There is a very loud bird right outside my window. I’m pretty sure it is possessed by a demon. Morning. Let’s see if we can get the morning prompts done before the demon bird brings a horde of it’s cohorts up from the pit.
I like to think that the main character has been staving off a storm that is now going to hit in a tidal wave of comuppance.
Wednesday, September 28th: Are you sure you will be happy?
“Are you sure you will be happy?” he asked.
I opened my mouth to answer. What I would have said I couldn’t honestly say but when I looked at him all thoughts of offering an honest answer froze. He was already half turned towards the door, eyes glued to his phone as he scrolled through his messages. His body started moving towards the door as though obeying some subconscious thought.
He wanted to be out of here. He wanted to not think about anything other than his own life for a while. That was fine. That was understandable. I might have expected a little more consideration, but I understood it wasn’t coming.
“I’ll be fine,” I told him. It was what he wanted to hear, his cue that it was all right for him to leave. And so he did. He glanced up once from his phone, eyes not reaching mine, nodded, and then walked out of the door. The door swung shut behind him. I could hear when the engine of his expensive sports care revved outside and then faded away into the distance as he drove away.
The ride here had been uncomfortable. The car was too small for me and my belongings and I had expected him to bring one of the more practical vehicles he owned when it was decided he would drop me off. When he arrived I told him I could easily call someone else, but he insisted. He chose the porche because it was a nice day and he thought it would be fun to get it out on the open road. While the vehicle was packed tightly with the bags I was taking with me, it was also full of an awkward sort of silence.
We had never really had that much to say to each other, Bob and I. I married his father and did my best for them when their mother sent them to stay with us, but I had never been one of their favorite people. The fact that their mother ran off with her lover and then later came back for them meant there was little resentment towards me for the divorce as I didn’t even meet their father until a few years later.
But they were mostly grown by then and weren’t interested in any sort of additional parent. Once they came of legal age they stopped visiting all together, only sending cards at Christmas and on occasion remembering to call for his birthday. When he became sick, they stayed away, only visiting once in his final days in the hospital.
It was only Bob’s wife Sarah who convinced him to drop me off. Having met Sarah I was fairly certain that her motivation was less a consideration and more of an attempt to make certain I didn’t leave with anything she considered family property. I was fairly certain that Sarah had been into the family home to count the silver before my husband took his last breath. She was just that sort of person.
‘And now I am free of them,’ I reminded myself. I stretched as though my body still remembered the cramped conditions of the car. The sound of it’s motor was almost faded into nothing now and I hoped Bob enjoyed his ride. I doubted he would have such a day as care free as this for a while. There were some hard roads coming for the family and it was well that I was gone. It was more than time that they started handling things for themselves.
Ten til Midnight 