Belinda stood at her front door and opened it to let the cat out. As usual Rocky mewled his thanks, and she spoke to the rear view of his fluffy brown raised flag of a tail. “You’re welcome.” It was ridiculous to answer him like that, but she did it every morning now. The words just popped out of her mouth like happy little frogs.
She smiled and started to close the door but the sun was shining just beyond the porch and there were spots of yellow and lavender off to her left that she hadn’t seen yesterday. Five steps across the porch and she was in the sun feeling forty pounds lighter. From here she could see that the dabs of color were newborn flowers, nodding their baby heads at her.
She looked back at the cavity of the still opened front door and saw shadow. Inside that shadow was the silent phone she’d been staring at for the last week. She was shackled so tightly to the need for it to ring that she hadn’t even gone to the store and she’d been out of yogurt for three days.
Had her husband signed the papers? Had her lawyer filed them? Was she officially divorced and free to move on with her life?
She wondered if she could hear the phone from here.
Belinda looked from the flowers to the door and back again. Six more steps to her left and she would be able to bend over and smell those jonquils, maybe get a little pollen on the tip of her nose. Or, she could go back inside and wait.
The phone began to ring when she was bending over the purple iris but she didn’t hear it. She was already six steps into her new life.
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It's the mood of this one that's so engaging. It's always more difficult to write about positive emotions, yet you do a terrific job here. I love 'popped out of her mouth like happy little frogs.'
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