Short Stories - With Unexpected Endings

Tears rolled down her face as she read the letter. Her body felt numb. Folding it back into its previous shape she tucked it away in her pocket. She didn’t move. Thoughts about the years rushed into her mind and thoughts about the letter. How did she end up here? She was married to an angry bitter man who offered her nothing but bruises and belittling. Her only child was out of the nest and beginning his new life. The last twenty years seemed so empty now. She was thirty-eight, had no career and her family had long ago stopped coming to visit.

Lying back on the bed she curled up and pulled her knees up to her chest. Her mind began to drift. It started off so simple. She was sixteen years old with a pony tail and a baseball mitt; spending her afternoons playing ball and climbing trees. One day while high in the tallest tree branches throwing pieces of bark as far as they would allow and watching them fall, he made his first appearance. Branches below began to crack and out popped his head.

He asked, “What are you doing up here?”

“Nothin’,” She snapped back.

He said, “I’m Joe. My dad and I just moved in town today. What’s a girl doing in a tree? This is no place for a girl. You might be half descent if you cleaned yourself up.” His tone was strong and assertive. This tone would ring throughout their future.

He was cute and the first boy to see her as more than a good right arm. She didn’t realize it then but that was the day she was grounded. Joe came into her life, knocked her out of that tree and on to the ground. Today she remains in the same place under his shadow so many years later. Who could blame her for letting it happen? She wanted to feel pretty and saw this as her escape from the tom-boy image. Up until then she could only daydreamed of dances and jealous girls. Jumping at the chance she did her best to do as he said. She acted like a girl, dressed like a girl and followed his every command. Years went by and she was still under his dictatorship. Grounded.

Opening her eyes and rolling over, her hand reached for the note. Glancing at it one more time, she looked back in time and forward simultaneously. Something was going to give. The moment felt a little like the seconds before a title wave when the shore pulls back exposing what was hidden below, the birds stop singing and all becomes still while a monster brews just out of sight. It had to change. She wanted to feel free. Attempts to leave him before were never successful but today she felt different.

The afternoon flew by. She did her chores and prepared dinner; the entire time thinking back to when she and Joe met and that tall tree. The day seemed longer than normal. It was so lonely.

As the sun began to get lower in the sky all of the household tasks were complete. She sat at the set dining table with the cloth napkins and candle sticks. He was late again. The air hung in a tranquil silence and her mind was somewhere else. It changed when his car pulled into the driveway. Something that was resting in her chest for all these years began to tap at her throat wanting out. Trying to avoid this intruder she snapped into her role and scurried to warm his dinner which was waiting in the microwave. Hurrying back to the table she placed the plate down in his spot and was lighting the last candles as he opened the door. Her muscles became tense as the storm was brewing inside of her. She straightened his napkin, which was already perfectly straight, and kept her eyes down as he took his place in the king’s chair. He let out a sigh.

Her soft voice rose to greet him, “I hope you had a good day, dear.”

He responded harshly, “You have no idea how easy you have it. I work all day and you just sit around this house. What I wouldn’t give for a taste of your freedom.”

He sighs again. Looking down at the table he says, “Dam it! Can’t you see I need a drink? Shit, you are an idiot!”

Her body remained still for a moment while the wave rushed from the depths and flooded her mind.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Get off your fat ass and make me a drink!”

Her soft blue eyes turned toward him. If he had ever seen her before in all these years he would have noticed something was different. Replying with a grin she said, “Yes dear.”

She stood up and walked to the kitchen in no particular hurry, slow and steady, like the surge from a monster wave once it hit. Removing the tonic and vodka from the cabinet she places in on the counter.

He yells from the dining room, “Hurry the hell up! Can’t you bring yourself to do anything right?”

The words began to blur with the storm in her mind, twisting in a catastrophic mess. She poured the vodka and tonic, dropped two ice cubes into the glass and then she opened the medicine drawer. Fumbling around for the right remedy she found a nearly full bottle of sedatives from her husband’s doctor. She added two to his drink almost without thinking. Mixing it with her finger she watched it all dissolve away. It felt mechanical.

Avoiding eye contact, her hand delivers the drink. The clanging of his fork against the plate and his constant complaining didn’t seem so bad now. Sitting in her seat at the table she knew something had started and she was finally ready to finish it.

Pushing his dinner plate away he snapped, “Fix me another!”

A smile formed on her face as the words escaped with an eager tone, “Gladly.”

He looked at her a moment and said, “Wipe that stupid look off your face.”

The evening went on with drink after drink and pill after pill. The late summer sun was beginning to hide behind the mountain but its tip still peeked over the horizon like a child afraid to sleep because it may miss something exciting. Walking out of the kitchen with drink number six and the sound of ice clanking in the glass; she sees her husband passed out in the recliner with the remote control in his hand. The evening news was shouting at her as she turned it off. Gingerly walking up to him her finger gave him a poke. Nothing. A little harder this time she poked him again. He didn’t stir. She sat down on the sofa next to his chair and put her hand over her pocket remembering the note. Taking a pillow off the couch she stood-up and positioned her body directly in front of her husband. The wave rushed forward and it carried the pillow to his lifeless face. Her hands held it there until the surge was gone and her chest felt free. He never moved. He just stopped breathing. She placed the pillow back where it belonged and straightened it into its perfect spot.

Walking back to the kitchen she emptied his glass and grabbed the barren bottle of pills. She wiped her finger prints off, carried the bottle and his glass back to his limp hand. There she imprinted his finger prints and left the items on the table beside his chair. She stood-up and fixed her hair. Looking at him a moment she turns on her heals and heads for the door. It was nice outside and the sun offered just enough light for her to feel warm but it was well hidden behind the mountains. She looked around, found the tallest tree within fifty yards and began to run as a child with a kite. Kicking off her shoes she climbed to the top, branch by branch and limb by limb so fast one would have thought it was some sort of race.

If it had crossed her mind of how it appeared she may have felt silly, a grown woman up in a tree like an adventurous child, but she didn’t give a care in the world what people thought. Feeling the gentle breeze slipping through the trees her skin seemed to dance in the embrace. Her lungs took it all in filling the newly vacant spot which moments ago was filled with a knot of tangled silence. With one arm she embraced the trunk like an arm around the shoulder of a friend and with the other she waved her hand in the air like a Pentecostal on Sunday morning. Feeling the dance go on around her as the breeze blew through her blouse and hair it initiated every bit of her like fire flies in the warm summer evenings. The letter in her pocket seemed to rip to shreds and float away. She leaned her head back, felt the glory of where she was and knew that she was never going to let her feet touch the ground again.