The Pink Letter

he sits at her kitchen table, her back hunched as she stares over the space where the newspaper should have been, a bowl of soggy Fruit Loops beside her. The ungentle light of early morning slashes across the room, cutting across the back of her old bathrobe, making the roses embroidered there seem withered. It reflects off the tiled floor, the coffee cup in her left hand, the beige G.E. refrigerator. It has a built in water and ice dispenser, despite her pleas to get the cheaper version. The sink was right next to the fridge after all.

The sunlight wraps itself around her bare feet, painted toenails, lashing them to the chair. It lights her honeyed hair on fire. It slaps across her eyelids, causing her to squint against its harsh ashen glow. As the sun continues to rise, it winks occasionally in her right eye, a casual thing, but cruel just the same. Like it knows. It is good at keeping secrets.

The light tears across the tabletop, splashing into her cereal bowl, pushing its way across the fresh daisies in the vase, landing roughly upon the letter occupying the newspaper's space. The letter, unopened, lays smooth, delicate, and untouched upon the glass tabletop. The script reads neatly, in a lilting, feminine writing. Where she wrote his name, it loops about in an almost-cursive. There is a little heart drawn in the lower left-hand corner. It's drawn in blue, a very un-heart-like color. The stamp, ribboned by the postman's mark, depicts a bunch of daisies tied together by a blue ribbon.

It stood out this morning when the mailman dropped the sheaf of letters through their mail slot in the front door. The pink of the envelope, the cloying crimson color, directed her hand as she gathered the papers. As she gently guided it on top of the pile, the faint smell of sweetness swept past her nose. It smelled of some subtle fruity perfume. Almost familiar, in fact. She was quite sure she'd smelled it on one or two of his shirts when she put them in the wash, but... [continues]

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