Fiction: "The Flame" by Emilie Noelle-Provost

If you don’t count Johnny Depp, until the day I met Charles Forest I had never so much
as considered making love to a man other than my husband. It was a bright morning in
late June, one of those rare days in New England that nearly convince you that all is right
in the world, or at least that such a state of affairs might be possible. Charles’ driveway, a
long and winding affair that must have been a bitch to plow, was lined with sugar maples
and covered with dove-colored gravel. I cringed at the way the little stones crunched and
popped beneath my tires. Although I’d taken the longest route possible, and had been
careful to drive the speed limit, I was still fifteen minutes early.

     Wisps of steam rose up from the dewy lawn in the places where the sun broke through
the trees. I climbed the steps to the covered front porch and, not wanting to catch Charles
Forest in his bathrobe, decided to wait a few minutes before ringing the bell.

     The house, a sprawling place that over the years had belonged to a string of farmers, was
painted the same dusty red as the brick mill buildings in the city where I lived, not far
away, but a world apart, really. The property stretched on as far I could see: lawn
followed by meadow, followed by woodlands.

     After five minutes – probably too long – I pressed the doorbell. Charles opened the door
the moment the chime sounded, making me wonder if he’d been standing there, just on
the other side, the entire time.

     Charles looked the same as he did in the professional headshots you could find of him on
the Internet. That is to say, stern and jowly, his face vaguely resembling a pug’s. His eyes
were a bit too large for his face with irises the color of March mud, the pupils cavernous
black. I could see that his hair, mostly gray now, had been dark once. He wore the type of
no-nonsense crew cut you’d expect to find on a high school chemistry teacher.

     Charles was taller than I expected, maybe six-foot-three—though I suppose a person’s
height isn’t something you can determine from photographs. I’d worked his age out to be
48 the night before when I was doing research for our interview. The man standing in
front of me could have easily been in his mid-50s.

     Charles Patrick Forest (the name he used on the covers of his books) had written eight
best sellers and had published countless stories and articles. Five years ago, he’d won the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

     “Hi. I’m Nathalie LaFlamme. From The Globe.”

     Charles smiled. His teeth were broad and bleached and flawlessly square. His lips—by
far his best feature—were fleshy and voluptuous, the sort that fashion models would kill
for. He swung the front door open wide, placing his arm high enough for me to pass
underneath it.

     “Glad you could make it on such short notice. Come in.” Charles shut the door and
jammed his fists into the front pockets of his jeans. He wore a wristwatch that I was sure
had cost more than my car.

     We stood in the foyer, both of us silent just long enough for the circumstances to feel
awkward. At last, he said, “Why don’t you come into the kitchen? I just made coffee.”

     The Forests’ kitchen looked like someone had lifted it from the pages of a magazine:
creamy marble countertops were offset by custom maple cabinetry and a showroom’s
worth of high-end stainless steel appliances. A photograph of Charles standing on a beach
with amiddle-agedd woman and two teenage boys was tacked to the fridge with a magnet
shaped like a miniature banana. The boys had Charles’ eyes.

     I sat on one of the stools at the kitchen island while Charles set out coffee mugs and
pulled two bottles of water from the fridge.

     He cracked the cap on his bottle and took a long swallow. A rivulet of water slipped
down his chin and stained the front of his shirt. I held out a paper napkin, and when he
leaned over to take it from me I noticed a drop still clinging to his lower lip. I had to fight
the urge to touch it.

     A gentlemanly room with mahogany paneling, Charles’ study was lined with hundreds of
books. A silver Macintosh laptop sat in the center of an oiled pine desk the size of my
living room couch.

     We sat on a love seat by the window. Charles’ last novel, the Pulitzer Prize winner, had
been placed in the center of the coffee table.

     I took out my list of questions and set down my voice recorder. I was about to switch the
device on when a wiry, dark-haired woman – the one from the photograph – poked her
head through the doorway.

     “Oh, excuse me. I’m Dianne, Charles’ wife—Charlie, I need you to go to the store and
pick up some things when you’re done.”

     Charles nodded in reply, and when Dianne had closed the door behind her, he turned to
face me, his lanky frame all elbows and knees.

     “How long?” Charles touched my left hand with his forefinger. His skin was dry and
papery, and even after he pulled his hand away, the spot where his finger had been felt
warm.

     I took me a moment to realize he was asking about my wedding band.

     “I’ve been married for seventeen years. We have two girls, age fourteen and sixteen.”

     “Twenty-six years,” Charles said, nodding his head in the direction of the closed door.

     He gestured toward the voice recorder with his index finger, suggesting that we should
get on with it.

     “So, tell me about this new book you’re working on,” I said.

     “There is no new book. I haven’t written a word in years.”

      I paused, wrinkling my forehead. “Then why did you ask to do an interview? Your agent
told me yesterday that you were working on something – that I would get an exclusive
story. I had to do a lot of juggling to come here today.”

     “My agent is under the impression that I am working on something. I’ve been telling him
so for years. I’m under contract for one more book.”

     “But why not just get out of the contract? Surely you could just hire a lawyer, or ask your
agent to …”

     “No. You don’t understand. The thing is … I don’t want to do that. I really want to write
another book.”

     Sighing, I clicked off the recorder and began to gather my things.

     “I’m sorry.” Charles stared at the wall, his huge hands covering his knees. “I thought that
if I knew I was going to be talking to someone from the media—it might help me get
back on track, motivate me to get behind the desk.”

     Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Charles placed his hand on top of
mine and began stroking the underside of my wrist with his thumb.

     Like ripples lapping at the shore of a lake, waves of desire radiated out from beneath my
ribcage and down into the hollow space below my belly button.

     Charles leaned over and kissed me on the mouth.

     He nibbled at the curve of my neck and pressed his lips into the delicate flesh opposite
my elbow. His hair and skin smelled of sandalwood and cloves. I gripped the back of the
sofa to keep from swooning.

     A dog barking outside brought me to my senses. I pulled my arm from Charles’ grasp and
forced myself to stand. The room looked all wrong, its dark wood and leather furniture
too sharp a contrast to the bright day outside. I did what I could to straighten my dress.

     Charles stood up and tucked in his shirt. He adjusted his enormous Rolex, placed one
hand on the small of my back, and escorted me out of the house.

     We are Catholic in my family. My great-uncle Lucien, a priest, officiated when I married
Paul. My daughters, Marie and Georgie, go to Saint Genevieve High School, the same
school Paul and I graduated from. I wasn’t a virgin when I got married, but I had never
been with anyone but Paul until that morning at Charles’ house.

     My parents never talked to my sisters and me about sex. When I was ten, my mother gave
me a book that explained what would happen when I got my period, and what I should do
about it. She stocked the bathroom closet with maxi pads, and said I should let her know
if I had any questions. I was sixteen when I finally learned where babies came from.

     In high school, we had the Catholic version of sex ed, which consisted almost entirely of
the girls’ gym teacher, a manly nun named Sister Maureen, warning us about the grave
dangers of premarital sex, masturbation, birth control, and especially abortion. She wore
a silver whistle on a nylon cord around her neck. In the event that we were harboring any
impure thoughts, at the end of each class Sister would lead us in a vigorous jog around
the field house.

     In spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, Paul and I have always had a fulfilling love
life. We are attentive to each other, and fit well together. This was true even after I met
Charles, when my dreams became haunted by the smell of the leather sofa in his study.

     One Sunday in October, when Paul and the girls and I were at Mass, Paul reached over
and began stroking the back of my wrist with his thumb. I don’t remember a single word
from that homily.

     After church, I went upstairs to change. I shut the door to our bedroom and dialed
Charles’ cell number. I was relieved when I got his voicemail.

     “Hi, Charles. This is Nathalie LaFlamme, the journalist who came to your house a few
months back. I was just wondering if you’d started working on anything new and maybe
wanted to talk about it.”

      It was five days before Charles returned my call. Seeing his number on the caller ID
made my face and neck flush red. I let the phone ring four times before deciding to
answer it.

     “Hello.”

     “Nathalie. I’m so glad you called. There’s something I want to talk to you about. Can you
have dinner with me?”

     “Um, sure, I suppose so.”

     “How about Tuesday at six-thirty? Meet me at Marcelo’s in Portsmouth.”

     Marcelo’s is on Bow Street, overlooking the river. I’d walked by it probably two dozen
times and had never once considered eating there, mainly because of the guy that stands
out front wearing a tuxedo during the summer, beckoning passersby to come inside. It
looks too expensive.

     The hostess showed me to a private dining room on the second floor. One whole wall was
made of glass, the lights along the waterfront twinkling in the vanishing dusk. A log had
been lit in the fireplace against the October chill. Charles, seated at a table for two near
the back of the room, stood up when I came in.

     He looked different than when I’d last seen him. He had a tan and seemed to have lost a
few inches from his waistline. He wore a navy blue blazer over a cream-colored dress
shirt open at the collar. His khaki pants had been meticulously pressed. He gestured for
me to sit as he pulled out a chair.

     Without asking if I wanted it, he poured me a glass of Chianti from the decanter on the
table.

     “Before you say anything, I want to apologize to you for the way I behaved the last time I
saw you,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me, but I hope you’ll believe me when
I tell you that I’ve never done anything like that before.”

     “I’m just as responsible as you are,” I said. “It’s not like I asked you to stop.”

     “No. I should have known better. I took advantage of you. Let’s see if we can put it
behind us and start over again.” He raised his wineglass and clinked its rim against mine.

     Charles set a neat stack of paper, held together with a red rubber band, on my salad plate.

     “What’s this?”

     “My next book.”

     “Is this why you asked me to come here?”

     “Yes, and I want you to read it—before I send it to my editor. And then, I want to know
what you think. I hope you’ll be able to write your article now, too. I think I owe you that
– at the very least.”

     When I began to protest, Charles waved his hand in the air, swatting away the very
possibility that I might say no.

     After dinner, Charles walked me to my car.

     We stopped on the sidewalk beside my Honda and I took my keys out of my purse. The
air was cold and clean and smelled like the sea. A thick blanket of stars hung low over
the darkness of the water. Our breath came out in billowy vapor clouds that quickly
disappeared into the night.

     It was nearly 10 p.m. We’d been the last customers in Marcelo’s. The temperature had
dropped since I’d arrived and my jacket wasn’t warm enough.

     “Get in touch with me after you’ve read the manuscript.”

     I nodded, hugging my chest to conserve warmth.

     Charles put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me on the forehead.

     “Thank you for having dinner with me. I had a nice time.”

     I looked up at him, craning my neck. I’m fairly tall for a woman, but no match for
Charles’ height, even in heels.

     He leaned down and kissed me on the lips.

     The kiss was a friendly one. But the spicy smell of his cologne and the feel of his lips,
together with the wine, left me completely unmoored. I wrapped my arms around him
and pressed my mouth to his, not caring that we were in the middle of the sidewalk.

     We ended up at an inn overlooking the water, a thoroughly contemporary place that,
although stylish, seemed bleak when compared to the cozy, fire-lit dining room where
we’d spent most of the night.

     Charles helped me off with my jacket and hung it in the closet. He took off his sport coat
and hung that up, too, before turning off the light in the entryway.

     I stood in the middle of the room, which was lit only by the moonglow pouring through
the windows. Charles came over and put his arms around me. He planted tiny kisses at
the base of my neck until my knees threatened to fold, but by then I was thinking of Paul
and the girls. The room’s sharp angles and icy chrome fixtures had leached the fire from
my bones.

     Charles led me to the sofa and sat down beside me. He kissed my hair and we stared out
the window at the reflection of the moon on the water.

     After that night, I carved out a tiny pocket in the flesh beside my heart and let Charles
live there. I called him after I read his manuscript, and I finally wrote my article. We
exchanged an occasional email.

     The next time I saw Charles was almost two years later. He invited me for coffee at a
sidewalk cafe in Newburyport.

     “It’s so good to see you, Nathalie. How are you?” He placed his hand on top of mine and
gave it a firm squeeze.

     From his bag, he produced a hardcover copy of his new book, the one whose manuscript
he’d given me to read.

     “It will be in stores on Tuesday, but this copy is for you. Open it.”

     I cracked the front cover to find a handwritten inscription on the title page.

     “Not that. Read that later. Here.” He flipped the page to reveal the book’s official
dedication, printed in italic font: For Nathalie.

     I looked up from the table. “What about your wife?”

     “It’s none of her business. I wrote the book for you.”

     Across the street, a group of women stood on the sidewalk. An older lady wearing a
green windbreaker pointed to our table.

     “I think you have fans,” I said, nodding my head in the direction of the women. “They
probably want to say hello.”

     “They can wait. Take a walk with me.”

     We strolled along the riverfront, my arm laced through his. It was a lovely, warm
September afternoon. Cottony clouds drifted across the sky.

      When Charles felt sure that we’d lost the group of ladies, we sat down on a bench. He
draped his arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him, my head resting in the space
between his chest and chin. I could feel his heart beating through his clothes.

     I followed Charles to his house in my car.

     We entered through a side door that looked like it had once been meant for deliveries.
Charles led me up a narrow stairway at the back of the house, its wooden runs made from
a patchwork of oak boards. The stairs creaked when we stepped on them.

     “No one’s here. Dianne and the boys are visiting her mother in Tampa.”

     Our destination was a bright guest bedroom, simple but elegant, at the end of a long
corridor. Late day sunlight streamed through windows that offered a beautiful view of the
meadow behind the house, golden that time of year.

     The bed was an antique four-poster, its wood dark with age. The spread covering the
mattress was white chenille. Laid out on the floor in front of the painted brick fireplace
was a hand-braided rag rug. A landscape painting of an afternoon river surrounded by
autumn trees hung over the mantle.

     Charles neatly folded all of my clothes and placed them on a chair.

     Despite our best efforts, we were awkward with one another: shy, fumbling, and much
too careful.

     Naked beneath the thin covers, we held each other while the sun dipped below the tree
line. We watched the stars poke through the fabric of the evening sky. And for a brief
moment, I was sure I could feel the rotation of the earth.

     At breakfast six months later, I read in the New York Times that Charles had died of
brain cancer. I pretended that something had gotten into my eye when Paul looked at me
from across the table.

     Charles’ last novel, a historical piece about a young woman in Maine who loses her
husband, a potato farmer, to a hunting accident, made it onto most of the bestseller lists.
Recently, I heard a rumor that someone had purchased the movie rights.

     Marie, my youngest, went off to college this past fall. With both girls gone, the house
seemed lonely, so Paul and I adopted a French bulldog, Jane, from the humane society.

     On weekends, we take Jane for long walks in the woods. One Sunday, just before
Thanksgiving, she got free from her leash and led us on a wild chase through the trees.
When we caught up to her, we found ourselves in a clearing, a wide meadow full of tall,
amber grass whispering in the breeze. In the distance stood a rambling, old house painted
dusty red, its windows blazing orange in the setting sun.

Fiction: "The Other Sun" by Darci Halstead Garcia

The sensation that there were rocks in her shoe was distracting. Despite stopping twice to take them off, she could find nothing.

It must be the gravel, she thought.

The sneakers were old and worn and the small clay like rocks on the dirt road was sharp against the thin soles. Adjusting the backpack that contained all she owned in the world, she continued on.

It is all I will need, she thought. If I can just get there.

Taking out her water bottle, she sipped, still walking. It was three miles to the bus station and she had to conserve as much energy as possible. Her short blonde hair was in a single knot tied haphazardly on top of her head, pieces stuck to the sweat on her neck and forehead. Every now and then, droplets would get into her moss green eyes and sting. Her pale yellow blouse had sweat stains on the underarms that were clearly visible. It was too big and hung almost to the knees of her worn jeans. They were too short for her long legs, but it was all she could find. Normally she was only allowed to wear dresses. Tight, terrible dresses.

She wondered then if they realized she was gone. Those people that lived at the end of the road in a brown house with a brown roof filled with brown furniture. Even the food was brown. The water and air were brown. She knew too much about what went on in that house. It was why she hadn't taken the car. They would have heard. Walking was silent. It would give her the head start she needed.

The planning had taken months. Pretending she was numb. She had been there ten years.

Ten years, she thought.

Her twenty sixth birthday had passed two weeks ago. Only she knew that. There was no celebration. Just the passage of time. She felt old. As old as the barren landscape that surrounded her, older than the hills that rested at a slightly crooked angle in the distance.

“Older than time,” she whispered.

The sun beat relentlessly from a cloudless sky yet she continued, one foot in front of the other. She began to sing nursery rhymes, anything to quiet her racing mind, her frightened and confused thoughts. Quietly at first, but the monsters in her mind came faster so she sang louder as she felt the acid fear crawling, its long legs coming from the bottom of her spine, snaking and weaving its way to her throat, choking her. Suddenly she lurched forward on unsteady legs and then fell, face down in the littered, yellow road. Flecks of colored rock stuck to her face and hands. Her mouth was open and she realized suddenly that she was screaming. The panic was palpable.

“Get up! Go! You have no time.”

Still, she lay there, scraping her hands in the road, clawing at the dirt and rocks filling the nubs that were once her fingernails.

The sweat rolled down her back as she slowly rose from her position and sat there, head down, arms wrapped around her knees. She rocked slowly, trying to calm herself as she fought the nausea that continued to wrack her. There was nothing in her stomach to vomit. She had not anticipated this, had not considered it would be so vile. This beast was in every pore of her body, seeping into every inch of her skin, crawling along her flesh, invading her, mocking her. It called to her, provocative in its beautiful promises. She knew it was a liar. Even now it was hammering at her, at once gently coaxing and alternatively demanding she acknowledge its presence. Demanding to be fed.

Gradually she rose to her feet, weak and still dizzy, brushing away the sand and rock still attached to her flesh. Her nose was running and she laughed suddenly. A hoarse sound. There was no tissue. She brought the sleeve of her shirt to her face and wiped her nose and the remaining sweat. As her arm dropped back to her side she thought about what it covered, what her sleeves covered. Her grotesque appendages that shouted to the world her abject failure. Her unholy sin.

She opened her water bottle again and sipped, then spit the dust from her mouth. She watched, fascinated as the yellow brown clay seemed to absorb it, then disappear.

Like it had never been, she thought. Like I had never been.

I can still make, she thought furiously. Be something. Go to school. Be normal, whatever that was. I can still do great things.

Empowered by her thoughts, she began walking again, faster now because she had lost time. Precious time.

You almost had me, you filthy beast, she thought and now she was almost running, eating up the dry acrid lifeless ground that separated her from freedom. Rushing headlong towards the place where there was sun. Not the tormenting ball that sat there amidst a horizon, devoid of even the slightest hue of color as it fired down bolts of scorching flames that, even now, licked along her body and left bright red blisters in its wake. She was going where the sun was gentle, and while it, too, gave light and heat, it remained content to lounge carelessly among a kaleidoscope of clouds wrapped in all the colors of the rainbow. In that place the sun would blow its gentle warmth over her, caressing and gliding its fingers everywhere she was cold. Everywhere she was dead. The fingers would find her secrets and brush them away then gently enfold her in its own blanket.

She smiled when she thought of that place and slowed her pace. She was struggling to catch her breath and her body was too weak to run. Her heart was knocking furiously inside her chest. She could feel every beat, every pound, as if to remind her that she still had a heart. Still was comprised of something innately human. She stopped suddenly and felt the pain rise, the all too familiar sensation of being detached from her body, existing only in her thoughts, circling around her vessel. She tried to stop it but it was strong. It was an army and she had no weapons, as it propelled itself there, into her quiet space and invaded it.

No longer was she standing in the middle of a barren road. She was there, in that brown house with the brown roof and the brown furniture. The bed was brown and smelled of cigarettes and too much sweat and too much blood and too much agony. That brown bed was alive and hungry and she was going to feed it. It would take everything. Her hopes, dreams, sorrow, and pain. Her charity and honor, her compassion and wisdom, her health and beauty. Not her soul though. That she had lost long ago.

The liar inside her screamed, demanded she feed it. So she let them climb over her, heard their grunts as they pressed her repeatedly into the filthy brown bed. She could feel the iron underneath, feel it as they pounded and pounded and the metal would scrape her spine and mercy would come when she finally disappeared into a safer place.

They would leave when they were done and then she would invite the lie back into her body, stretch out her arm and send it into her waiting veins, send it into all of her waiting veins. It was happy to leave its beautiful glass house and glide along its metal walkway, guided by her desperate hand, pushed through to blessed heaven. She could float and see the stars and ride the clouds and cease to exist. Those times she welcomed the liar, that thieving bastard, welcomed it and embraced it because it did what she craved it to do: made her disappear, and she so desperately needed to disappear.

She was vomitting. Retching, doubled over agony and again, she fell, this time to her knees, her traitorous arms barely able to keep her up. There was only bile, but it would not stop. Her head was heavy, expanding, and she continued to retch her devils onto the road. She had badly underestimated her foe. The liar was strong within her, impaling her. Its talons now firmly embedded as it tore her intestines to shreds, ripped her apart as it continued its relentless onslaught, bending her to its will, crucifying her. The snot running from her nose joined gladly with her tears, leaking into the corners of her mouth leaving streaks on her dust covered face.

You did this to yourself you silly useless girl, she thought.

She knew that she was dying. The body, the brain, they have an instinct. That knowledge brought both terror and resignation. She would never reach her destination, never be free of this monster.  She lay on her side now and felt a crushing sensation in her chest, as though a giant weight resided there. She felt the still scorching sun, unforgiving as it continued its assault, and for a moment wondered if she should take her sweater from her backpack to cover her face against being further burned. She would laugh at the idiocy of that thought if she had the strength to.

How long had she lay there? Now there was no heat at all. She shivered, her whole body shaking as a cold settled into her bones, permeating, suffusing itself throughout her being.

They will find me here, she thought. Here in the middle of this forsaken road in this forsaken town that most did not even know existed. Would they try to reach my family? No.

She no longer had a family. The thoughts twisted and turned as her brain slowly died and she decided to find a happier place there, think of happier moments, and, suddenly, she saw herself, running, her long hair flowing behind her and she was laughing. It was joyous, and then large arms swept her up and a booming voice was calling her princess. There were pretty clothes and she smiled then and she let it come, these memories of her other life. It was a cataclysm, this spate, a rushing torrent of her before existence. She did not run from these visions. She let them encompass her, let them warm her.

Her frail, weak body was giving up, her heart no longer able to pump the necessary blood and oxygen through her besieged frame and each and every organ was in despair.. All depended on the lie to live. The shadows in the brown house had been telling the truth after all. Without the lie she would die. Now she looked fully, there was nothing to lose. Watched herself as as she had been, laughing with her friends, anxious to try the lie. She had been so sure of herself, so positive she was stronger than the lie. She would try it once or twice. Wrong. She had been wrong. Her breathing was shallow and she knew it would be soon. She was no longer afraid of death. Death was not her enemy, but a welcome friend come to take her home. She was floating in a sea of vapor, weightless and, there, in the distance, she could see herself as she once had been, smiling and beckoning. It was time to go. She did just that. There on a nameless road, in a nameless town, she went, where the other sun lived.

Fiction: "Final Cut" by Hazel Prior

I will never forget the day I sliced my wedding dress into one hundred pieces. I knew it was one hundred. I counted. I counted as I sat on the lounge floor, as downy white snippets cascaded around me onto the thick-pile crimson carpet. I counted aloud, piece by piece, sobbing and hacking away with my blunt pair of needlework scissors. Over the next few years, those scissors would become my best friends. I wasn’t to know that then, of course. I was just doing what I had to do.
As I snipped, I kept looking up at the photo on the mantelpiece: Me, in the same wedding dress, and next to me Adam, dark hair cropped close, mouth curved into that broad, attractive smile of his. I was managing to look quite attractive that day, too, thanks to a kind light, Clare’s skill with the curling tongs, and Denise’s talent with the mascara and lipstick. The dress flattered my narrow figure and my face was lit up with an expression of utter joy and disbelief. I looked the way brides are supposed to look: Radiant. Yes, I saw it through my tears; that day I was really quite pretty. But evidently, now I was not pretty or—at least—not pretty enough, or not something enough…
When I finished cutting, I stood up shakily. I walked over to the CD shelves and chose the heaviest metal I could find. I slotted the disc into the machine, flicked the switch, and turned the volume up to full. Then I danced—a wild, jagged dance, ladling up handfuls of wedding dress from the floor and throwing them into the air. They fluttered all around me in a snowy blizzard of silk and lace. I beat at them with my fists as I danced, making them leap and fly. As soon as they started to settle, I scooped them up and hurled them into the air again. The music must have thumped and pounded and split my ears, yet when I look back there is only silence—silence and white movement, drifting like a slow-motion film sequence.
~~~
“Hi, honey, here I am, at last!”
“Adam!” I sprung to the door and kissed his cheek. “Good day at the office?”
He grimaced. “Bit of a grind. Phone ringing constantly, computer crashing, everyone in a mood.”
“Poor you!” I looked into his eyes and saw that the glint was there, grimace or no. “You must be exhausted!”
“Well, yes, I am a bit,” he confessed, “but all the better for seeing you. How was your day?”
“Oh, same old same old,” I lied. “Come and sit down. Supper’s ready.”
I had been careful to Hoover every last shred from the carpet. I had picked a few frayed white tatters out of my hair. I had given myself a long soak in the bath. I had made Shepherd’s pie, crispy-topped, the way he liked it. The pie was steaming on the kitchen table and a serene smile was on my face. But, hidden deep inside, my poor heart was viciously and irreparably cut to pieces.
That was how the cutting began. From that day on I kept the scissors in the front pocket of my handbag, at the ready.
~~~
“You again?”
I smiled nervously, not convinced he was really addressing me. I would have looked around, but I knew there was nobody behind me. I fiddled with my umbrella. “Um, yes, me again,” I said stupidly.
His collar was turned up and beads of rainwater sparkled in his dark hair. He raised a cheeky eyebrow. “Evidently you come here often.”
“To this bus-stop? Well, yes… I do!”
He smiled. “That’s good news. So do I!”
I had noticed him before, of course. It wasn’t just the muscles and the cobalt blue eyes. He was one of those people with that air of self-assurance I couldn’t help admiring. The admiration tripled when I heard him speak. It wasn’t so much what he said but how; he had a way of speaking with a rare directness and warmth that won me over straight away. The conversation went no further that day, though, as his bus chose that moment to arrive. But when he got on he threw me a sidelong glance that did strange things to my insides.
It was the day after—same time, same place, same drizzle—when he caught me trying not to look at him. Immediately he put his hand to his mouth and said in a theatrical whisper, “We must stop meeting like this. People will talk.” And I laughed because it was the best reaction I could muster.
He ducked under my umbrella and stuck out his hand. “I’m Adam,” he said.
I shook the hand. “Lydia.”
“Lovely to meet you, Lydia. I expect, like me, you’ve just finished work and are looking forward to getting home and putting your feet up and having a nice cup of tea.”
Someone who understood.
I nodded. “Yes, that’s pretty much it.”
“And at this moment you’ll be feeling extremely annoyed with English weather and public transport.”
“You got it!”
“And with men who come up to you and try to engage in conversation.”
“No!” I protested.
What to say next? A stream of possibilities ran through my head, but none of them seemed appropriate. I was about to make some dull comment about tomorrow’s forecast when he asked, “Which bus do you take, Lydia?”
I squinted into the distance and pointed. “That one that’s just turned into the High Street and will be here in a minute.”
“That’s funny, Lydia!” he said with exaggerated astonishment. “I do believe I’m going to be taking that one today too.”
“Oh! Where are you going?”
“Well, that all depends. Where are you going, Lydia?”
I liked the way he kept using my name.
I also liked the way he helped me with my bags onto the bus and sat down next to me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I liked the way he chatted for the whole journey. I liked the way he scribbled down his phone number and left it to me to make the next move but made it clear that the next move would be very welcome. I was flattered, I was curious, I was magnetized. I was on the road to marriage.
~~~
I don’t mind at all that the scissors are blunt. It feels good to use that extra bit of energy. Somehow it means more that way. The handles dig into my fingers, leaving a red ring. I am in my own little world, working speedily, focusing on the texture of the fabric as it divides, the roughness of the edges, the contrast of tension where I hold it and flimsiness where I let it fall away.

~~~

Three years, two months, and twenty-six days. Some of them happy, I suppose. Like the wedding day itself, with Dad worn out from his cancer but glowing with pride, Denise all plump and pretty in her bridesmaid’s dress, the church wreathed in roses and honeysuckle, the string quartet that Adam had booked as a surprise. The evenings of snuggling on the sofa with my new husband, looking at holiday brochures and putting circles round the cheapest ads. The week in Clare’s cousin’s chateau—that was an unexpected and soothing break after Dad’s death. Adam’s half-successful attempts to cook me dinners that week. Running down to the sea hand-in-hand. Walking in each other’s footprints on the beach. It may seem like a nice list of memories, but they are all, all, twisted and tarred now.
~~~
It was not difficult to work out when Adam was having an affair. Naturally, he tried to cover his tracks but I grew adept at sniffing them out. There were the usual tell-tale signs: a whiff of an unfamiliar perfume, a late return home due to an "extra meeting," the odd phone call which sounded cryptic from my end. Chocolates, a pair of earrings, and a few other little treats for me suddenly materializing. No doubt they helped to ease his conscience. No doubt he viewed himself as a bit of a rascal but, well, he was certainly a generous and a charming one! And where was the harm when his poor fool wife knew nothing? Every time it happened his eyes glinted with the joy of his secret. The glint of excitement—that was the thing that, to me, made it so very obvious.
I have no guts. I couldn’t make myself broach the subject, couldn’t bear to think of the consequences if I did. So I took it like a saint and never let on that I knew. But, secretly, I cut things. Sometimes it would be a thin sliver from a curtain lining or a small, round hole made in an antimacassar. Sometimes it would be one of his ties, hacked into several pieces and disposed of in the neighbor’s bin where he would never find it.
“Have you seen my blue striped tie, honey?” he’d ask.
“No, why?” I’d say, all innocence.
“That’s odd. Where the devil has it got to? Seems to have disappeared.”
I’d raise an eyebrow, gently incredulous. “Not more missing clothes?”
He’d continue rummaging in the drawers. “Bizarre. I’m sure I put it here, at the top. I just don’t understand where it’s gone!”
“Well, I don’t know!”
“It must have run off with those boxers I bought last week.”
He can be so hilarious.
“Must have done, careless!” I knew perfectly well where the boxers were, too. They were buried at the bottom of the vegetable garden, cut into twelve ragged strips.
When he was on affair number four, I felt the need to tell someone. It had to be Denise. She was my oldest friend. We had known each other since school days when we used to swap pencil sharpeners and coo over the class guinea pig together. In the fifth form, we were inseparable, both friends in need. I helped her with math homework and she let me copy her French lessons. She was the artsy, creative, fun one and I was the boffin with a head for figures. In spite of our differences, both of us simultaneously developed a crush on Mr. Gregson, the history teacher. We collapsed into helpless giggles whenever he asked either of us a question. We used to discuss his merits for hours: the way he started writing at the bottom of the blackboard and worked his way to the top, his wry humor, the seductively bass tones in his voice. Yes, it was Mr Gregson who cemented our friendship. Then my family moved to London. Denise and I wrote each other long detailed letters for a while but eventually we lost touch.
We met again by chance several years later in front of a house agent’s window. We were both scrutinizing pocket-sized bungalows. We looked up at the same moment, caught each other’s eye, and did a double-take. There were hugs and cries of “Is it really you?” and “You haven’t changed a bit!” A catch-up coffee in the café around the corner and the years seemed to slip away. She told me of her brief marriage and messy divorce, her new interest in sculpture, and her plans to buy a house in the area and set up her own business. I told her how I had given up work but had found the man of my dreams. I burbled on and on about Adam. I flashed my new engagement ring, invited her to the wedding the following spring, and told her that we were also house-hunting. She gripped my hand with excitement. “Perhaps we’ll be neighbours!” she gushed.
I grinned. “Oh, wouldn’t that be fabulous!”
It seemed that everything in my life was falling into place so beautifully.
Now Denise was living with a big, fluffy cat in a house on the estate, only a couple of streets away. I saw more and more of her these days. I didn’t get out much, but visits to Denise’s always cheered me up. She was the one who saved my sanity. Especially when Adam started his shenanigans.
Denise could always be relied upon for cups of herbal tea and reassuring chit-chat. I have to admit, I never normally confided. It seemed I had changed since my school days and now I found it difficult to bare my heart to anyone. But for some reason on this particular occasion, the occasion of Adam’s fourth affair, I decided it was worth a try. There is a limit to how many things you can cut.
It was a bright July day with birds chirruping and lawnmowers humming. I did not need a jacket. The trees were almost fluorescent green against the cloudless sky. I counted them as I walked along, even though I already knew there were seventeen between our house and Denise’s. A neighbour emerging from his driveway waved cheerily and wished me a good afternoon. I totally blanked him. I didn’t realise until I’d rounded the corner, and by then it was too late.
Denise’s house was one of seven that all looked the same except that they were set at slightly different angles. A huge tub of scarlet geraniums sat by the doorstep, lacing the air with a sweet tangy perfume. I pressed the bell and heard the electric ding-dong sound in the depths of the house. Denise was slow to arrive. Then her face appeared behind the dimpled glass, the door was thrown open and I was almost smothered by the enthusiasm of her hug.
“What’ll it be, Lyd? Peppermint? Chamomile? Vanilla and ginseng?”
“Oh, any,” I said, vaguely.
“Camomile it is, then!”
“Lovely!” I perched on her sofa next to the coffee-and-cream-coloured cat.
“Typical Purrcival, taking up more than his fair share of space! Just shove him away!” she sang, disappearing into the kitchen. I pushed back a little further onto the sofa and stroked Purrcival, who totally ignored me as usual.
“Does it smell funny in here?” Denise asked as she reappeared and presented me with a mugful of hot murky liquid. “I made tofu fritters last night, with tonnes of garlic. They were yum, actually, if I do say so myself. New recipe given to me by Liz, the lady I sing next to in choir.”
“Oh, right.”
“She’s a gem. Sings hopelessly out of tune, but a real sweetie. And not nearly as strait-laced as she looks. I wouldn’t have thought she would have a vegetarian recipe in the house, but it turns out her daughter’s a veggie.”
“Ah, that’s handy.”
“Yeah. We’re going to swap a few recipes. I’ve promised to take my asparagus risotto recipe to the next choir prac. And how are you? You look a bit peaky, Lyd, if you don’t mind me saying. Everything OK?”
I studied my tea. How did you say important stuff like this? How did you get your mouth to shape the words? “I’m…er, well…”
“Oh, good,” she said, planting Purrcival on her knee. “It’s so hard to tell with you, you’re naturally so pale. And how’s Adam?”
I fixed my eyes on the dresser behind her. There were two sets of coffee cups, one willow- patterned and one plain blue. The plain blue set had only five cups. One must have been lost or broken.
“You are counting my cups, aren’t you!”
“No,” I said.
“Yes, you are, crazy girl! Why do you always count things?”
I shrugged. “Keeps me out of trouble I suppose.”
She laughed. “Hey, talking of trouble, did I tell you about my argument with the plumber?”
“No,” I said. “What happened with the plumber?”
Two mugs of chamomile later Denise had related every last detail of the plumber saga, but I still hadn’t told her a thing.
“Right, best be going now,” I muttered, standing up. My head was aching. The camomile had been even less effective than usual.
I counted the trees on the way back. Still seventeen.
When I arrived in front of our house—the little house that Adam and I had saved up for together and chosen together and bought together, the house where he had carried me over the threshold covering me with kisses—I could hardly bear to look at it. I focused on the row of pansies along the front. Eleven plants. Twenty-eight purple faces jeering at me. I glanced around quickly. Nobody was in the close, nobody was looking. I took the scissors from my handbag and did some quick snipping.
Every flower-head was gone. Not a single one left. Just clusters of leaves with limp little stalks poking uselessly up out of them. I surveyed my handiwork with satisfaction. Should I pick up the purple rag-heads that were lying on the bare earth? No. Let them lie.
It was after seven when Adam arrived home. He did not notice the massacre of the pansies.
“Hi, honey!” he called. “I’m back! Sorry, love, late again! Tony wanted a word about sales figures so I had to stay on. How are you? How was your day?”
“Fine,” I said. “Just fine!” and presented my cheek for a kiss.
I didn’t need to look into his eyes to know the glint was there, shining as brightly as ever.
“What did you do with yourself today, lovely?” he asked.
“Oh, not a lot. Went to see Denise. Did some gardening.”
“Well done, you! Listen, I’m a bit wrecked. I’m just going to jump in the shower, then we’ll have a nice quiet evening in front of the telly, if that’s all right with you?”
“Fab,” I said.
During the night I had this weird dream about Mr. Gregson. He was writing sums on the blackboard and they were all wrong but I didn’t dare put up my hand and tell him so.
The sense of awkwardness was still with me when I woke up. I could just make out the hands of the alarm clock. It was only three in the morning. My eyes felt like they had heavy weights on them and my mouth was dry as sandpaper. I rose quietly so as not to disturb Adam and went downstairs to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. I gulped it down and splashed my face while I was at it. I still had a burning thirst. Perhaps I was a bit feverish. I refilled the glass and returned to the bedroom. It would be a struggle to get back to sleep, so I didn’t get into bed straight away. I pulled the curtain back and looked out. The moon was almost full.
I wondered who the lover was this time. I really didn’t have much idea about Adam’s tastes, except that he had once liked me. But he’d probably realized that, with his vast quantities of charm and charisma, he was quite able to go up the scale several notches. She’d be a looker, of that I was sure. Someone smart and sassy from the office no doubt. Someone who never gave a second thought to the pain she was inflicting.
Suddenly the pansies were not enough. Adam’s trousers were hanging on the back of the chair, bleached by a white band of moonlight. I picked them up and started going through the pockets. Nothing but a handkerchief. All well and good; that would do for now. But as I pulled it out, I noticed something else stuck to the grey fabric of the trousers. Cat hairs, lots of them. My heart bounded. I sped to the landing to check under the light, but instinct had already shot ahead and told me. They were cream-and-coffee-coloured: unusual, unmistakeable.
I crept back to the bedroom and replaced the trousers over the chair.
Adam was still asleep, his mouth slightly open. The moonlight poured onto his face, softly silvering every line and angle. It was such a handsome face, such fine features…how I had loved that face! I stood gazing down at him while the minutes slipped past. At last, dreamlike, I wandered to the dressing table and picked up my bag. I dipped my hand in and sought the firm, hard edge of the needlework scissors. How small they were, how neat, and, yet, what they could do!
Bolts of yellow sunshine shot across the walls. My brain leapt into action. It was still early and the house was virtually noiseless. I threw on my jeans and jumper and dashed downstairs. I dragged the suitcase out from the cupboard under the stairs. It was bulging after all my night-time activities and I could only just manage it. I consulted the clock. There was one more thing to do before I left. I headed for the mantelpiece. There in the centre was the gilt frame with the happy couple on their wedding day. I gently levered off the back and took the photo out.
One straight, long cut all the way down the center and the two of us were divided. The good half I tucked into my handbag to take with me. It was the only time I’d looked reasonably pretty after all. The other half, the half with Adam, I left on the kitchen table, sliced neatly in two. When he returned from work later—perhaps much later, perhaps with that glint ever brighter in his eye—it would be the first thing he would see. That and the needlework scissors placed carefully beside it. I would not be needing them again. This was to be my final cut.

Fiction: "Unwanted Character" by Jessica Schaub

Patricia wouldn’t leave; didn’t take the hint that she wasn’t welcome anymore. My plan was simple. Let her crawl around inside my mind as I took notes and wrote a story, one that pulls at heartstrings and screams of hear-me-roar feminism that bleeds Wild West justice. This short encounter grew into a week-long sabbatical. I am her constant host.

           It all started with the idea to look at the world through the eyes of a woman who had to fight for life; not to save herself, but the lives of her children. Not a hip-holster hero with a Colt, but a woman in an apron ready to fire fierce rage. That’s when Patricia came to mind. She was raised on the western edge, dodging tumbleweeds and side-stepping rattlers. She followed Tom hoping to escape the venom of the arid wild, but found herself in a setting with an angry drunk as her persistent predator.

            I pictured her on the back porch of her childhood home where she had spent warm evenings watching the trees along the property line tickle the bellies of distant clouds.

            Nothing is pruned in the wild. In the city, everything is cropped and squared.

“The city is its own jungle and you survived,” I reasoned.

Perhaps, she sighed, but not all rattlers slide on their bellies.

I learned about her one moment during our first walk and started writing. Her relentless need for reminiscing, however, became the antagonist of my existence, her voice calling me to the dark window.

Look at the stars! In the city, you only see the strongest. Here, every shining beauty is dancing. I haven’t seen the Milky Way since I was out catching fireflies with my cousins. It seems bigger now, the Milky Way, you know? Everything else seems smaller: the house where I grew up, my old school, my mother. But the Milky Way seems bigger.

She haunted my routine. When she saw something she thought I'd like, she nudged me lightly.

See that man? He reminds me of  Father. He liked to wear wide-rimmed hats, too. Quite old-fashioned, you know. He spent his youth as a ranch-hand and always liked those hats.

At the grocery store, it was the meat counter.

Steak. We had steak all the time growing up. Daddy kept cows. In the city, steak was a luxury, used more on black eyes than on plates.

It was easiest to ignore her at the dentist. With my mouth open and full of scraping instruments, I just let her thoughts drift around me like laughing gas. Her tongue slid over her porcelain caps that covered the teeth Tom chipped when one of the kids spilled his drink.

I tried to bring him another, but I wasn't fast enough.

At home, I read some of my previously published work hoping she might understand that I had what I needed from her. But no. The old stories fueled her, kept her talking about the single dimension of my characters and asked what their life had been like before the climax.

 “That’s too much back story,” I reasoned. “It’s just this moment that the reader cares about.”

She made no response. Maybe she was starting to understand.

I was wrong. The next morning, I heard her voice in the bathroom over the din of the shower.

I just saw something….

 “Get out!” I clutched the soapy hair at my temples.

I just thought you wanted to see the—

“No!” I toweled off quickly, rubbing my skin so hard it left me red. “No! I got what I needed. Leave me alone!”

She stood there, straightening her skirt then tucking her hair behind her ear. I thought you wanted to write my story.

I grabbed the paper copy of what I had sent to the magazine.  “I only wrote about the incident with your husband.”

That's all?

"What else was there?"

I could have lived a much more interesting life, but I had to raise his children and feed them all on his salary. There wasn’t time to do anything else.

“But that day...”

It was just farm life falling into the city; he was like a coyote after my chickens.

“You did a great thing.”

It's a mortal sin.

“You protected your family.”

But I did not trust Him. I took matters into my own hands. His Word says to not kill. I took Tom's life.

“It was instinct.”

No! her voice echoed loudly in my mind. It was a lack of instinct. All my life I had prayed for help, for patience, prayed for the flour to make an extra loaf, for the meat to be on sale. But when it really mattered, when I needed Him the most, I didn’t pray at all. I acted without one thought of Him or His laws.

            The story in my hand felt hollow. I had called on her to learn her story, to absorb details of that night when she saved her children from her husband’s rage. Other people called her a hero, a female warrior in a small southwest town, but that’s not what she believed. I was foolish to believe that an act as grave as murder, even to save her family, would leave her feeling not powerful, but weak.

            My Patricia had something I did not. Remorse.  

“What did you do before the police came?” I wondered.

            I knelt next to him, trying to ignore the kitchen knife in his chest. I prayed to God to forgive me. I asked Tom to forgive me. But he just stared. Fear leaves a trail of blood that no amount of tears will ever wash away. She nodded to the printed pages. My story is finished. I’ll leave.

            “Where will you go?”

            Here. 

            Patricia pointed to the first page of my manuscript. I’ll spend the rest of my days in my back-story.

And she left my changed mind.

Fiction: "The Bricklemeyers" by Barbara Taylor

Nelson Bricklemeyer mowed the lawn for the second time in three days. He hated an unkempt yard and checked every evening for problems. Inevitably, he found them. Drooping hosta leaves, dust on the mailbox, weeds. Trash tossed out of car windows incensed him most. He kept an eye out, not only for the condition of his property but the neighbors’ as well, some of whom favored the “natural” look that offended Nelson’s aesthetic sensibility. Especially that woman across the street—Sylvia—who had no husband. Just a yardman who didn’t, as far as he could tell, follow a regular schedule, and he kept careful track of these kinds of things.

Nelson retired early from an undistinguished career as a claims adjuster—not of his own accord, but the company’s. Another source of aggravation: the damn company. He’d been a loyal, hardworking employee, and what thanks did he get? To top that off, wife Carolyn started volunteering—without consulting him, by the way—at the neighborhood elementary school, leaving Nelson to fend for himself after thirty-five years of marriage. Something to do with computers. They didn’t talk about that or much of anything, really, except the list for their Saturday trips to the grocery.

“Do you want bananas for your corn flakes?” Carolyn asked on Friday nights, pencil in hand.

“I always eat bananas with my corn flakes,” Nelson answered as if he didn’t say the same thing every week.

“I thought you might like to try blueberries for a change,” replied Carolyn.

“I don’t like change,” Nelson muttered under his breath.

The truth was, he’d never been a contented man, even before the layoff. It was one thing when Nelson was employed, but Carolyn Bricklemeyer couldn’t have predicted how stifling this retirement business would be. The reality that it was a permanent condition was almost too much to contemplate. She took up birdwatching from the sun porch in all kinds of weather just to fill her lungs with air she didn’t have to share with Nelson. She counted the hours ‘til Monday when she returned to work at the school office and ate lunch at the cafeteria, which was free of charge in consideration of her volunteer service. Happy to eat whatever was on the menu since she didn’t have to prepare it, she requested extra helpings of mashed potatoes and gravy because Nelson wasn’t there to scrutinize every bite she took. She’d gained a few pounds, but so what? Just when her children were out of the house and on their own, Nelson was underfoot, his angst like a heavy suitcase he refused to put down. Carolyn had solved Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. by escaping to the school. That left only evenings and weekends to get through, and Nelson was thankfully often wrapped up in yard work. The yard wasn’t big enough, in Carolyn’s opinion.

“My husband has time on his hands,” she commented to the school secretary when he called to complain they had run out of tomato soup or cheese. Nelson’s regular lunch was a cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup, and he made sure to alert Carolyn if these items were lacking. But you go to the store with me, Carolyn would say in her own defense. He didn’t like to hear this, and Carolyn didn’t like the fact that Nelson was always there. Hovering. Criticizing. Blaming. Or running the lawnmower or electric trimmer or blower until she had to stuff cotton in her ears. But rainy days were the very worst, since Nelson couldn’t work outdoors and the television was on.

“Can’t you turn down the volume?” Carolyn called from the sun porch. “You’re scaring the birds away.”

“What?” yelled Nelson, as he switched channels yet again to a sporting event with a cheering mob.

Still, television kept the man occupied and in one place. When he tried to fix something, he got into trouble. He had never been particularly handy. When the freezer door stuck, he spread out every tool on the kitchen floor and fiddled for two hours to no avail. While he was rattling around in the garage, Caroline found a wire coat hanger and had the door closing smoothly in seconds. His wife’s easy fix caused Nelson to seethe when he finally appeared clutching a giant wrench. He grabbed up the rest of his tools and disappeared. In a way, this was a good thing, as Carolyn didn’t see hide nor hair of him for the rest of the day and almost felt she was alone in the house. A delightful feeling.

The Bricklemeyers had little in the way of a social life. Carolyn’s idea of a good time was reduced to curling up in bed with a book and a package of low-fat chocolate cookies. Nelson didn’t read beyond the newspaper, and the only people he spoke to were the paper boy (if he was late) and the man in back who had also been laid off. They both trimmed their shrubbery into rectangles and watched The Cheap Life religiously, but other than that they had nothing in common.

The rest of the neighbors annoyed Nelson no end. On one side was an above-ground pool, and he objected to it on principle (unsanitary) and the squealing fun-loving children who hung their towels on the deck rail in plain sight. The other side featured a family with teenagers and dogs. Cars constantly coming and going from the driveway. Too many parties with garish helium balloons tied to stair railings. He didn’t interact with any of them or the woman, Sylvia, across the way whose yardman sometimes piled debris by the curb a day early. Nelson fantasized about calling the city and demanding they send someone out immediately to issue a ticket to this Sylvia person, branding her a public nuisance. The possibility gave Nelson a secret thrill. Reporting the infraction was anonymous, which heightened the appeal, plus it required constant vigilance. As luck would have it, he had all the time in the world.

Carolyn decided her husband must be obsessed with Sylvia, an attractive—and apparently popular—woman she had only seen from a distance. Why else would he stand at the glass storm door for hours, staring at her house? For this reason, she decided not to cook dinner but instead to order out for pizza, a spontaneous decision Nelson strongly objected to. Didn’t he deserve a home cooked meal? This trend needed to be nipped in the bud before it spiraled out of control.

“I don’t want pizza,” he said, believing that settled the matter.

“Fine. More for me,” Carolyn said.

She’d never met Sylvia but resented her anyway. All that freedom and independence! It was so unfair. Sylvia, as far as Carolyn knew, did exactly as she pleased when she pleased. Evidently, she lived alone which meant the shopping got done without a man tagging along. No retired husband to trip over with his ear-splitting TV shows and machines and snits. Suddenly Carolyn didn’t care if Nelson ate peanut butter and stale crackers for dinner or, for that matter, if he ate at all.

“I’m calling the kids,” she said as if to herself. Nelson was opposed to this idea, too, because, to his way of thinking, their son and daughter didn’t call or visit frequently enough and needed to be taught a lesson. Unbeknownst to Carolyn, he had recently hung up on both of them. Too little too late. Where was their respect, for goodness sake? “I miss them, Nelson. We can go out for brunch this weekend.”

“To a restaurant, you mean?” Nelson’s voice grated. What in the Sam Hill was going on with Carolyn? It didn’t occur to him to inquire.

“C’est La Vie, with the champagne fountain. If you’d rather not go, stay home.” Carolyn picked up the phone to dial her daughter, who was thrilled to hear her mother’s voice. The lilting tone was a refreshing change. What brought it on? Nelson stamped out of the room. It was a mystery to him, after a life of self-control and sacrifice, that he had been saddled with inconsiderate, thankless people in every direction. His family, the neighbors, the company. Why only that morning Carolyn had run the dishwasher when it wasn’t completely full. As expected, he refused to go out for brunch, choosing instead to mow the lawn.

His wife and children had a lovely time. In fact, they couldn’t recall a more pleasurable or relaxed family get-together, but then Nelson was absent. When Carolyn arrived home, he was parked in a lawn chair aimed at Sylvia’s house. Refusing to acknowledge his wife or even to seek oblivion through the TV remote, Nelson remained in his vantage point. Maybe he’d stay there all night. Carolyn reveled in the welcome silence for the rest of the day. Before bed, she scribbled a note, which she taped to the refrigerator:

Nelson: Since I’m busy and you’re unemployed, you can go to the grocery store by yourself from now on. Buy whatever you want. I’ve lost interest in food. Carolyn

Monday arrived, and Carolyn chose a Weight Watchers meeting over a starchy lunch at the school cafeteria. By summer vacation, she’d lost fifteen pounds and won the school system’s Volunteer of the Year Award. She invited her children, but not her husband, to the ceremony downtown at the education center. In her acceptance speech, she acknowledged Sylvia as her inspiration for designing a new and ever-evolving life.

“Mom, who’s Sylvia?” her children asked at the reception. But Carolyn only smiled.