By Dryad
Miriam turned the key as she jostled shopping bags in her arms. She dropped everything
on the table and checked her blinking answering machine. She heard the traffic drone
behind his cultured voice:
“Hi Meri—sorry I missed you. I’ll try to make time to see
you after this trip– you know how it is. Don’t call my
cell—the wife has it for the weekend. I’ll try and call when
I get back. Love you.”
Her cat meowed and wound between Meri’s ankles. Miriam picked her up and brushed
her face into the cat’s fur.
“It’s just you and me again this weekend, Moxie.” She put the cat down and reached for
the groceries, quietly putting them away.
The weekend dragged. She watched TV, did some needlepoint. In the wee hours of the
morning, sleep still eluding her, she pulled out a worn and tattered deck of playing cards. She sat Indian style in bed, laying the cards out in the familiar pattern. She knew it was cliché—woman alone, playing solitaire, but it was better than thinking about why her bedside companion was a cat, instead of a man.
He swore it would be different. His children were grown; he could leave anytime.
By Monday she was in a rage. She was a fool, having wasted all this time on a man who
wouldn’t choose. In a fit of anger, she threw the rose vase he had sent once. The sound of the shattering glass released something inside her. Her eyes darted, searching for more breakables. She spied the lamp and slammed her fist into it. She crumpled to the floor as tears of pain and despair streamed down her lined cheek. The cat rubbed against her bloody hand.
Then the phone rang. She reached for it.