her mother-in-law, Elsie. The food doled out grudgingly. The few glimpses of sunshine rationed. Her life was a prison.
Her sons, removed from her, raised by Elsie, and really, who could blame her? It wasn’t as if Ann was a good mother, she knew she wasn’t, but still it stung to have them taken from her like that. Her sons were now two more things she couldn’t call her own anymore.
So Ann rose, took a pill or two—because why not? She didn’t even know, for sure, what they did for her anymore—went to get the mail, and found, in a manila envelope, a copy of the upcoming Esquire, with a photo of Rich Little in a rumpled raincoat on its cover. One of the headlines trumpeted, “At last, Truman Capote’s new novel, Answered Prayers, a first look.” And that headline was circled, with a handwritten suggestion that “You might want to take a look at this.”
Ann’s first reaction was to laugh and toss it in the trash. Why the hell would she want to read Truman’s new book? She despised Truman; he despised her. She really didn’t know why, except that he told someone, who told her, that once she’d called him a fag. Apparently, he took offense at that, which was odd. Lots of people called him a fag, and he was a fag, wasn’t he? So why would she want to read his pathetic little story?
But then Ann thought of the day ahead; of the endless, yawning nothingness, perhaps a pained visit from Elsie, the old cow, or if not a visit then a phone call, just so Elsie could tell one and all that they were still close, of course, why wouldn’t they be?
Well, for starters, Ann always longed to tell her, I killed your son.
That was true. That was fact. Ann had killed Elsie’s son, Ann’s husband, Billy. Billy Woodward.
Sometimes it sounded so strange to say his name. It was like the name of a stranger to her now, he’d been gone so long. Dead, dead, dead…from a bullet that came from a gun held by her. Ann had never tried to claim otherwise.
As far as the accident part, though…
Yes, it was an accident. She hadn’t meant to kill him, not really. No, it wasn’t an accident. She sure as hell intended to scare him, or wound him, or do something that would release her from him, cause him to divorce her, give her a good settlement. Billy was a fag, too. He was. Nobody knew that about him, except Ann. She’d tried to use this as leverage, but he’d not risen to the bait. “No one will believe you,” the bastard told her that night, after yet another fight, a knockdown, drag-out brawl in the bedroom hall, even as their sons were asleep at the other end of the house.
So Ann went to sleep with a gun beside her. Who didn’t? Well, Billy did, too. Or at least, that’s what she told the police when they came, later. And indeed, when they went to Billy’s room to see, they found a revolver next to his bed.
She’d heard a prowler. Everyone knew about the prowlers! She’d heard steps on the roof, the dog barking, and when she went to her bedroom door, she saw a figure in the hallway. She blasted away at it, thinking only of her sons, her precious boys, whom she had to protect, didn’t she?
It wasn’t her fault that Billy had gotten up to pee.
That’s what she told the police. Upon her lawyer’s advice. Elsie’s, too.
And so began a lifetime in hell, a hell even more scorching than her miserable marriage had been. Elsie swooped down on her, paid everyone off, locked Ann up only to take her out occasionally, telling one and all that it was a terrible, terrible accident, pure and simple. Of course she believed her daughter-in-law! Of course the two of them were grieving together, finding solace in memories of dear Billy.