“Is this all you came for?” He set down his coffee and leaned back into the flaking vinyl booth.
Tom was biting a pencil eraser end first. He sat in the kitchen she used to call a breakfast nook. She said it made it sound friendlier. He had replied that nook made it sound pretentious. She said it made it sound bright and cheerful.
His eyes were bloodshot. He should have called off work, but he had forgotten where his phone was. He misplaced it the night before. He had misplaced the whole night, actually. Since she had left the misplaced nights had become more frequent.
He opened the folder.
The curtains in the breakfast nook were blowing in the breeze. They were little lace sheers that she had sewn buying the fabric with money scraped together from her meager tips. The wind would have been sweet coming through the window if he’d remembered to fix the sewer like she’d asked.
He exchanged his broken pencil for an ink pen.
The pen he picked up was from a cracked jar she had set on the table. It was blue hand glazed and had been reconstructed and glued together. It was full of pencils and pens, dried flowers and scraps of ribbon. He flashed back to one of the nights he’d misplaced. The table had been upended, the little jar thrown, shattered pieces sticking out of her arm.
He paused, hand wavering over the folder.
It was time. She deserves better, he thought. He signed and got up to get the bottle out of the top cabinet, where she hadn’t been able to reach. It was time...