Homebodies by Cheryl Loudermelt

Author:Cheryl Loudermelt [Loudermelt, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781949089035
Publisher: Idyll Owl Books
Published: 2018-10-23T23:00:00+00:00

12

They didn’t enjoy the ride home. Even though she rolled the window down, Red didn’t want to stick his head outside. Instead, Red sat quietly in the seat, but he looked over at her every now and then. She probably looked like something he’d seen at the garbage dump. Her clothes were filthy, her hands and face were brown with dirt, her nails were crusted with dried black, her hair was wild, and her eyes were nearly swollen closed.

Even when they walked through the front door, Emily couldn’t have said she was happy to be home. She looked upstairs at the long path to the shower and thought of drowning herself in scalding water, but she didn’t think she could wash off what really mattered, and instead, she wandered into the living room to sit on the sofa and stare out into the back garden at the colors and leaves. It was a faraway peace. She knew it existed, but she didn’t have the will or the energy to reach even as far as the backyard.

When the time came to start dinner, it was an act of sheer will that she managed to wash her hands and create something edible. Even that, she did in a haze. It was like watching someone else’s hands break beans and slice tomatoes. There was a stranger in her body, moving her arms and feet. She didn’t bother making something for herself, and she thought it likely that she’d never really feel like eating again. She set a plate down on the floor for Red, wondering absently if Todd would stay true to his word and bring dog food.

She left a plate for Todd on the counter and went back to the sofa, where the imprint of herself was still outlined in dirt and dead grass. Like a ghost, she drifted back into the hole as if she’d never left. She disturbed nothing and was nothing. Red laid down beside her after he cleaned his plate; his eyes were intense and his expression sympathetic. While she was constantly shifting between the need to feel connected to some living thing, and the need to curl into herself, she could, in neither case, bring herself to pet him. He was content to lay next to her and be her friend; she was grateful he had no other need.

She stared at the garden and thought of Danny. The memories were precious because there were so few, but each of them was as vivid as the daylight on her garden. Sometimes she’d be flooded with something new, a look or a feeling. She wanted to feel it all and to feel completely empty. She tried to focus on all those plants she’d raised to life, but she found herself picking dead grass from her jeans and shredding it to tiny pieces with her fingertips instead. The dead grass felt real, maybe especially because it was dead, and if she could destroy it, she must be real as well.

She

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