June 23rd, 2020
521 Words
I woke up on the couch.
The teen was gone.
The house smelled faintly of dust and something clean underneath it. Not fresh. Just maintained. The kind of scent that says someone still cares whether a place feels lived in.
Nothing alive in it except me.
I sat up slowly, testing my ankle. Pain shot sharp and immediate, then settled into something dull and stubborn. Manageable, if I didn’t get ambitious.
On the coffee table sat a simple note and a jar of nuts.
My dad liked these. I don’t. Enjoy.
Cashews.
I twisted the lid off and poured a handful into my palm. Sweet. Salty. Solid. The crunch sounded too loud in the room. I chewed anyway.
Beside the jar sat a small container of water and the Tylenol she’d brought me the day before. I took one dry, letting it sit heavy in my stomach while I counted the seconds, as if I could will chemistry to move faster.
From my bag, I pulled a can of beans. Survival cuisine. I used the little P-38 she’d handed me yesterday, working the lid open in slow, deliberate bites.
Hook. Twist. Reset.
The metal scraped. The sound carried.
Warm beans. Tin. The sugar of the cashews still lingering.
It wasn’t comfort.
It was fuel.
I looked around the living room more carefully today.
Family photos lined the shelves. Not hidden. Not packed away. Still displayed like the world hadn’t ended.
One caught me and held.
Four of them around a campfire. Her. A woman leaning in close. A man with the posture of someone used to standing watch. A little girl grinning so wide it felt like the picture couldn’t contain it.
Firelight frozen in time.
They looked like people who believed tomorrow was guaranteed.
I looked away first.
The couch creaked when I shifted, reminding me I didn’t belong here. The sun crawled slowly across the floorboards, touching corners of the room as if taking inventory.
That’s when I noticed the shelf above the television.
Trophies.
Not one or two.
A whole row of them.
Little brass archers frozen mid-draw stood on wooden bases, their engraved plates catching the light. State qualifiers. Youth tournaments. Regional competitions.
The same last name etched across most of them.
Some taller than the others. Some older. A few worn where fingers must have touched them a hundred times over the years.
Whoever she was before the world fell apart…
she spent a lot of time behind a bowstring.
I glanced around the room again.
No bow.
No arrows.
Which meant she hadn’t just stepped out.
She’d gone somewhere on purpose.
Order.
Discipline.
Grief lives differently in some people. Sometimes it screams. Sometimes it alphabetizes the pantry, leaves the pictures up… and keeps the trophies where they can still catch the light.
I didn’t move much after that. Couldn’t.
Pain pinned me. Silence sharpened me.
Every shift of the house made me listen harder. Wood settling. Wind pressing at the siding. No footsteps. No voices. No littles scratching at the door.
Just me.
And the quiet understanding that she’d either come back…
or she wouldn’t.
- Writer
