She knew he was still alive. She passed his truck in the bar parking lot on her way home from the cemetery. Earlier, it was parked behind the practice in his usual spot. Before he bought the pickup, it was a pristine luxury sedan with vanity plates. She figured the truck was his midlife crisis. She’d never seen anything in the bed and after six years, there wasn’t a scratch on the body.
Crossing the short driveway, she scuffed to the mailbox and snapped it open and closed. Nothing. Years ago, she approached with anticipation, hope that he’d read her apology and sent a reply. At first she made excuses. The mail was slow. He didn’t have stamps. He was revising his letter. She checked the box three times a day, groping around in the back on cloudy afternoons, just in case she missed it.
She drove by his house, his practice, his hangouts, wondering what was keeping him. Watching him marry and raise his family, she decided he was punishing her. Bitterness kept her waiting for the expected rebuke, but it never came. The worst feeling was the knowledge he was aware of her existence and did nothing to make amends. How he must hate her now.
Before her mother passed away, she suggested maybe he hadn’t received the letter. Maybe something happened and it was never delivered. But she knew otherwise. He was getting his revenge. Visiting her mother today, she remembered the words, and wondered. Her mother had suggested writing again, or picking up the phone, or just stopping by the practice, for goodness sake. She wasn’t interested in goodness.
Curiosity lingered and she sat at her mother’s desk and rolled up the top. The drawer jammed and she loosened it with a kitchen knife, freeing a sealed envelope, which dropped to her feet. She kicked it aside and rummaged through the drawer, settling on stationery she had used as a girl, a monogram she’d never needed to change. There would be no apology this time, simply an inquiry as to his welfare. A polite missive. She placed the letter in the box and raised the flag. Tonight she would have a bit of ice cream with her pie. Her mother would be proud.
21 Responses to “Earned Pleasure”
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Lovely m’dear. A little sliver peek at this woman’s world.
Thanks. I pretty much just spat it out and published. No time to polish, these days, but wanted the practice!
So that sealed envelope that fell to her feet. That was it, wasn’t it? That was the letter. The mother had retrieved it from the mailbox. It’d never been sent. I’m right, aren’t I? Aren’t I! Yes, it must be. It’s the mother’s fault. The mother did it, that mean, mean woman.
All I could do when I read this comment was LMAO!
Thanks for allowing me to vent! You made me scream at my computer “pick up the damn envelope!” Glad you got it finished.
Glad you got something out of it
The sealed envelope was nicely inserted. Could have been and might not be, and yet what did it really matter at that point?
Nice piece.
Thanks, Annie. I spent very little time on revising this one, but the one thing I moved was the part with the envelope. It was in the final sentence. When I moved it up, the piece had so much more life. I’m glad I had a few minutes to play with it.
I thought it was nicely written, great atmosphere and sense of emotion. Thanks for joining in on the #fridayflash.
~jon
Thanks, Jon! #fridayflash is a great idea and lots of fun. I wish I hadn’t missed the last 2!
Looking forward to more from you in the future.
~jon
OMG! I was thinking what our friend Jeff posted, but for the sake of arguing I am going to say that the seal envelope was from Publishers Clearinghouse.
ok… it was the letter! Damn it, I am going to be thinking about this all night.
Great story!
~2
PS – you can email me… what was it, really?
Publisher’s Clearinghouse!!! LOL!
“Watching him marry and raise his family…”. Reading that, my heart broke. What we do to ourselves, the fantasies we create in which we live.
Beautifully captured. For something you “just spat out”, please don’t go polishing anything. I’m intimidated enough by what you can do in a hurry!
Thanks, Kevin. I haven’t written in a while, but love the #fridayflash. I just opened my flickr account and looked for a photo to inspire me. When I saw the mailbox, the story was just right there.
Great piece and I love how you got all that from a picture of a mailbox. Writing from photo stimulus often reveals some wonderful fiction. The verbs in your piece really made it come alive,the narrator scuffing to the mailbox and groping in the drawer being my favourites.
Thanks, Dan! The images in my head were vivid. I always struggle to put the images into words.
This is nicely turned; the images appear slowly, and the narrator’s state of mind is shown rather than described. It is also a great example of how a short short doesn’t need dialogue.
Thanks, Judy. I’m still learning, and dialogue isn’t a strength!
Jen: That wasn’t a criticism – this piece doesn’t need dialogue. It was more a note to other writers who load half their story with dialogue, which is at least twice too much. If you think about how you would recount an exchange with a group of friends you bumped into on the street to another friend who wasn’t there, you would not repeat everything that everyone said. You would pull out the most clever and salient remarks. You would, however, describe the scene as you saw it and add your interpretation of how your friends were acting to make your listener feel like she was there, seeing and hearing what you saw and heard. That’s storytelling. We all do it, but sometimes when we sit at our desks we take it too seriously, we think we have to inflate ourselves, step up to some higher skill level in order to do it correctly. We don’t. We just have to be observant and convey all the details that make a story ours.
I agree. I rarely put dialogue in my flash pieces, because it doesn’t seem to fit. I think I was just saying that this stuff is easier for me to write because I’m not so good with the dialogue yet
Thanks for the great comment!