Seven Days is a writing experiment telling the story of the life of one man through the events on seven non-consecutive days during his lifespan. (Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
The introduction and prologue is here
Part 1, "On Monday, A Funeral", is here
Part 2, "On Tuesday, An Awakening" (which contains sexual situations...just FYI in case such matters disturb you and you wish to opt out of reading this part of the story) is here
Part 3, "On Wednesday, A Letter Home", is here
* * * * *
Malcolm sighed silently as he drove his new car...a midnight blue sports car that he had lusted after for months but which now gave him little joy...slowly up the quiet, suburban street towards his home. It was just past twilight and so the neighborhood's boisterous children were all inside their own homes with their suppers and their homework and their sitcom reruns.
Malcolm pulled up into the driveway of his house...a comfortable looking two-story home only marginally different from the other houses on the street. He noted, fleetingly, that he had to remember to cut the front lawn come Saturday.
The garage door groaned to life in response from the electronic device on his dashboard and he drove his car next to his wife's white Toyota station wagon. He shut off the engine and lingered in the car idly while the garage door closed behind him. He took a deep breath, picked up his briefcase, and got out of the car.
Malcolm took another deep breath as he opened the door that led into the kitchen. The house was quiet and the kitchen was warm and perfumed with the aromas of baked chicken, biscuits, and rice. He glanced over and saw his supper being kept warm in the oven. It was only then that he remembered that it was bingo night.
Malcolm's wife, carrying a sweater and her purse, burst into the room headed for the garage door. "Hi, baby," Angela said breezily, bussing the air near his cheek as she went past, "I'm running late, the girls are going to kill me! Nikki is in her room coloring. Be back by eleven. Love you."
And she was gone.
And Malcolm was relieved, surely she would have detected the taste of Laurie on his lips had she lingered. But she didn't. Or at least she pretended that she didn't anyway. He sighed heavily as he heard her car pull out of the garage. Undoing his tie, he pushed into the living room and threw his briefcase on the easy chair. He trundled up the stairs wondering, yet again, why they were still playing "see no evil, speak no evil" games with each other.
He wondered, ruefully and fleetingly, if Angela's "bingo" was taking place in the same motel that he had just been in with his secretary...and then he chuckled at his hubris...chuckled at his feeble attempt to share his guilt with his wife by making his adultery a shared experience. (He would indulge the thought, even more fleetingly, in the next week when Angela realized she was pregnant again.)
Malcolm knocked softly on his daughter's bedroom door and stepped in. Nikki, named for Angela's favorite poet, was lying on the carpeted floor diligently applying crayon to a piece of construction paper.
"Hey, baby girl," he said tenderly, his mood shifting perceptively.
Nikki looked up and smiled brightly. "Daddy!" she exclaimed. "I made something for you!" Nikki leapt to her feet and bounded across the room into her father's waiting arms. She held out the piece of construction paper, colorfully emblazoned with the kind of earnest artwork that only a three year old could create.
The picture...a color swirl of crayon and persistence...displayed a happy, brown-skinned family of three, each identified..."Mommy", "Daddy", "Nikki"...with letters that probably came into being with the help of her Mother.
Malcolm felt a tear pool in the corner of his right eye. A smile dawn on his face as he looked into his daughter's expectant eyes.
"Do you like it, Daddy?" Nikki asked eagerly.
"Yes, baby girl," he said huskily, "I like it very much."
Nikki smiled...proudly and guilelessly...and melted Malcolm's cheating heart.
On Friday, A Reunion
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