Comfort

Soft as a baby quilt, his love wrapped around her. Colors so pastel they hardly were there. Yet the fiber was strong and kept her away from the world.

She'd had a bad childhood, ping-ponged between parents, each week a fresh start, each weekend a thwack back into reality. Her father, a drinker of the finest Scotch whiskey. Her mother a connoisseur of cocaine. Each held a hatred, each held a love deep inside them, and neither understood it at all.

She'd met him at the community college. He'd stop by the diner where she worked after classes were done. They started dating. He, persistent; her, wary, dropping her veil slowly, ready to jerk it back into place. And eventually, when she learned trust, they married.

He was the hearth to her fire. She unfolded her fists and let bad things drift up the chimney in smoke. He cradled her when she needed cradling, let her smolder up to a point. Logic would come after emotions had broken down into ash. And eventually, when she forgot about pain, they grew into a comfort of oneness that fit together under his shelter.

Time softened, time hardened, time weathered their love. Winter must come, after all. One bitter February day she was fooled by the sun and testing her strength, gave in to the world that she touched. It didn't take long for the past to fly in like a vulture and pick at her flesh. When he found her she was in little pieces that he carried back home in a quilt.

~

same day, another comfort

~

Carianne Mack Garside
Susan Gibb
Steve Ersinghaus

notes on the project