She listened to his car pull out of the driveway and counted to ten.
At one breath past ten, she pulled down her suitcase from the top shelf in the bedroom closet. He wouldn’t be gone long. Five minutes to the bank, another five to get through the line-up, five more to get back home, unless the bridge was busy–but she couldn’t be that lucky. Fifteen minutes, tops. If she couldn’t leave in fifteen minutes, she never would.
The curtains shifted, and she felt a new chill in the air. The morning sun no longer shone through the bedroom window. Where had the clouds come from?
She grabbed a handful of underwear from the top dresser drawer and tossed them into the suitcase. T-shirts and a second pair of jeans followed. No need for dresses or silk blouses. No need for the feminine trappings he always demanded.
Light rain dotted the window. She blinked away the threat of tears and rummaged through the remaining drawers for anything that might still hold meaning.
Their wedding album, still crisp and white, glared up from the bottom drawer. A little white lie. Half-forgotten vows echoed in her head. She let him lie to her for so long and lied to herself even longer.
The gentle patter of rain shifted to the sound of bouncing marbles. She went to the window and watched as hailstones dropped through the air and careened off trees. Thunder clapped in the distance. She’d never be able to walk to the bus station in a hailstorm.
Perhaps she should stay. He had the car. He had the money. She had nothing but an ill-formed plan. Another thunderclap, closer this time, but the hail gave way to rain again. The sky seemed broken into thirds, a shortened rainbow of blue, white, and gray. Damp leaves glistened in the sun even as the rain continued to fall.
She dried her swelling eyes and tried to swallow her doubts with a deep breath. Only scattered raindrops fell. She pulled off her wedding band and set it on the windowsill.
She heard a distant rumble but couldn’t tell if it was coming or going.
Betty Dobson is a prize-winning author of numerous short stories, personal essays, poems, articles, and one novella. She believes that there are no absolute black-and-white situations in this world. She’s always on the lookout for various shades of gray—and any other colors of the rainbow lingering around the horizon. Life has its quirks; whenever she can explore them, question them, and write about them, she will. Give her a mystery, and she’s like a pit bull in her search for resolution. Detours are to be explored; getting there (and writing about it) is half the fun.
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