Claire - Imagine That #A-ZChallange

Blogging from A to Z Challenge
April 2015
This month I will be participating in the “Blogging from A-Z Challenge”
What is it?

Blogging everyday beginning on April First with a topic themed on something with the letterA, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until I finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.   The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.

My theme will be short fictional (well mostly fictional) stories about women.  Each woman’s name will begin with the appropriate letter of the alphabet for that day. 
All of the women will have the common life experience of a loss of some type. 
I invite you, Dear reader, to comment on how you interpret the loss.



The phone was ringing, again. Claire was annoyed.  Annoyed at the phone of all things.  Of course not at the device itself, but at those incessant telemarketers.
“Oh, Mom,” her daughter chided her.  “That’s their job, you know. After all, they have to make a living too.”
She wasn’t going to answer it.  She wasn’t even going to look at the caller ID.  Let the machine pick up, she decided.
Claire liked to describe herself as a real woman.  One with curves.  She wasn’t one of those stick thin runway women.  Anyway those wispy models were probably barely past puberty.
Her best feature were her eyes.  Well, her eyes and her curly, still sandy blond hair (thanks to her hair dresser, Molly).  At least that’s what she had been told by many.
Her husband, well ex-husband now, used to go on and on about “those baby blues.”
She heard the voice on the answering machine.  It was Ben’s new wife.  She sounded upset.
Claire couldn’t think of a single reason why Amy would be calling her.
She went over to the machine and pressed play.
“Claire?” A pause.
“This is Amy, Ben’s wife?”
Another pause.
“I thought you should know, Ben’s in the hospital, in intensive care.”
Again a pause, probably  waiting to see if Claire would pick up.
“Anyway, I’ve already called the girls.  They are on their way to the hospital now.  Community General. In town.”
Amy hadn’t left any other details.  Claire tried calling her back, but there was no answer.
She was conflicted.  She certainly did not want to see Ben.  And she especially didn’t want to see Amy.  But she should be there for the girls, shouldn’t she?
She tried her eldest’s cell phone.
“Oh, Mom.”
“I didn’t make it in time.”  “He’s gone.”
“Mom?”
“Are you there?”
"Yes, honey. I’m here.  I’m so sorry, honey. So, sorry.”
Her daughter told her that they were all going to go over to Amy’s.
“Amy said to tell you that you were welcome also,” her daughter said.
 “I can come pick you up, Mom.”
While Claire waited for her daughter, a her mind overflowed with old memories.
She remembered the day Ben admitted to her that he was in love with another woman.
Of course she had suspected for a long while.  She hated that she had to be the one to confront him.
He hadn’t even had the courage to tell her himself.
She asked him, “Why?”
He gave her the usual answers about how he felt that they were growing apart.  He claimed that she had a different view of what their future looked like than he did.  And of course, he hadn’t meant for it to happen.  It just did.
And just like that, she became a single woman again.  After almost 31 years of marriage.  Imagine that.
That was 9 years ago.
He had been right.  Their relationship had grown, well stale, she supposed.
They had been so young.  Too young.  What did they know about forever.
She was angry.  Angry at him. Angry at herself. The last nine years were filled with teeth clenching anger.
Her thoughts were in constant circular motion. The conversations she had with herself were incessant.  Scripted, just like one of the telemarketer’s bits.  She went and on about on how all of those years, her youth, her dreams of what she might have accomplished were lost to her.
But she kept all of that rage between her and the self she shared all of those rantings with.
In fact the divorce was quite civil.
They had even been able to share Christmas dinners together.  All together.  Imagine that.
The funereal was surreal.  As she stood by the coffin, looking down at Ben, who looked nothing like her Ben,  she expected her anger to dissipate.  Poof!  Vanish into thin air.
She expected to feel sad at least.
But she felt nothing.  Numb almost.
All of those hopes and dreams, lost now to both of them.
Imagine that.

Beth - Peace and Quiet At Last #A-ZChallenge

Blogging from A to Z Challenge
April 2015
This month I will be participating in the “Blogging from A-Z Challenge”

What is it?

I will be blogging everyday beginning on April First with a topic themed on something with the letterA, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until I finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.   The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.

My theme will be short fictional (well mostly fictional) stories about women.  Each woman’s name will begin with the appropriate letter of the alphabet for that day.
All of the women will have the common life experience of a loss of some type.
I invite you, Dear reader, to comment on how you interpret the loss.

Beth liked early, early mornings.  Even as a child she liked to get up before anyone else.
She had five siblings and she was the oldest.  She shared a room with her sisters.  There was always someone around.
Her father had a daily routine which consisted of bathroom, smoke, coffee and the morning paper. She could still recall the sounds and smells of his routine.
At 4:30, every morning,  he would get up to use the bathroom.  It was the only bathroom in the three bedroom ranch style house.
All of the bedrooms were off the single hallway.  The bathroom was the first door on the left.   Her two brothers shared a room, the first door on the right.   The girls, all four, shared a room which was at the end of the hallway.   Her parents had the largest room, the last door on the left.
She remembered how crowded it had felt, all of them residing there in that narrow hallway.
Anyway, Beth’s father wasn’t subtle or quiet about his routine.  He was that way about everything, though.  He was the head honcho of his ranch.
The first thing Beth would hear was the creak of her parent’s bedroom door opening.  It woke her each morning.  Next came the scuffing of her father’s slippered feet as he headed down the hall to the bathroom.  He would be hacking and noisily clearing his throat as he flipped open the top of his treasured engraved WWII Zippo lighter.  The metallic sound the top made when it was flipped open  was ingrained in her memory.   It usually took several flicks of the flint wheel before he could get it to light.
The odor of that first drag would waft down the hallway and slither under her door.
She would then hear the thud of the bathroom door closing.  When she thought about it now she realized that the bathroom slash library at that hour in the A.M. was probably the only time he was able to steal away for some of his own private time.
Afterwards, he would head into the kitchen to make his coffee in the Wear Ever aluminum stove top percolator.
While he waited for his brew to finish, he headed into the living room. After opening the front door, which always stuck and then squeaked when it finally gave way, he would reach out to grab the early morning edition off the front porch.
As she lay still in her bed, waiting for her turn to have the kitchen to herself, she played a game of counting down the minutes to see how long it would take before the percolator would start to bubble up into it glass top.  One thousand one, one thousand two…
After he finished his coffee and paper, he would go back to bed.
Once she heard her parent’s bedroom door close, she would get out of bed, and go into the kitchen with a copy of the latest book she was reading.
If it was summer, she would sit out on the front stoop, trying to get through the next chapter before the rest of the household started to stir.
Then came her own cycle of life, a job, marriage, and children.
That was a long time ago.  It seemed so important to her then, almost a luxury, to be able to have her own space and time to herself.
Her father had long since passed away.  Her mother spent the last days of her life in the nursing home.  Her siblings were scattered about living their own noisy or quiet lives depending on which one you were referring to.
Her three children were maneuvering  through the passages of their lives.  That of jobs and careers. Mortgages and car payments. Marriages, divorces and new loves.  Child support and visitation agreements. Babies and pre-teens.  They lamented to her about never having enough time.  She assured them that she understood.  Maybe they would visit next Sunday, they promised.
She sat at the small cafe kitchen table, sipping her tea, staring out the window, waiting to see which bird would be the first one at the feeder this morning.
It was quiet.  So sadly quiet.

Angie - Blogging From A to Z Challenge

Blogging from A to Z Challenge
April 2015
This month I will be participating in the “Blogging from A-Z Challenge”
What is it?

Blogging everyday beginning on April First with a topic themed on something with the letterA, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until I finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.   The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day.

My theme will be short fictional (well mostly fictional) stories about women.  Each woman’s name will begin with the appropriate letter of the alphabet for that day.
All of the women will have the common life experience of a loss of some type.
I invite you, Dear reader, to comment on how you interpret the loss.

Angie

She pressed her palms down onto the cool granite counter. Her arms were bent,  her bony elbows poked out on either side, and her shoulders were hunched forward.  She stood there motionless, head bent, her dark hair falling down in waves, hiding her face.
She slowly inhaled and held her breath. She did not want to ever breath again.  But, like the current circumstances of her life, she obviously was not the one in control and the air from her lungs whooshed out into the quiet of the hushed, empty space.
After all of the buzzing and hissing of the last few months it was as though the constant din had been shoo shooed out, leaving behind, instead, the sounds of silence.
She needed this moment of stillness to gather up the shards of her splintered self.
She was a petite slender woman.  At first glance she may have appeared to be a fragile type.
She was deliberate in the way she managed her stature. She held her head high above her shoulders and her back straight.   She pushed her chin out in front, almost in a challenging way.  When she looked at you with her mesmerizing blue eyes, you could get trapped in her gaze, unable to look away. That’s when one quickly realized that there was nothing frail or delicate about her.
But, it was different now.  She felt small and brittle.
She lifted her head and looked around the kitchen.  She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone to bed without tidying up.   Dishes from the night before were piled in the sink.  She hadn’t even rinsed them off.
She thought about the first time they met.  The room was dark and smokey and so was he.  The  music was loud and pulsing.  He was one of the band, the bass player, in fact.
The attraction between them was instant.  She knew it was irresponsible and quite frankly a little reckless to jump into a relationship that quickly.  She had always lived her life that way, though and she had had no regrets.
He had managed to keep his illness a secret from her for a long while.   As she reflected back on it now, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed the signs sooner.  She wondered if knowing sooner would have made that much of a difference anyway.  Probably nothing could have changed the inevitable outcome.
She was weary.  Weary and sad.  He had taken so much of her away with him.
She knew she would never again be as carefree.
She could not imagine that she would trust another with her heart.
Her sister Kathy tried to assure her that she would not always feel that way.   Big John, her older brother, held her in his arms and told her everything would be okay.  “Remember, I am only a few minutes away,” he said.
Her vibrating cell jolted her out of her reverie.  She read the text message.
“Why haven’t you done the dishes, Angie?”
Her hands began to shake.  She dropped the phone.
She slid down to the floor and sat huddled in the corner, hugging her knees tightly to her chest.
She picked up the phone.
“Detective Bonice, here.”
“He’s watching me, Matt.”
“He’s out there watching me,” she cried.