Status: because why not, ydg?
Empty Garden
seven
I went to the beach. Sat in the sun just to feel the burn, ran through the salt water with laceration-ridden feet just to feel the sting.
When I got home he was sitting on the couch with his half-bald head hung heavy in his hands and his shoulders shaking.
“Your mother, she was in a car wreck this afternoon,” he started to say. His shoulders shook harder. “She didn’t make it.”
I waited for the tightening of my chest, the tugging of my heart strings, the knotting of my stomach.
It never came.
“Oh. That’s… unfortunate.”
I went back to the beach.
When I got home he was sitting on the couch with his half-bald head hung heavy in his hands and his shoulders shaking.
“Your mother, she was in a car wreck this afternoon,” he started to say. His shoulders shook harder. “She didn’t make it.”
I waited for the tightening of my chest, the tugging of my heart strings, the knotting of my stomach.
It never came.
“Oh. That’s… unfortunate.”
I went back to the beach.