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Random Writing Challenge 002
It was only fifty dollars, nothing major really, and it made him feel better so he didn’t understand why she was so mad. When he came home, hat twirling, smile beaming, because he had won big with only fifty dollars at the local casino, he found a silent brooding wife sitting at the bottom of the stairs. There was a mug in her hand, her fingers interlocked at the front, the key indicator that something was wrong. Her head hung between her hunched shoulders, and the long dark strands of her hair drew around her face like blackout curtains. “Dear…” he starts, but the way she twitches at the sound of his voice tells him he should stay silent. He scuffs his shoes on the floor to acknowledge her body language, and let her know he’s listening.
“What did you use it for?’’ she mumbles, her stifled words fall onto the floor boards and roll towards him.
He pauses, wondering if he should play it off. Lying, feigning ignorance, ignoring her question, anything but the truth seemed like a good option. He had just opened his mouth to start when she looked up. Her light brown eyes were fixed on his stalky figure froze just inside the doorway. They met his dark brown eyes, and the words silently abandoned his lips.
“You seemed so happy, you only twirl your had when you have good news for me. Why so silent now?”
There was no way to lie to her…This woman knew him too well. He also couldn’t tell her the truth. Her eyes were still fixed on him. Her hair slides back just enough to reveal her burning gaze while shrouding the rest of her face with a shadow. He knew exactly how her lips were twisted though, and the slight twitch the right side of her mouth would be doing. He couldn’t drag his gaze from her to formulate a story, to think about what he should do, what he should say, how he should say it. He stood there with his mouth slightly open.
She noticed the tiffany box in his jacket pocket. She almost smiled, but the memory of sleeping on a park bench while her mother stayed half-awake guarding them with a kitchen knife strangled her happiness before it could surface. Her father had betted and drunken them out of house and home. She could never let that happen again… Break the pattern! She chanted to herself silently. The petrified man before her however, seemed different from her worthless father. Her gaze never once wavered, all he saw was scorn and pain. His lips began to tremble, she knew what it meant and found some mercy.
“Don’t let it happen again,” her stifled words rolled across the floor to him once again before she released him from her gaze and turned to ascend the stairs.
“Sorry dear, won’t happen again dear,” he shuffles into the kitchen to cook for her like he always did when she was upset. She smiled as she walked up the stairs because through the walls and the floor she saw him drape his coat over the dining room chair at the end of the table, the one with the scratch on the front right leg from their first failed attempt at footsy during a family dinner. She saw him kick off his shoes and leave them to the right side of the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room, because the first time she wore six-inch heels she tripped over them and twisted her ankle. He would turn on the tap too, to wash his barely dirty hands, because his younger sister had an immune system problem and he was used to cooking with utmost care. She saw his hat placed next to the sink ,because she would go downstairs in an hour and twirl it for him, so they could dance around the kitchen till their dinner got cold.
More Than Young Ink 