The (Short) Story of the Evil Umbrellas [Completed]

Cold Ambition

Hands shaking, she tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. Her palms felt sweaty, and her hair was greasy, a mess.

It felt strange to be so undone, even in the comfort of her own home. She had spent so much of her life trying to keep composed, juggling the different sections and parts that made up her sometimes-hectic life. Successful businesswoman, dutiful wife, beloved mother, and still so driven. Wasn't that what everyone said, at all the galas and dinners she had attended?

But now there wasn't anyone left to see her disheveled state, so what did it matter if she left her hair loose?

She had buried her daughter that afternoon. Her daughter of the long blonde hair and the boyish shorts. The Barbie dolls and the 50s musicals. All gone now, put into a little box in the ground, too tiny for such a gigantic personality.

But life had a way, wasn't that the saying? She could, should, would go on. She'd find someone else who'd survived, she'd make her way to the country and start again. Without the electronics, like all the health gurus and self-help books had been advocating for years.

Not today though. No, she'd leave tomorrow.

Today she would mourn. She would gather up the dolls, the soccer balls, the happiness and she would put it away. Maybe she would burn it, maybe she would place it into a closet and leave it there for someone else to find in a hundred years. Maybe she would dig a hole in the ground and leave her daughter's playthings to rest with her, for some kind of eternal tea party.

Today she would mourn. Tomorrow she would leave.

Broken woman, widowed wife, bereaved mother, and still so driven.

***

It must have been four years earlier, right before she found out about her daughter. They were sitting at a table, supposedly eating breakfast. He was staring at his coffee, she was staring at his newspaper, and they were both pretending they didn't notice the tension.

"I just - I think that you should take it. We need some stability." She didn't even move the newspaper, she hadn't even meant to say it. She just couldn't stop herself from nudging him a little further. She never could, even if it was just one of the millions of arguments they'd been having, repeated every morning before he went to job-hunt and she went to try and balance her books.

She could see him stand up out of the corner of her eye, his eyebrows pulled together. He was angry. "Look, this place is shady, you know that as well as I do. I don't want to get involved in whatever it is the-"

"You sound like a crackpot!" She exclaimed, the newspaper slapping down onto the table.  "Nothing is going on. It's just a normal research lab for the government."

And what did it matter if they were up to something bad? Wasn't every place shady these days, trying to find some way to one-up each other before the inevitable war? A little blindness was necessary in the world, that was all.

"You know that isn't true." He sat back down into his chair. There was a pause, then, "I just... I became a scientist to help people. That's the only dream I've ever had."

"I wish there was another way, bu-"

"You could get a job." He suggested, quietly.

She sent a quick look his way. He was serious.

"The company is picking up," She said, but her voice sounded whiny and selfish even to herself. "I can't give up now." There was no attempt to keep the begging out of her voice. "Please?"

He buried his head in his hands, shaking his entire body back and forth. 

Another stalemate.

She stood up, went to the fridge to start getting a lunch ready for later. It made her feel better, to keep her hands busy. It made it easier to pretend that they weren't shaking, to pretend that she hadn't noticed that lately her marriage had become tiny argument after tiny argument - all somehow leading to this.