Re-Arranged

| Special Chapter | Katharsis |

There was no novelty in defending oneself in front of a prejudiced panel of judges. And to Kat, that is what her hometown was made of. After four marriages, three of which were essentially failed mistakes, she needed no external reports to know what would be said of her if she returned to those lanes and roads.

Katherine drew long on the hollow stick, the butt of cigarette barely visible at the end except as little lightning bugs twinkling in a mud of ash. She stood slumped against a large open window overlooking the expanse of backyard, one arm folded over her abdomen and her legs stretched outward. She flicked out the remainder of the cigarette into an ashtray placed on the window sill and then smudged out the bigger end of the stick as well, while puckering her lips to release the smoke into the morning air.

On the grounds below, a bunch of her nieces and nephews were playing around with a large ball, kicking it, punching it while it floated about lighter as air. With the dominating heights of her cousins, one of the girls – possibly a Sloane kid, Katherine had no way of ascertaining since she avoided approaching any of them – was rather short and could not touch the ball even once.

Oh well, that kid would have to wait a couple more years from the looks of it.

Katherine walked to her bed and sat next to the pillows for a long moment. Despite empty rooms lined up where the rest of the family lived and despite those rooms being better, she loved this one the most because it faced the lake. It reminded her of the one she had lived by for several years when she had married Roger, fresh out of college. The entire township where he had been posted for work had a peaceful air about it. On weekends, the two of them hiked over the surrounding hills to the wide and deep lake where they laid under the stars and cooked over a bonfire. While the one behind Wes' house was not as huge as that one or as deep even, it still filled her head with those happy memories and kept her calm.

Theirs had been a whirlwind romance. They were young, in their early twenties, and could not get enough of each other. They met at the telephone exchange where she was yelling at a person seated behind a counter for cutting their phone line for no reason, while that person kept ignoring her. Roger stood in the line behind her, amused at the colourful tirade she was raining on the official. He was about to step in and aide her when she propped herself up on the counter by her knees, reached over and grabbed the man on the other side by his collar.

It all happened in a second and the shock that action produced around the room rendered almost everyone motionless for the briefest of moments. Apparently, that's all she needed.

"Listen, you piece of shit, and listen carefully even if it's just a woman talking to you. The bills are long paid, there's no dues remaining, have the phone line working by tomorrow, or I'm coming back again. See if you can stop me." She pushed him back (and he nearly fell out of his chair) and hopped down the counter, walking away, cool as a cucumber. Roger could not keep standing in the line anymore after that even though his was the next turn.

No, he had to find the girl who had the guts to put a whole establishment into its place. He too was out the door before the officials could gather their bits and pieces of common sense. The man behind the counter had lost control of his bladder, the ensuing smell proved enough to disperse what remained of the queue in front of him, their noses plugged.

Oh, it took so much more than wooing to catch her attention. Once he did, he had no intention of letting it go.

Seven years of relationship, four years of which were a blissful marriage, they made and kept her heart full. And when a tumour took over his brain, it took every last breath out of Katherine as well.

She had no feelings to give or feel in the years that followed, years that went by in a blur and in mistake upon mistake.

Katherine cleared her throat to rid of the lump lodged in it and blinked her eyes to clear it. With memories so heavy as those that Roger had left with her ... She pulled out the drawer of the bedside table and retrieved an envelope from within, torn unevenly along one seam.