Madge stands by the window of the small modest room, staring out. A letter rests unopened on the table behind her. A kettle stands on the hob.
It’s been three years since he left, taken for a soldier. She kept the house the way he left it, his coat still hangs on a nail by the door, as if he is likely to need it at any moment.
But the war has ended and her husband is on his way home.
Madge glances at the letter. She doesn’t need to open it: she knows who sent it.
Her husband will be on the train now. Time is running out for her.
She’s not the girl who kissed him goodbye on the platform. She doesn’t know that girl anymore.
Now, as she watches the horizon for his silhouette, she feels an unfamiliar ache; not of longing, but of foreboding.
She doesn’t want his uniform folded neat on the hall table, nor the echo of his boots on the doorstep. The man who returns can’t fit the shape she’s grown into.
She looks again at the letter. How will she explain it to her husband? She tells herself she still cares for him and she does, but she can’t shrink herself back into the space she has left behind.
He’s coming home. But this is no longer his home.
She can’t pretend to be his waiting girl.
She lifts the letter to her lips, sniffs its perfume and tears fill her eyes.
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Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 