stains

Barbara

Someone was pounding on the door. Barbara got up from the window seat she had been peering through and walked towards the living room. She paused briefly to turn off the television. Her powder blue robe hanging looser than it should have with her third martini of the afternoon, she slung the door wide. Two police officers, their crisp navy uniforms gleaming in the bright midday sun stood on her doorstep.

"Gentlemen, please." Barbara said as she stepped aside to let them in. She extended her arm awkwardly, gesturing inside. A bit of her drink sloshed from her glass onto the carpet as she shut the door behind them. They looked young, about her son's age. Mid-twenties and fresh faced, as though they'd never given more bad news than that someone's dog had been hit by a car on route 90 before in their lives.

"Mam, there's been an incident."

Barbara began to hum in her head a little jingle from a commercial she'd seen earlier in the day for dish soap. Her eyes glazed slightly over. She stumbled a bit as she stepped backwards toward the couch.

"Let me help you sit down."

She met the officer's gaze gradually, as if only just realizing he was there. She seemed in a daze. The policemen glanced at each other, exchanging worried looks.

"Mam, I'm sorry to tell you this..."

And he looked sorry. What happened at the library would be all over the local paper in the morning. There was nothing Barbara could do about that. She'd need to stop by Swifty's herself now, she supposed. For the Miracle Whip.

After the police left, the house seemed eerily quiet. The TV that she'd shut off as they arrived loomed in the far corner of the room, an old 5x7 photo of Charles and Barbara sat on top. In it, they were standing stiffly, arm in arm a foot apart on their son's graduation day. Their wedding photos had long since been put away now. She'd not looked at them in ages. She had a sudden desire to find a photo of herself from that afternoon back in '51.

She haphazardly made her way to the back bedroom where the closet with the albums was, and threw herself inside. She dug madly through the piles until she found it, a faded purple covered album with no more than 15 pages inside. She tore it open, flipping crazily until she found it. Breathing heavily, she carefully pulled apart the layers of thin plastic protecting the photo, until the original Kodak lay in her clammy hand. She walked back to the living room.

The frame that held the photo from Andy's graduation was old, and the clasps keeping it together in the back were loose. It was easy to slip the old photo out and insert another one. Th8is photo of Barbara all alone, the morning of her wedding day. She wasn't in her bridal gown, but instead in a camisole sitting on her childhood bed. The photo is a candid one, taken by Barbara's sister Camille. The two of them had drank wine and ate oranges all morning before she married Charles. It was the last tie she hd felt true happiness, and the photo of her laughing with juice from an overly ripe ornge dripping down her chin now adorned the living room.

Barbara admired her handiwork, went back to the kitchen, and poured her fourth martini of the day as she picked up the cradle of the phone and slowly dialed Don's number.