Again

Again

10:16, a cold November morning-
A woman stands barefoot on her doorstep, a forced smile on her face, an invisible elephant crushing her chest, waving goodbye to a friend. Her jaw clenches painfully as she silently watches a car pull out of the driveway. A red-eyed man is behind the wheel, three children fill the back seats; the passenger bares the same hopeful smile she wore the last time.
The woman wants to scream, to throw herself at the car, to drag her friend from it and shake her from her denial. To force her to remember words she spoke only days before as she sat soggy cheeked and broken on the woman’s couch clutching a cup of coffee as if it were a lifeline and swearing it was to be different this time and that she would never go back again.
The woman does nothing. This is not the time and that is not her role. She knows from her own haunting experiences that it would do no good. If she is to be saved, she will have to be her own hero.
The small child at the woman’s side takes her hand and leans in close. She looks down at her daughter who smiles and waves her friends off. When they have gone, she squeezes her mother’s hand and breaks the silence. “Mom,” she says quietly, “I don’t think they should go back.”
She closes her eyes against the sadness and worry distorting her little girl’s face and shakes her head. Even a child knows this is wrong.