JEANNE HUFF is a "getting serious writer."

                                                           normal cycle


Short ribs were boiling on the stove. She thought they might be spoiled. She'd found them in the marked-down meat section at the grocery. They'd looked alright, hadn't turned brown yet, but when she took them out of the package this morning, she thought they smelled kind of funny. She could smell them cooking now, the house was filling up with the aroma, and she lifted her head and sniffed, testing, and she looked like a dog trying to sneak the scent of an invader out of the air. She nodded her head, satisfied. It would be all right.

She went about the house, tending to needed to be done chores. She sorted a pile of laundry, jeans and towels. She always washed jeans and towels together, and she loaded them into the washing machine, adding detergent and setting the cycle on "normal."

She walked from room to room, gathering up papers, toys, dirty dishes. She put them all back in their places.

She went into the kitchen and put away the cereal, the peanut butter and jelly left there from attending to lunches not yet eaten. She filled the sink with hot water and added a squirt of liquid detergent. She watched the white bubbles grow, covering up the dirty mess. She finished doing the dishes, wiped the counters, sprinkled baking soda into the stained coffee pot.

She went into the bedroom, turned on the television and sat down in front of it. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. She was watching a soap opera. A man was talking to a woman, his woman. He said, "I'm going away for awhile on business." The woman nodded her head, but she knew it wasn't business that was moving him to leave. She knew it was life, their life, what it had come to be. She knew he had come for love, had come to tell, be listened to, he had come for comfort, for solace. He had come to her hoping to create a shelter, somehow, from the storm that raged relentless. But they had created their own clouds, and the rain came on, came on steady, and they couldn't escape it. And now he was leaving and she could see through the lie he told her, could see why.

She lit another cigarette and hugged her knees, blowing out the smoke. A tear slid out of her eye and crawled down her face. She lifted her head and again tested the scent in the air. The smell was all around her now, curling around the empty house like a ghost.

Yes, it would be all right.

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© 2002 Jeanne Huff