I’ve been working on a new Women’s Fiction novel and thought I would throw a few bits of it up here. Please feel free to comment (constructively). It is only sitting at 40,000 words right now.
***
She’d never really thought what it would mean for him to die. Oh, she’d fantasized about it often enough, but never had she truly sat down and contemplated what life would be like without him in it – physically. So it took her by surprise when the police stopped in front of her house and got out. No blaring sirens, no flashing lights, no screeching tires.
Silence. That’s what struck her first – the silence of their arrival. Even the knock on the door, the doorbell, both were unusually muffled. Opening the door, she stood staring at them for the briefest second before smiling and opening it wider, allowing them to see into her home.
“How can I help you? – Officers,” she added as an afterthought.
“I’m Officer Sanders and this is my partner, Officer O’Dell. We need to speak with Samantha Bennett,” the older looking officer said quietly.
If she hadn’t seen his lips move she might have thought she had imagined the words.
“Well, that would be me,” she smiled.
“May we come in?”
“Certainly,” she replied, stepping back away from the door and mentally noting the piles of papers on the table, the dog hair whispering around the corner. At that moment, Randolph came in from the back room, fresh from a romp in the yard and immediately set off barking.
“Randy!” her voice was enough to quiet the dog. He sat obediently at her feet and watched the strangers.
“Sorry about that, he gets a little excited when people he doesn’t know show up,” and again she smiled a question at the police officers.
“Would you like to sit down ma’am?”
“Should I?” she asked, a small alarm bell beginning to ring somewhere inside.
“Ma’am,” began Officer Sanders. “I’m afraid we have some bad news. Charles Bennett has been killed.” He left the words hanging there for a moment.
“Killed?” she didn’t understand the word, nor how it related to her husband of all people.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s being considered a possible homicide,” the man was saying.
“But we haven’t ruled out suicide yet either,” added Officer O’Dell quickly, noting the odd look on her face.
She opened and closed her mouth once or twice, searching for words that didn’t seem to want to form.
“Suicide was never an option,” she said at last. Not directing her words at the officers but to the world in general, her voice soft.
***
(…a bit later in the book…)
***
Samantha shook her head and looked at the mess of a desk Charles had left when he’d gone out the day before – the last day he’d ever leave their house, she realized with a jolt.
She’d known he was unfaithful from time to time. And much to her surprise there were times when she really didn’t mind because she’d recognized that it was a need he had for a different feel to his world. It hadn’t taken away from his love for her. She’d come to terms with that part of it and even ventured into the odd flirtation herself. They’d always returned to one another and there were things neither shared with anyone else – or at least she had thought there were. It was enough to shake her now that she was questioning this piece of their relationship.
They’d talked about death, at length, in this very room, she recalled. After the builders had finally finished it, they had put a pile of pillows and blankets down on the floor before they moved the furniture in. The wine was red; the cheese was sharp, and the pillows, the blanket soft. Laying on the floor, looking up at the empty bookshelves, they’d talked softly about life and death, writing and living – the differences between all of them.
They’d made love that night. It wasn’t always making love, sometimes it was just sex. But that night it was making love.
Toasting the room around them, Charles had taken her glass once she had sipped from it. He’d placed it carefully on the floor out of reach, and pulled her to him. Sliding down on the pillows, they had spent minutes just kissing. He’d been gentle, passionate. His lips had moved over her face, down her neck to the lace edge of her shirt. She had been drawn to watch his fingers as they deftly undid the buttons, kissing the flesh beneath as each one opened. His hands, slipping inside her shirt, had found her breasts, cupped them and caressed them as he’d kissed her deeply. She’d moved with equal deliberation removing the rest of her clothes and then his.
She’d felt so alive that night, beneath the empty bookcases, the night sky hanging above them– almost empty in the new moon darkness – with only stars shining through his brand new sky light. It had been one of the most romantic, passionate nights she could remember.
Samantha put the cold cup of coffee to her lips, sipped the pale liquid and shuddered. Partly from memory, partly from sorrow. Slowly she turned around the room, looking at it once more before leaving and shutting the door quietly behind her.
There was much to do and another time for memories.
***
