night upon entering her living room was to place the wedding portrait on its face without asking if he may. At daybreak she saw him to the door without thank you or goodbye. She next went into the kitchen and made two hard boiled eggs for dinner, then ate them with hot sauce on the fire escape overlooking the scruffy patch of land that constituted a backyard. They had been planning on planting a garden back there but had never gotten to it. Grey clouds hung heavy overhead and Rice hoped the snows would come early that year.
She picked up her fork and finally shuffled soggy noodles into her mouth. Sebastian remained still, the bowl held to his face but no more steam billowed in his breath.
—Sometimes husbands just die, was what he said, she repeated into the macaroni. Sometimes the train just comes and takes them.
—He said that? Sebastian asked and Rice shrugged her head slowly from side to side.
—But then you chose for yourself a defective husband, she whispered, not so much reading her memory as becoming a megaphone for the past, piped through over the airwaves of time.
She had been at the market when it happened and had gone running when everyone else went running, at the sound, a bag of corn clutched under her arm. A trail of jostled silks followed her down the street and tickled the crowd pressed close as she pushed her way through to see the train cars stalled, just out of station. The doctor met her at the fence and barred her view, his arm a tree branch. I’m sorry Rice but it was his heart his heart you know he had a condition you know he was defective it’s a wonder he lasted this long at all, but she could not hear for the words in her throat tripping
Morgan Fox | 17