Laura turned around and walked into her house.
She shut the door gently and stood against it. Lessening her grip on the envelope, she gave out a pained moan. The reality of what had just happened began to sink into her. Divorce papers. She knew what Ted had just brought her were divorce papers.
They were divorce papers. His signature, ‘Ted Sanders’ neatly signed at the bottom. Attached were papers about legal proceedings, property and financial division details. He’d left her the house. She smirked and looked around. The mahogany table they’d brought together in Greece, the paintings from Egypt on the peach walls, the expensive drapery even the Persian carpet before her all had ‘Ted’ in them. Good thing they had no kids she thought to herself. How could she live without him when everything around her smelled and reminded her of him? She cringed and sat down as though the pain was really physical. Angrily she threw the papers before her on the floor. They lay sprawled out menacingly like a pack of cards. Burying her head in her hands, she felt her palms become wet with tears.
Her job as a kindergarten teacher had instilled in her an instinctive sense of premonition towards incidents. When a child’s shoelace wasn’t tied, she knew the child would sooner or later trip and fall. When one child hit the other, she knew the deafening crying would arise next. Every event had its signs.
She remembered the first time she’d met Ted Sanders at the supermarket. She was looking at some coffeepots in the dash isle when he walked over and stood beside her.
“That’s a beautiful one,” he’d said admiring the intricate multi coloured abstract on the pot she held. She looked up to see a handsome smiling face. She felt as though she had found everything she needed. His fitting black shirt accentuated the broad expanse of his chest -he worked out in the gym everyday even after their marriage. He had short black hair, thick neat eyebrows and light brown eyes. His aquiline nose gave him a sort of roman look. His smile flashed a set of perfectly lined teeth. His whole physic was bursting with energy, power, and with life. She remembered paying for that coffeepot with him standing behind her in the cue knowing she would make coffee for him in that very pot - and she did; every morning after they got married a week later. Well when had the coffee started becoming so bitter? When she started smelling the new perfume of another woman? Restaurant bills of dinners shed never eaten? When had his gym evenings suddenly become longer? When had his kisses, lost their warmth and just become obligatory acts of light kisses on the cheek. When had even that, altogether stopped? Five months later she had known, the brown envelope she held in her hands was inevitably coming.
She felt a dull ache in her heart, which ironically reminded her about her mother. Her mother was always a mystery to her. She had always spoken little and when she had, she always said the most incomprehensible things. Her father was an alcoholic. From an early age of about 6, Laura always spent her nights trying to shut out the screams and cries of her mother under her father’s violent and blaring language. She always pictured her mother bruised and swollen but oddly enough, the next morning she would be humming in the kitchen while making breakfast looking fresh without any horrible purple bruises Laura had imagined. On the table though, she complained of a terrible pain while placing her palm to her chest. “ It must be there, the bruise” Laura used to think fully convinced. However each evening when her mother soaked herself in a bath, Laura would stand by the edge of the tub desperately peering for the bruises on her chest. Yet there was absolutely nothing. It suddenly struck her that the pain she always complained about wasn’t literal but it really must have been the pain of loving. Loving a man who loved his drink more than his family. Her father died at the age of 42 – ‘he drunk himself dead’ her mother had said the next morning. Three days later, her mother died of a heart attack. Laura - a college student by then, was only 17 years old. Staring back at the papers on the floor, she gave out a chuckle. It was funny how after 5years, she finally understood the pain her mother always complained about.
The clock ticked four o’clock and the room was promptly filled with the sound of Mr. Mullock whistling. Laura got up and peered through the window. Mr. Mullock was about his daily routine of watering his plants. She stared at him and frowned. He seemed so happy and confident watering the flowers with a sort of paternal possessiveness over them. He put the waterspout on the grass and bent over. He was sniffing the flowers and smiling. He then picked up the waterspout and started whistling again as he made his way back into the shed. Laura looked at the healthy flowers. They would still eventually die. Hadn’t she given Ted all her love? How many nights had she gazed at her reflection in the mirror and wondered what she was doing wrong? She had tried to love him even more, love him completely and genuinely but it always seemed to her that there was a defect – he’d never really cared to appreciated her love. No matter how many times Mr. Mullock watered those plants; they wouldn’t care less would they? Mr. Mullock came back out from the shed and steadily walked back into his house. Laura actually felt sorry for him them. He somewhat reminded her of a clown. She wondered whether he knew his plants got their water when it rained -every day that was. It was more like they transpired the water he gave them yet he still staunchly watered them.
“Nothing lasts forever, Mr. Mullok – what a waste ” she muttered. She slowly shut the drapes then went to the door and picked up all the papers. Sitting on the table, she stared listlessly into the air for a while. Tears simultaneously rolled down her cheeks but she made no sound. After a while, she dried her tears with the back of the palm and got a pen from the drawer. Slowly but firmly she signed her name at the bottom where her signature was required
“Laura Smithson”
