Yet another excerpt
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| 29 December, 2025; yours truly at the north jetty of Humboldt Bay. Photo courtesy of my husband. |
I should be doing several other things, like prepping for possible weekend guests, spending time in the glorious sunshine, making the bed, putting away laundry, etc, etc, etc. But a few days ago I wrote a scene about coming down from the hill of Anger. And since I had posted a previous scene about the perils of climbing the mountain of Fury, well....
Anyway, here's the scene. It's another reminder that love is better than its opposite, and always will be, insert heart emoji HERE.
Half an hour later Shauna lay on the sofa, two cups of weak tea on the coffee table within arm’s reach. Rickey remained in her bedroom, scrubbing the floor.
She ached hearing him huff and cluck, Spanish spoken under his breath, but not bitterly. She knew some of what he said, how nasty was bile to clean from anything, how her cleaning products were too harsh for the delicate wood. She didn’t know that, would research tomorrow what would be better. His opinion mattered for some weird reason, not that she cared about him, yet he had arrived, using a key she didn’t know he had. Then she smirked; I need to change the fucking locks tomorrow too. Then she sighed, grasping one of the mugs of tea, sipping slowly. Rickey had been the only man she had given a key to, though Lora and Kim had copies.
Lora had called her, Kim hadn’t. What did that mean, Shauna wondered. Probably means I need to text Kim, Shauna grunted inwardly.
“What do you need?” Rickey called.
“Oh, uh, nothing. Thanks for the tea.” She took a drink, wondering if that internal grunt had outwardly manifested itself. “Did you, did I say something?” she said, staring into her mug.
“You grunted.”
“Oh.” Shit, she thought to herself, hoping that was kept private. He didn’t speak, and she smirked, then sipped her tea. Then she cleared her throat. “How’d Angela sound, you know, when she called you?”
“Worried.”
His tone was clipped, then Shauna heard him get off the floor. His knees had bothered him when they dated, which had been over twenty years ago. “How’re your knees?” she called.
“They hurt,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she answered, wondering why that had slipped; she was quite ashamed that he’d cleaned up the vomit. Then she shrugged as he entered the living room, his hands full of rags, which he deposited in the trash. He washed his hands, then opened a cabinet, retrieving a glass, filling it with water. He chugged it, then set the glass in the sink.
“How’d you know where everything is,” she said.
“Just figured it’d be the same as when you moved in.”
Shauna toyed with the mug’s handle. She had bought this house after her mother died, and Rickey had helped her move. Was this the first time he had stepped foot inside it since? Probably, she sighed. Shauna rarely entertained; she mostly went to Kim’s house. “Guess some things don’t change,” she muttered.
“No, they don’t.” He said that with weariness, then sighed, approaching the sofa. He sat in the overstuffed chair that faced her, folding his hands in his lap. “How do you feel?”
Like a child, she wanted to admit. “Better,” she grunted. Then she sat up, finished the tea, but kept the cup in her grasp. “Thank you.”
He nodded, then cracked his knuckles. The sound traveled through Shauna like a slender ribbon connected to their past. After they made love, he’d crack his knuckles, then clear his throat, how he wordlessly asked if she wanted him again. She would snort, then nod, then…. “So, did Angela say anything else, I mean….” Shauna wanted to know for how long she was supposed to be ill. She still wanted to get an extra phone and….
She dropped the mug, which rolled off her lap onto the floor, breaking into what sounded like millions of sharp slivers that would slice her to tatters if she ever had strength to leave the sofa. All her energy was gone, how could she harness the mettle to do more than lie there the rest of her life? And how had her fortitude and control so easily disappeared?
As Rickey stood, then carefully walked the couple of feet to assess the damage, Shauna wondered if he would so easily diagnose her, her…. I’m falling apart, she realized, but didn’t include an expletive as she would have previously. I really am dying, or something, she then accepted, Lora’s desperate wails in her ears. No words, merely gasps for breath interspersed with howls that Shauna had deliberately avoided that terrible night, and all the evenings and mornings and afternoons which followed. Rickey headed to the kitchen, easily locating a broom and dustpan in the back corner, not that the kitchen layout matched her apartment’s design exactly, but as if Shauna had duplicated everything about her old life into this small residence so tonight how many years later this man could come in, clearing away the vomit and brokenness, elements that kept Shauna Elaine Spagnoli a functioning human being. “Stop,” she whispered, worried if he swept up the shattered china, he would throw her in the trash too.
“I can’t,” he said, bending over, slowly brushing slivers into the pan.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she muttered.
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” his voice tender. “If I don’t do this, you’ll hurt yourself further.”
Shauna stared at him, then he met her gaze. In adding further, a ping again resonated within her chest, but this time it was more like a balm. Rickey had been the best lover Shauna ever had, those weeks after Roland’s death like some kind of passageway into a life she thought was impossible to claim. She hadn’t felt that way about him when they were actually together, and they had been split for over a year when…. “Please, Rickey, just stop. Go, I don’t need, I don’t want, I can’t have…”
He finished sweeping, then slowly walked to the kitchen, against depositing the refuse into the can. “Shit,” he muttered. “Should’ve put it in a different bag first.”
“Leave it,” Shauna said hoarsely. “Just go and….”
“No,” he said, retrieving a paper bag from under the sink. Gently he lifted the plastic trash bag, then carefully jimmied it into the paper bag, then rolled that upon itself. Then he found another plastic trash bag, putting the paper bag into it, then lining the can with the new plastic bag. “Should be okay now,” he said, staring at the trash can.
“For God’s sake, GO!” Shauna shouted with the minimal strength she still possessed.
“I will now.” Rickey approached her, gingerly running his hand over her forehead. Loose hairs were stuck to her cheeks, her long mane matted down her back. “You’re very loved Shauna. I hope someday you’ll realize it.”
She grimaced, grateful for a flicker of anger, yet she couldn’t draw much from that pitiful flame. “Get the hell out,” she warbled.
“Whatever you want.” He sighed, then stepped away. His coat hung over a chair at her two-person dining table in the middle of the room. Grabbing the jacket, he put it on, turned up the collar, then reached the door. But he turned back to her, an odd look on his face, like a cross between a grin and frown. He started to speak, then paused. Then he flashed a wide smile. “I wanna say I’m gonna pray for you Shauna, but maybe that goes without saying.”
“I sure wish to hell you hadn’t said it,” she growled.
“Yeah, I’m sure you are. What I will say is this: Life’s short. If you wanna spend the rest of yours in this pit, go right ahead. Kim and Lora love you, they always will.”
Reaching into a coat pocket, Rickey pulled out a beanie, then tugged it over his head. He exited the house, said something in Spanish, but Shauna couldn’t understand him. Within a minute his truck rumbled, then he was gone. Shauna grunted, peered at the floor where the mug had fallen, it looked clean enough. She stood, then stepped defiantly where Rickey had swept. Then she shivered as his voice wafted through her mind: Kim and Lora love you, they always will.
Could you love me again, Shauna wondered, wishing to slap herself for the sentiment. Then sharp, icy tears plummeted down her face, sending her back to the sofa, weeping profusely.
