Sadness

She heard the denial of her dreams, and all she felt was sadness. Sadness like a cloak, like a cloche, like a foggy cloud on a cold morning.

She wanted to sit and sob. She wanted to rest her head in her hands and ignore the world for fifteen minutes. She wanted to rail against the Powers That Be for letting Life be so difficult.

Instead, she kept on keeping on. She put one foot in front of the other.

But the denial hurt. The sadness hurt. Physically hurt her.

That hurt forced her to remember other hurts, previous hurts. She could remember the first time she felt a hurt like this, a hurt that radiated down her right arm as if it were on fire.

She remembered living in the house of husband number two. It was his house, was always his house. She lived there five years and never felt she could hang a photo without asking his permission.

She rememberd the repeated times his daughter would tell him lies about her. Would tell him the horrible things Jan had said to her. But they were lies. All lies. And he never knew that truth.

He presumed Jan would say those horrible things to his daughter. And he would become depressed. Severely depressed. And he wouldn't speak to Jan. For day. After day. For five days. For five excruciatingly long lonely days.

She remembered going up to their bedroom and crawling into bed. Alone. With the pain of loneliness raging through her right shoulder and down her arm. Raging.

Alone. What had happened to that promise to love 'til death do us part? What had become of believing and trusting and loving one another? How had she become guilty until proven innocent?

Lonely. How did she happen to be 57 and alone? Brutally alone?

She hated that she did lonely so well.

She hated that life was so hard. And lonely. And sad.