The Story Continues…

Chapter One continued…

Judi-with-an-I rolled over in bed and reached out her hand to touch her husbands face and let him know that it was time for him to go and make the coffee.

Her fingers padded around the sheets for a moment.  Nothing.  Confused she slipped off the eye-mask and opened one eye.  The bed was empty.

This was all wrong.  For the past twenty-three years his face had always been there to meet her fingers as they reached across the duvet.  Without either of them muttering a word he would get up and bring her back her morning espresso.  She would slowly edge herself up the headboard to a sitting position and remove her eye-mask.  He would lean over and give her a small kiss on the cheek before handing her the necessary morning caffeine hit.

So what was happening right now? She could feel the rage starting.  She tried to ignore it.  She has her routine, he knows this.  She took some deep breaths.

In that moment she noticed something.  The house was completely silent.  He wasn’t even in the house doing something. No television or radio, no sound of the coffee machine whirring and grinding.  Not a single sound.   What if he’s dead? Fallen down the stairs?

The thought that she might have to start making her own morning drink was enough to get her out of the bed and heading for the door. 

From the bedroom down to the kitchen took less than a minute.  Every room she entered there would be fear of what she might find and then relief and frustration when what she found was nothing. 

There was no sign of him.

The rage built again.

She hit the button on the coffee machine and it noisily kicked into action.  She let it warm up as she got her cup from the cupboard, set the machine to double espresso and placed her tiny cup under the spout and waited for it to do its thing. 

As she lifted the shot of coffee up to her mouth her line of sight through the window was taken upwards past the Dahlias and the Cosmos, up past the Crocosmia and Rudbeckia and straight to the buttocks of her husband and the Philadelphus.

The spray of coffee started to run down the window and the small cup became even smaller as it smashed in the sink where she threw it.  Through the living room, grabbing a throw from the double sofa, she threw open the patio doors and launched herself up the thirty-two steps.