it sits with you.

A stifling breeze lifted the lace curtain in its wake, and she shivered slightly, though the temperature, a result of high humidity, made the furniture in the room seem almost wavy. Shimmers of dust settling onto the dirt road disintegrated in a sacrificial dance around the clumps and caves along its terrain.

The kitchen door banged behind her on her route toward the clothesline, her meditated attempt to distance herself from the things that came before this moment and the ones that must come after. Gripping a clothespin in her mouth and a steadily-filling basket under her right arm, the stronger arm, she hummed a little, remembering, suddenly, to check the rusted, orange clock on the stove’s ledge so as to gauge when she ought to pick the kids up that afternoon.

Long and rangy and spotted was the grass, a tipped-over bicycle bedecked with streamers taking up one of the better portions of its span. There were old shovels, once bright and holiday-festive, now dingy and pock-marked, and a tire that still had some air in its girth, a good thing for the kids’ detailed, story’d games she would occasionally witness from the gable window as she tucked small dresses and shirts and pants and socks away in their cubbies in the subtly leaning, yet still cozy, chest of drawers in the girls’ room. The one she’d found that day at that strange antique shop near nothing, just a ramshackle road, not unlike the one that ran alongside their house, a road with its own strange, moon-chasm gullies and ravines and choking dust. He’d been so excited, too, because her victorious whooping over the piece of furniture’s price, her unquiet exclamations, had caught him virally, she mused, going down the line of sun-roughened garments.

Fetching the clothespin out of her mouth with her left hand as she continued to clutch the basket, now full of things that smelled of lavender and dried grass and dust, she trailed back past the bike and the toys and the tire, she hitched each leg up, up the back steps, a little tired, a little worn around the beautiful edges of her silent mouth.

It was time to check once more for any indication of a response from the woman she’d emailed earlier, to see if she’d been accepted, whether her work would be, never mind validated, but paid for. The check, its importance like a scale in her mind where nothing else could compare, the balance of everything in their lives stacked, anxious, in clumsy, staggering piles on one side, the flat, tiny paper, with its numbers and scrawls, on the other.

Her thoughts beseeched her insides to not roil as she propped the lid of the battered laptop open, fingers quaking just enough to be visible, to remind her. And she prayed a little, the kind of prayer that never makes itself known in words, only a feeling, guts, and a small stirring, like a finger, one that only exists in the stomach for such moments.

The phone rang, a screeching sound, and she leapt up from her chair to silence it. It would have to wait, he would have to wait. He could wait until the end of time, she’d decided, decided in that instant.

And the email, the email, there it was, as she sat back down in the yellow-flowered chair, her sun-dulled hair grazing its edge, catching a little behind her as she sat, trance-like, staring at the thing, unable to open it.

The phone rang once again, cutting across the room, across her hands and fingers, and she picked it up and threw it. Shuddering at its landing with a cracking noise against the wall.

“While we appreciate your submission, we are unable to…”

The tears boiled just beneath the blue-veined lids of her tired eyes, and she squeezed her fists into the sides of her thighs to avoid touching her face, encouraging the tears’ progress, a pretense that it wasn’t really happening. The stifling winds came, again, dust wafting across the kitchen table, across the laptop’s keys, as she thought of bed, that morning, pretending to be asleep still when he’d summoned her out of it as he was leaving for the day.

If this was the way, she could manage it. And he would have to – she just wouldn’t. Maybe some time later, she might. Maybe she would tell him how he’d – that just because they were married, and with children, multiples, kids who were growing and becoming their futures even as she thought on it, that it wasn’t alright, what he’d done. The lump in her throat grew.

She cast a watery glance at the damned clock on the stove, leaned against the greasy tiles. Her fingers shook, less violently than before, as she shut the lid of the computer and reached for her keys.

Comments

[Nadine/Scarbiedoll]

I know from rejection. It's always worst on the first day. Then it gets easier. That's why I'm an editor now, so I get to be the one that deals the blows.

You are mad talented. Keep going. Some of the best authors were turned down countless times before getting the deal that broke them. You totally have what it takes. Fuck 'em. Then move forward.

[Cristina]

Awesome. I want more.

[Andrea]

I. Love. Your. Writing. And like Riley, I miss the Draft.

The words you use, and the images you evoke. They make me hate you a little in my own envious green haze. And then I find myself sad that I've read the last words and I have to wait to read more. You write beauty, woman. Evocative.

And seriously, after that short little bit, my emotions are wrung out.

[xiaolinmama/sheilabd]

wow, wow, wow! You are freakin' brilliant. damn.

[All Rileyed Up]

So evocative. I love the details.

I miss the Draft group, don't you?

[mamatulip]

Brava.

[Mary]

More, please. PLEASE.

[Lawyer Mama]

And babe. Your writing is amazing. Anyone who fails to recognize that is just, well, small minded and not open to beautiful possibilities staring her right in the face.

[Lawyer Mama]

Holy sweet jesus, Deb. You just blew me away.

I want to know what she does. What she says to him, where she goes. I want to know the rest of her story.

Please tell me you'll finish it. Please.

[Kyla]

My God, woman. How do you write this way?

[Maria]

Your writing is....just marvelous. Wow

[qt]

Just lovely, miss deb. Just loverly.

[Kim]

flawless= your writing.
I am sorry though for your disappointment.

[Danielle]

that was really great

[slouching mom]

lovely, really lovely.

[jen]

oh god, deb. this is amazing, truly amazing.

and i'm sorry. that woman was wrong, her decision, fallible.