Excerpt:

Maybe this was grief not fear…

 

Shelley put her arms around her knees and rocked. The cell phone in her hand grew hot and moist from how tightly she clutched it. Absentmindedly, she pressed buttons and it lit up then she counted the seconds until the screen grew dim.

 

Over and over again.

 

Felt like hours.

 

In her mind, she kept seeing her mother’s face. The image varied between narrow-eyed, pursed-lip disapproval and distance built on both natural and chemically-enhanced apathy. She’d never liked Shelley. Not once had her face held a warm smile or even begrudging approval for her daughter. Shelley didn’t kid herself. It was possible it had never held love either.

 

But she had been someone and she had been there.

 

Then this morning at ten a.m. precisely, Donna Francis died in her favorite blue morning dress sitting in a dingy aluminum lawn chair wedged into broken pavement behind the house. Her silver streaked hair had been perfect as always despite the grimy housecoat covering a wasting body. An unfinished fourth glass of gin tilted in her hand. Even in death, she hadn’t spilled a drop.

 

Now, Shelley had no one.

 

Though she had accepted that one day this would come to pass, though she had spent every year since she was fifteen years old working toward this day, Shelley had not been prepared when it came. Insurance was an illusion.

 

Alone.

 

Maybe this was grief and not fear.

 

Shelley had always known she would be alone one day. Maybe this was grief… not fear.

 

Maybe this was fear… and not… longing.

 

Not sure what time it was, not sure of anything more than the darkness hanging like a blanket from the sky and the mosquitoes alighting on her bare arms while fireflies created a distraction, she pressed a button on her phone again. Then another. Then another. She dialed the entire number and at the end her thumb hovered over the send key.

Slowly she shook her head from side to side, her mind answering “no” to the question burning through her gut and her heart.

 

Her legs shook as they ached, and Shelley released them, letting them slide to the floor. She wondered if she would cry this time, but a familiar dry burn pricked her eyes. No tears.

 

She should hang up.

 

* * * * *

 

He answered the phone like this: “What, Shell?” The words were gruff and crackled across the phone lines like a fire just getting started.

 

“Hey Raymond.” Normality permeated her voice. Shelley infused it with balance and clean modulation. He would never know that anything was wrong. Of course he wouldn’t.

 

For so long, when Ray said he loved her, Shelley knew he didn’t. He couldn’t if after all their time together, he still couldn’t read her. He had never been able to tell when her voice or expression lied, which meant he didn’t know her. And if he didn’t know her, then what he loved was nothing more than a daydream.

 

The thought reminded her of the enormity of this emotion, whatever it was, that had driven her to call him, to put herself through this. Why had she done it? Didn’t she realize he wouldn’t know anything was wrong, that she would have to tell him? And that was something she couldn’t do, had never been able to do.

 

“What… Shelley?” Irritation caused his words to grind like dry, flinty gears. Angry, smoldering fire.

 

His fire ignited her own temper. If only he knew, he wouldn’t be so cruel to me. If only he knew… Brash as ever, heated as ever, she attacked. “That’s all you have to say? You haven’t talked to me in all this time and all you can say is, ‘What, Shelley’?”

 

“I’m hanging up.”

 

“Don’t.” Desperation crackled in her voice then softened it. She wasn’t sure if he heard.

 

Maybe he didn’t. Maybe that’s why he hung up the phone.