Wife

English Creative I felt expelled and exiled, but oddly removed as I watched from my self-imposed, hardly gilded prison more constructed of copper bars than that of gold as my husband slowly and laboriously battled his way through the snow at the border of our property while our children dutifully followed. After another bout of irate exchanges and muttered profanities he had left leaving the door gaping so that steadily snowflakes crept past the door mat falling gently on the carpeted floor but then faltered as the heat permeated them and they relinquished their solid form and sunk away to create a watery patchy on the threadbare material. I pondered the demise of the snowflakes before closing the door firmly shut “where you born in a barn Terry'” I spat taking care to inject the simple colloquial phrase with all the venom I could muster even though I knew he could not possibly hear me; it gave me a childish satisfaction. We had both been exiled, I from the relationship and my own family and he more literally from the house. I drifted from room to room contemplating prior events. Terry’s face in my memory of the last fight was distorted and in the heat of the fight I had exaggerated his figure in my mind to create one that echoed menace and animalistic qualities. A low whistle escaped through my lungs, as I moved through the rooms, upstairs and downstairs, around and around. I moved swiftly dodging the furniture that sought to deter my pathway. I passed debris of our fight which had fallen where we had thrown them, creating meaningless litter on the floor. The carnage made me cringe as I entered our small homely kitchen this is where we had shown our swords, battled each other, caused anguish and pain deliberately and delighted as our opponents eyes dulled with it and this is where our children had said “No more mum, we love you but we can’t handle this, we’re going to go with Dad until you two sort this out”. That bastard had brainwashed them against me until in a spiteful act clothed in the garments of selfishness they had all left on their merry way in order to give me some “time alone” , well I’d been alone now a whole 5 minutes and that was enough time thank you oh considerate ones! There was no such thing as grateful children. Who had clothed them' Fed them' Sent them on their way to school every day with personalised lunches and an encouraging note while their father had been only vaguely away of the short people wandering around the house. A low purr echoed across the white barren wasteland that my garden had morphed into, he was starting the car. I peeked past the connected slants of the blind and watched as he ushered the children into car, they were leaving me. I would be alone in the house. The confines of the house which I had once despaired over the smallness of now seem to extend and grow until I was surrounded by nothing but space. I had been well and truly left, abandoned to fend for myself. Again I surveyed the garden glancing at the symbolic white picket fence. I snorted, how ironic that I had thought that all a happy home needed was a white picket fence. The white of the fence had been newly painted and it glowed and pulsated tauntingly at me, contrasted against the dirtied snow. I glanced around the house, and a house it was because without family there is no home. I wallowed in self-pity, cursing terry. The whole house, was silent my footsteps echoed throughout the rooms, the methodical rhythmic steps reverberated across the empty space. I sunk to the floor; I was a sad childless mother who had been deserted, like a pirate captain whose crew was mutinous. I mirrored the shocked disbelief of a leader who has been abandoned by those that they had sought to benefit. As I contemplated this odd parallel comparison I considered woefully that there was not another person for miles around me and that I was completely alone.