Gabe
Wright slammed his trunk shut, reaching into his pocket for his keys with his
free hand. He looked up at his house, where his wife, no, correction, ex-wife,
was standing, arms crossed and eyes narrowed on the porch. She had watched him
like a hawk the entire time he was packing. She had picked through the boxes he
had carried out, inspected every item he had decided to take with him. He was
tired of her and as he looked up at her from the street he wondered if there
was anything left in her of the woman he had loved.
Behind her, the door opened and
the man who would now be taking his place in bed beside her, a bed that he,
Gabe, had bought and slept in, in a house that he used to own, came to stand
with her.
“Don’t you think it’s ‘bout time
for you to be clearing out, Gabey,” the man said, stretching an arm
possessively around his new fiancé.
Gabe stared at him for a beat,
contemplating whether or not it would be worth it to challenge the creep who
would now be pissing and shitting day and night in what used to be his home.
After a moment, Gabe turned away and walked around his car to the driver’s side
door and opened it, ignoring his audience.
“Where can I reach you, if I
need anything?” she called from the porch.
“What would you need Suzanna that
you have not already taken from me” he asked calmly, his knuckles whitening on
the door handle. Measuring his movements carefully, he turned around, relaxing
his grip on the door.
“Hey, hey, there’s no need to
get hostile here Gabey,” the man, the intruder, said tauntingly.
“Ahh, there’s no need for you to
be a dick either Jim, but here we are.” Gabe stared coldly at him, before
turning to Susanna. “I don’t know where I’m going.”
“Will you call me when you get
wherever you go?” she probed, her voice suddenly docile.
“No.” He swung the door the rest
of the way open and got in, slamming the door shut behind him. He breathed and,
hands shaking ever so slightly, started the car and drove away.
In his rearview mirror he caught
a glimpse of Jim gesturing to him rudely with his middle finger. Susanna, it
seemed, had turned towards the house, her shoulders sagging and Gabe imagined
that she was crying. Crying because she knew he had been right all along, that
everything she had ever done to break him was wrong, that she was wrong. Wrong,
and just as small as she had continually made him feel.
Turning the radio on, he smiled
to himself and glanced down at the taped in place picture on his dashboard of
the little boy, with dark hair and a freckle covered face smiling back at him.
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