love, read, write

“Mary,” he says, “are you alright?”
She nods, but her hands are shaking and her voice hasn’t made a sound since a whispered “Good morning” six hours prior.
“Is there anything wrong? Do you need help?”
There’s something about her, he thinks, that makes him pity her. It’s not a certain family problem or an illness. But her general aura pleads for pity. Something about her keeps him worried all the time. He can’t quite put a finger on it.
She smiles nervously and shakes her head. “I need to go,” she says quietly. Her voice is shaking a little.
She almost trips on her high heels just as she leaves. She gets up and goes to the parking lot without looking back.
 
Her suitcase is sitting in the passenger seat. It is an old, tattered leather bag. She calls it a suitcase. Her parents carried suitcases. So does she.
She gets into the driver’s seat quietly and almost twists her ankle trying to get her feet into the car with her high heels. She doesn’t take them off. She doesn’t use the slippers given to her by him.
She drives precariously and carelessly, though her eyes are fixed on the road and she jumps a little at every green light, yellow light, red light. The suitcase is strapped onto the passenger seat with a seatbelt. There is nothing else in the car except for her suitcase and an air freshener vibrating from the hum of the car.
 
She drives into an abandoned neighborhood, an old one that nobody knows about. The dust is piling up on the streets from the lack of tires and footsteps. No wind lingers on the street. No soul haunts the houses. Some doors are ajar, a sentence of fear left unfinished.
Her throat is dry and her brows are damp with sweat. Her lipstick is thinned invisible from her incessant nervous licks. She parks in a garage on one of the houses on the street.
She leans over and unbuckles the seat belt of her suitcase beside her. Then she unbuckles hers. She picks up the suitcase and leaves the car. She closes it lightly. It doesn’t lock. She opens it again to slam it shut. It locks.
Her high heels are wobbling as she makes her way to the front of the house. The grass is uncut and the doorbell is broken. The door is closed.
She pulls out an old key from her breast pocket and inserts it into the door. It doesn’t fit. She flips it around and inserts it again. It fits. She turns it and it clicks. She turns the knob and pushes it open.
She holds in her cough as dust meets her face with a cold slap. She looks around at the disheveled items scattered on the floor, around the house. There is nobody home. There hasn’t been. Not for twenty years.
She doesn’t hesitate now. She enters the house and she goes left to the hallway and into the room. She doesn’t shake anymore. She doesn’t shiver. She doesn’t trip. She stands straight.
There are tears in her eyes. She speaks clearly for the first time that day.
“Oh, honey, honey, honey, I’m so sorry, honey. I know you’ve been waiting, honey. I know, I know. I said I would come, and I didn’t. I’m so sorry.”
Sitting in two seats aligned beside each other are two young children. One is a girl. She is about six years old, with a ponytail held up by a pink hair tie. It has butterflies. She is wearing a sweater—the sweater her mother had bought for her at the mall fifteen years ago. It is old. It is dusty. It is browned. Beside the girl is a boy, about seven and a half years old, with long, shaggy hair a dull brown in the shade of the house. He is freckled with blue eyes but the eyes have no spark, no spunk, no youth. His shirt is a dull brown with a brand logo. It, too, was bought fifteen years ago.
Mary sets her suitcase down onto the floor and rushes to her two children. They do not move, they do not smile, they do not greet. She envelops each of them with hugs and kisses and tears. She pets their hair. She pulls them out at arm’s length. My, how you’ve grown. My, my. My dearies. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.
They are looking at her suitcase now, and she remembers.
“Ah! Honeys, I brought you some bread. I sneaked some away from the refreshment table today, just for you two. I’m so sorry I haven’t come in so long, honeys. I really am.” She snaps open her leather bag—her suitcase—and pulls out two small pieces of bread, squished together into nearly balls from all of the other paperwork and weight. There is a bit of eraser shavings on one of them.
The two young children rush up to her and grab for the bread before she can say anything more. They shove the food into their mouths hungrily. They do not look up. They do not think. They lick their fingers and brush the crumbs on their lips into their mouths.
“I’m so sorry, honeys,” she says. Warm tears are on her face. “I’m so sorry.”
She looks at her two children again, and they are looking at her intently. Their eyes have no emotion. They say nothing but speak loud.
She rushes to her children again and hugs them both. “I’m so sorry, honeys I really am. I’m so sorry I’m sorry.”
She looks at her daughter. Tears are outlining her eyes as she pets her daughter’s hair. “You sweet sweet dearie. I know you still love me. You love me, right? You still do? You forgive me?”
She looks into her eyes. She does not reply.
Her son does the same. “My, my, my young boy. You’ve grown so much, honey. I know you missed me. I know you love me. Right? Honey, I love you. Please forgive me.”
He looks into her eyes. He does not reply.
She touches his face, softly. She smooths her thumb over his freckles. She puts her hand back to her side and she can feel dust on her fingers but she ignores it.
“Honeys, honeys, I’m so sorry, dearies. My dearies. I love you, I do. I want to be a better mother, I do. I’m so sorry, honeys. I have to go. I really am. Forgive me, alright, dearies? You think about it. I’ll come back tomorrow. Maybe more bread. Or cookies.”
They are sitting exactly as they were when she entered. She looks back one more time and tears outline her eyes again. Then she leaves. She doesn’t look back.
She gets out of the house again. She is shaking. Her throat hurts and her fingers are black from something, something she doesn’t know. Her hands and coat and suitcase are covered in ash and dust. She ignores it, she ignores it all. She gets into her car. She drives away. She will come back the next day.