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Category:
Mainstream
Publisher: Me
ISBN-10: 1542902711
Type: Fiction
Pages: 80
ISBN-13: 9781542902717
Price: $3.09 (eBook)
Short stories
A Collection of Flash Fiction and Short Stories. The cover is a scribble of mine.
Excerpt
DEDICATION
DEDICATED TO WOMEN LIKE ME WHO THOUGHT NO-ONE WOULD EVER READ
WHAT THEY WROTE
SIT DOWN AND START WRITING TODAY
IT
Sarah read the letter and gasped.
She had wanted to fail this.
"Change!” I swivel abruptly to catch it, laughing at me, but it is positive.
Pregnant! At 45? More chance of being run over, or collapsing of a heart attack, which, if I do not relax could happen.
How do I tell him? He is stressed if he cannot find his charger, has a breakdown if we have no milk. We do it once a month if I am lucky. I have a low libido, he has an ever lower one, and he pulls out for Christ’s sake. He stops a rhythm just to do the rhythm method. This cracks me up, I laugh hysterically. I calm myself. I have to pay for ‘it’. ‘IT’ what a word, this will never be an ‘it ’to me and if ‘it’ had come years ago I'd have been delighted. However, it did not, I can hardly move on a good day. We are too old.
One more look, no, still the same. I will go to the doc tomorrow he will have a laugh since last month he tested to see if I was menopausal, hang on, that’s 'it', a false reading, changing hormones. Alarm bells stop pealing. What is this? That face in the mirror. Bloody tears, silly cow, you are too old, stop dreaming. I hide it, wipe my eyes, and plaster a smile on my face.
I only looked every half hour even though I want to stare relentlessly. Rang, the doc’s the earliest appointment I can get is six tomorrow. That is a long time staying quiet.
Only getting around to the other fellah now my 26 year old, what is he going to think?
I joked that I would wait until he was old enough to babysit but this is mortifying. His dad died when he was a baby and for so long it was the two of us until the hubby.
The hubby, he is new, only two years now. I waited until middle age, think I made a mistake. Probably my mid-life crisis, cracks are showing and now this...this is not the plastering needed. Suddenly, the decision is made, if I am pregnant, I am leaving. Going somewhere new, just disappearing. I do not want pitying smiles, 'at her age' nods. I will tell the men in my life, my son is still not working he might enjoy pastures new. The hubby? Well, it will be up to him. I love him, but how long will that last, he is unhappy these days. He can get up and leave for hours on trips to his married friend, who I know he has not seen in months. He is chasing his own demons.
I stumble and protectively place a hand on my stomach. What a turnaround, if I sneak up on it now, I would hope it’s positive. My hubby will be a good dad, his first. I am not ready for the menopause, I smile knowingly, and the doc’s test is now a foregone conclusion. ‘It’ is going to be loved, and if needs must I have been a single parent before, I can do it again, with more patience this time.
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