This Flashback Friday piece isn’t super old and it’s not been published anywhere before. I am a part of a writer’s group, and each week we have a “writing jam.” We each draw a writing prompt…usually a phrase… from a box and then have fifteen minutes to write something including that phrase. This little vignette is the result of my first writing jam with the group.(My writing prompt was “tore at his soul.”) I hope you like it! Please leave a comment and tell me you were here!

Beloved Wife

The setting sun cast one last feeble ray of light across the stony words that reverberated inside his head night and day. Beloved wife. They sounded so formal. So distant. So unlike the woman he had loved.

Jason leaned his forehead against the cool granite, as he so often did. It had been one year, but the grief still tore at his soul. Still left him breathless. Still caught him by surprise.  Still.

Beloved Wife. It didn’t tell how she got drunk on tequila and danced in their living room for hours. Beloved Wife  didn’t tell how she was the only thing that had ever managed to bring him home from the bar before closing. How her laugh could wipe away a bad day at work. Or how when he pissed her off she would stomp off pouting, tossing that red hair.

One year, and the world kept turning. One year, and he still reached for her at night.

Jason tipped the bottle up, wiped his eyes with his dirty sleeve, and drew one, long, ragged breath. One year, and he was still here. She was still gone. Still so much more than his Beloved Wife.

©2015 Rachel Holbrook

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