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Shelby watched the blue lines dance across the blank page in front of her. The sun began to peek through a window in the kitchen. The clock ticked time away.
In eight short hours John would be home. He would return from two weeks in Europe. A business trip? He had said, "Just business, I have to go."
She pulled the small gold envelope from beneath her coffee cup. Her eyes were dry... The tears growing cold long before her coffee. She removed the stiff new photos to stare at John kissing another woman.
The detective had earned his fee and provided the proof she needed to leave John to his mistress.
She rose to freshen her stale cup of energy. There was no relief from the weight her weary heart left in her limbs. She turned to face the door and remembered her chore. Her suitcases beckoning her to complete the letter and leave this all behind. Her thoughts created an incessant ringing in her ears.
She plucked the receiver from the wall by the fourth ring.
"Hello."
"Shel." the voice was strong and warm, "Darling, we've landed in New York."
"John?" She asked.
"I hope I'm the only one who calls you 'Darling'."
Shelby faked her best laugh, "of course you are."
"See you tonight, dear," he said.
"Yes," she lied. "Tonight."
"I love you."
She placed the receiver on its perch and returned to her writing. Marking the corner of the evidence with her thumb, she exhaled. What could I say in a letter that these pictures couldn't?
She lifted the pictures only to drop them on the notebook paper. Has it really been ten years since John has noticed me?
She thought back to the last time he'd noticed her - even then it was a snide comment about her weight.
The memory fueled her anger. I'm giving him the best years of my life... He is giving his best to some new improved model.
As one final tear slipped free she picked up her pen.
Dear John...
That was all she wrote, allowing the pictures to say goodbye.
She dialed their phone one last time. "Mom?"
After a short pause, "I'm coming home, I think I'll stay a while."
The story Dear John is Copyright 1998 by Michelle R. Newsom.
The collection of works called Fish Eggs For The Soul is Copyright
1998 by Brian Rickman.
Copy edited by Sara Fawbush,
editor of The Young Writer's Collection.