Riding Out

Rain pounded-down the garden's flowers and shrubs with just the thorny rose stalks standing strongest against the lashing. In the back of the house, cold drops sped down the master bedroom's window as if walkers in a foot-race vying to reach the outer sill before puddling themselves into the eventuality of their falls to the ground

She sat on the edge of the bed peering through the window's streams, focused on nothing in particular, heard the door open and Vince's soft footfalls on the carpet.

He saw the hankerchief clenched in the white-knuckled fist atop her lap as he walked around the edge of the bed, saw her face mimicking the windows with streaking tears evaporated by her telepathically palpable numbness.

Practiced words from Vince's mental rehearsals were wiped as cleanly as a squeegee across a wet pane, as absolute as the wetted pain uncontained in her eyes.

In the moment's excruciating silence, any word would wound her, the more superficial as effective as the deepest, and he knew the only healing she'd ever experience was by sheltering herself--probably separating herself--from his stormy behaviors and a flamboyant lifestyle he hid, that she never deserved or saw falling.