She stares across the table at the empty space. After thirty years of marriage, his absence hurts like an ingrown nail. With every move and often when she’s resting.
Their house- a shrine. Dust settles quietly like snow on breezeless winter mornings. On his bottles of expensive calvados, the empty gun safes, the tennis racquets, his trench coat, the book he was last reading. The frozen silence between them is a shroud.
It’s time to cut the wedge.
She sorts, she folds, she arranges. His polo shirts, golf trousers, leather jackets, from cupboards into plastic bags. Holding his blue sweater, her hand wants to brush the dandruff of his shoulders, when it remembers that the flakes were once a part of his skin. She wants to crawl under them. Instead, they’re gathered in a silver box.
Without the pain she feels with every step she takes, she withers.
Originally published in AdHocFiction, Issue 71, August 24th 2016
Picture: Pixabay.com
