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AN HOUR EVERY AFTERNOON


by Bobbi Lurie


For an hour every afternoon her husband takes their children out to the park. What they do there she doesn't know. She just waits for the good-byes to end so she can close the door and begin what she has come to call her real life.

She tells her husband this is her time for grading papers but actually all she does is sit and stare out into space. This is the only time she feels she can be herself. Sometimes she makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She chews the sandwich slowly while staring blankly out the window.

Sometimes she will try and write a poem or short story but mostly she sits and thinks about ten years ago. She sits and wonders now who that baby might have turned out to be. She fantasizes a ten year old girl or a ten year old boy about to come back with their father.

Sometimes a terrible torment grabs at her heart. But the tears never come. Her dry eyes burn inside of her head with a desire not to think.
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