A Broken Promise
She drives home, the empty light still on.
Holding back the tears that have been threatening to spill
all day, as the uncut lawn blows in the wind; the damp smell invading her nose.
Her too thin hands brush bone to metal as she steps over the
pile of sopping envelopes with big bold letters stamped on each one. Two
familiar words that she chooses to ignore.
Through the door and around the pink toys she hands, the a
young woman another promise of pay as she bids her a brief goodbye.
The girl, with fresh, clear eyes, gives the too skinny
mother with dying black hair a knowing and sympathetic smile as she reassures
the woman with a fifth “no need. This one’s on me.” and then leaves the mother
alone with her sleeping child, stepping over the untouched mail.
The mother, inside, doesn’t bother to look around at the
forever growing mess as she peeks inside her sleeping child’s room, closing the
door and continuing to the kitchen cupboard where she kept the bottle he gave
her for the return that never happened,
She pours the red, silk poison into the last clean cup and
sips slowly; legs crossed, she notices her last good pair of nylons has already
began to run beneath her baby blue and white uniform.
Annoyed with herself, for the first time that late evening,
she bothers to look up at the mess she should attempt to clean.
Her heart clenches as her eyes wander from the spotless
floorboards to the shinning purple stone displayed up on the mantel where a
picture of the two sister towers sat, mocking her loves promise of a lifetime
spent together.
For once in a long time, she had one less thing to worry
about, as she lets the tears spill down her pale cheeks.
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