Together

As part of the Weekly Writing Challenge: Flash Fiction:

separated by cmbl_in_bw on deviantART

She stood still, trembling. After all they had been through together – years and years of hard work raising their three unremarkable kids, even more years of scrimping and saving every last penny for their future, and a lifetime of compromise – it had come to this.

She could hardly believe it. Who would have thought that after 30 years of marriage, someone could just leave without looking back, simple as that?

Their kids were grown, and didn’t seem particularly bothered or shocked by their father’s decision. But she had been floored. Her entire world was shattered. Everything was different.

At first, she had thought it was some sort of cruel, sick joke. Surely he had been joking, surely he didn’t want to leave her for a woman young enough to be his daughter, only a few years older than their oldest child. Surely he couldn’t do that to her. They were a family, after all.

But it hadn’t been a joke.

And here they were. Separated, their relationship over, though she desperately wished that it wasn’t. How could she just walk away from something like this, from a member of her family?

She wouldn’t. She knew that with a deep certainty that cleared her head, set her teeth, and stilled her tears.

She would not walk away from her husband. Could not.

And so she stood, trembling. A knife clattered by her feet, and her hands flew to her mouth to contain a scream.

And there he was, surrounded by a widening circle of bright red liquid, his eyes clouded over, his chest still.

Dead. In a few moments, she would join him. In a few moments, they would be together.