Come Tomorrow

Sandra Ditsworthy was a hollow human being. She spent the better half of her days pining away for a man that had left her two decades earlier. And in the evenings, after she put her two children to sleep, she lay in her bed thinking of all the silent nights they shared in that very room. There was the smell of the pie they had just had after dinner, the soap she had just used to wash their clothes, and the scent of the cotton fields on the back of his neck. There was an order to this routine and once upon a day she had been comforted by it.

She believed that he would come back to her, that he had likely never remarried and one day, he would walk down the dirt pathway to their country home and introduce himself to their children. That he would tell them all how his life didn't turn out the way he thought it would have and that he was worse for the wear.

This night was different. Sandra fell into a deep slumber before she could even bring herself to reminisce about those nights long ago. And quickly, without warning, she got out of bed, put on her robe and woke up the children. Getting them dressed in their Sunday best was what took the longest. But after that, she marched them right down the stairs, put them in the backseat of her Studebaker and began to drive.

It was the deepest part of the night, just before any semblance of dawn had appeared on the horizon. Her headlights and the Billie Holiday on the radio were guiding them down the back road. The children held hands in the back seat, sensing something was wrong when they asked their mother where they were headed and she seemed despondent and indifferent to say the least. Then, finally she spoke.

"You are very good to me, my children. I just got so that I was tired. Hold mommy's hand, will you?"

And so they did. They grabbed her hand and she pressed on the accelerator full speed ahead toward the St. John's Canal. Before she veered into the water, she opened the car door and jumped out--slammed her head on the ground and after suffering some cuts and bruises, rolled herself to a complete stop. The car, with the children, sped on forward, straight into the canal.

Sandra could barely stand up, but she did. And she stared at what she had done.

"We just never wanted the same things," she said to herself as she turned and walked back to the house.

She took off her robe, climbed into bed, where she found him smiling at her. They lay there, hands clasped, and as if were 1912 once again. Even the strand of pearls around her neck had not aged.

And with the sunrise came new slumber for both of them. As they drifted off, she could hear the faint noise of sirens seeping up the embankment, through the trees, and into their window.

It would all be full of sundries---