“Charlie,” his wife called to him from upstairs, “you left your room a mess!”
Chuck—why had she begun calling him Charlie of late when she knew he hated it?—closed his eyes against the sudden deep inner pain and then, after a couple of long breaths, managed to finish his coffee.
“Your pajamas,” she called again, “can’t you at least put them away?”
Chuck looked to the ceiling as if in silent prayer and then stood up from the kitchen table and took his cup over to the sink and rinsed it. That’s all he would have to do, he thought, was not rinse his cup before putting it in the dishwasher.
Helen was coming down the stairs now. She didn’t look at him as she went by him to the closet by the sink for a broom. He watched her as she opened the door and made a few sweeps of the broom out to the back yard. |
Illustration Copyright © Stephanie Rodriguez |
