Grand Scheme

this is part of a novel i've done

Fiona just sat at the dining room table watching the candles burnout. Another afternoon wasted. Another meal turned into leftovers without ever being tasted. She reached down and slipped off her shoes, thinking that if he walked through the door at that moment she’d hurl one at his head. But he didn’t. the door didn’t open. Fiona knew that it wasn’t going to.  This wasn’t the first time that he didn’t come home, wouldn’t be home, and when he did finally show up some time early the next morning, or after work the next night, he’d feed her the same old lines: Lines that she bought like groceries. And now reflecting she couldn’t remember why she had. He was her husband, but that just didn’t justify it anymore. She never would have taken night after night of the bullshit that Edward fed her from anyone else or even from him before they were married. But now it was the rations that got her through her life.  She was alone in her marriage, in compromising to make their life as a couple, as a family, not better, but anything at all. She thought, ‘If I just stopped working so hard. If I stopped caring, all this would fade away. We’d drift apart and that would be the end of it.’ And no one would blame her. Marriages end. Most of their friends were married and divorced twice by now. But single and alone, and starting over was not how she saw her life at 32.

     Fiona looked around at the knickknacks that made up her life and didn’t recognize herself in them. Who was this woman with the hollow smile in all the photographs? Maybe her sister was right? Maybe this was over a long time ago, but how to just give up on it. Fiona wasn’t a quitter, but then again she thought she wasn’t waiting at home in the dark type either.

 

Reviews

[Yello Duzzit]

I believe you. This is a biogrphy. I found myself not wanting to know her husbands name was Edward. Maybe it was jarring the way it was presented, or maybe Fiona is the only person that matters, and every other person or thing is just the archetype, like, a representative. But how old are her friemds if she's 32 and they are all already married and divorced twice? Or were they married twice and divorced once? Either way, its quite well told. No words felt unnecessary, except, "Edward" ... I'm reading yours trying to get better at mine... so, good stuff

[Kat Williams]

Nice flow and scene setting...I like the character