In the End

Mum's the Word

I know it's a strange request, but could you please do it soon? We both want this, so you'd be helping him as well. Please consider it.

"Mom, can we get ice cream? It's Friday!" Glenda is at it again, pulling her out of her thoughts. She looks down at her daughter, who is currently tugging at her hand and pointing at the colorful display of differently flavored sweets. Glen is on her other side, saying nothing, but she can see him looking longingly in the same direction.

She sighs fondly and shakes her head. "Why not- only the best for my babies, after all," she complies, and Glenda squeals in glee, jumping around the aisle before reaching for one of the containers closer to the top.

She hadn't had ice cream on the grocery list, but the kids have been in school all day, and they were so good, even while she took her time through every item on the list while browsing aisle after aisle. Even Glenda, who would sometimes antagonize her brother if she became idle for too long. Besides, there was nothing wrong with a little sugar once in a while.

So she reaches over Glenda's head where her outstretched fingers are barely nudging the Rocky Road, and plucks the container from its shelf. "There," she says, handing it to Glenda. "Now tell me which one you want, Glen."

Glen is staring at each one, meticulously deciding which flavor he should get. He was always so meticulous, similar to herself.

Life has been very peaceful, she realizes, since she'd sent Charles away. She sees a nice therapist once every two weeks, and she's started a hair salon just down the road from her home where she's able to cut and burn and then wash and dry all that she wants. She drinks her favorite wines and she paints just for the fun of it, and she can cry at all the movies she wants without being made to feel stupid for it.

"This one, Mom," Glen's quiet voice says, and she reaches out again, this time for Birthday Cake. This one will give all of them cavities, she thinks, but she puts it in the cart with the rest of the items anyways.

It isn't that hates Charles, or that she thinks he ever hated her. At one point, she knows that they truly did love each other. But in the same way anyone can fall in love, she supposes that they can fall out of it too. She's not entirely sure who fell out of love first though, Charles, or herself. Or perhaps they had both fallen out of it at the same time.

She stands in a checkout line and her eyes glaze over the magazine covers and random assortment of last minute items to buy. She hears the children's voices faintly in the background, and wonders what if would have been like if Charles were here with her. She knows instantly that it would be a mess.

They loved so passionately, and they fought with the same vigor. Like a flame, warm and then chaotic and damaging. She had thought she would never get over him, but it seems time was like aloe to her blistering wounds. The more time she had to think on it, the more she began to feel quite alright with the fact that they would no longer burn each other.

"That'll be $86.74, ma'am," the cashier says, and it isn't that she doesn't still love him, and she's sure he still loves her as well, but it isn't the same anymore. They're different people now. She loves him in the way she'd love a brother she's had to bail out for the fourth time.

She takes the receipt, calls for the kids to come along behind her, and they head to the car.

She is curious as to why it's been so quiet. After the nurse had been killed, she had been expecting a little more. But nothing seems to have come up lately. She hasn't heard from him at all.

In a way, it could be good. But she still worries, as she always does. She can't help it.

"I'm doing this because even after all this, I still fucking love you. Love is a strange phenomenon, isn't it?"