Three Minute Fiction

I love npr.org.  It's where I go for my news, recipes, and most importantly, suggestions for new books to read.  While surfing the site a little over a month ago, I found a contest called, "Three-minute Fiction."  Basically, you had to look at a picture they provided as inspiration (included below) and write a (very) short story, 500-600 words long.  I decided to enter round three of the contest (round four is going on now).  They said that 3,000 people entered the contest! I thought I would post it for my readers' enjoyment so tell me what you think! 

He said he'd never meant to dance with her.  He said he'd never meant for anything to happen.  I remember hearing the panic in his deep voice as he lifted the receiver - I could tell from miles away.  We had been married for eighteen years and it was the first time he had cheated on me.  I sat in our house, barren and bitter for it, and told him I would see him when he returned home.

"More coffee, ma'am," the young barista says spying my empty mug.  I always find it funny they call these kids, "baristas."  It makes them sound so official, so distinguished.  Spending their days mixing and serving coffee drinks, usually poor grad students with their eyes bloodshot. 

"No thank you," and I let him take the cup from my calloused hands.

Ma'am? Do I look that old?  I take a peak at my appearance in the window.  My eyes seem never-ending and I realize again why I'm sitting here.  She will be wearing a flannel red and black shirt with black leggings and boots.  She was very detailed about that.  I would never be able to do something so…sure…knowing the day before exactly what I was going to wear, especially in a situation like this.  I think back to this morning when I changed several times and the pile of clothes that would welcome me to my empty house.  She must be a very confident young lady, no doubt like her mother.

I remember the day that I received her email; I almost checked it as SPAM.  Now I think back to how easy the last month would have been if I had.  She probably would have found me anyway.  I remember staring at my laptop, wondering if maybe I was having a nervous breakdown, dreaming, or imaging things.  Walking over to the kitchen sink I ran cold water into my cupped hands and immersed my sweating face.  I saw his picture in the reflection of the kitchen window, the giant one I had framed for his funeral.  It was only several weeks before that I sat in the Catholic Church downtown and carried his ashes in a simple brown urn, meeting that same photo at the front of the alter.  It all came back to me then and I reached down for more cold water.  I walked back over to my computer to see if the words had somehow rearranged themselves on the screen to say something less shocking, something less difficult to deal with.  No – I wasn’t dreaming. 

A month later, and here I sit at the window of a coffee shop looking for a young girl in flannel and leggings and perhaps his eyes.  I reach over to the next table and pick up today’s newspaper.  I don’t read it now, though.  I merely stare at the words and look down at the smudge my damp fingers have left on the page, feeling like this is perhaps the only mark I’ve left on the world. 

A flash of red appears among the crowd outside and I see her.  Her young , petite body moves confidently along the street.  She is on her cell, no doubt with her anxious mother.  I suddenly realize what had alluded me for the last month as I see his eyes and his nose in her face.   My late husband’s daughter walks into the coffee shop only to be greeted by an empty table and a newspaper.  I’ve written her a message: “I can’t do this.  You have his eyes.”