MRS. CONROY IS GONE FOR GOOD

Note:  I was doing some cleaning out today and came across this short story I wrote a long time ago...before blogging.  I have no ego about my writing, usually thinking it's not much good but, as I read this story, I felt the pain again and cried.  It's not autobiographical but we all know someone who has gone through what "Mrs. Conroy" has done.

Janet Conroy is a nondescript woman of middle age.  The years haven't been particularly kind to her and it shows in her dumpy little frame and the lines deeply etched into her unmade up face.  She'd say, "Why bother?".

She's packed and ready to leave for good but first she has to take one last look at what she's leaving behind.  She always loved that green floral sofa, sort of lumpy and frayed now, because she'd saved money to buy it from selling her preserves at the local flea market...how many ears ago now?  Maybe twenty years of heavy butts had pressed into those sofa springs.  The small knicknacks scattered here and there were gifts she'd received over the years.  Nice, but best left here.

Janet wanders through the house, taking a few moments at each item she has a fondness for, feather touching the ones she'll miss.  She wears her usual blue print housedress and Birkenstock sandals, greying hair neatly brushed back from her face and pinned into a bun at the back of her neck.  There are no tears but there are no smiles, either.  There is only a resoluteness in her bearing that says more than words.

She's written a note and left it on the kitchen table for him to find.  It says, "I won't be back".  He'll know she means it because she's always before taken his abuse without a word of complaint.  Thirty years of abuse and no complaints.  It was their way and their forefather's way and it had become their's on their wedding day.  He'd never understand why she hadn't stayed.

She stands silently in front of their wedding photo hung above her grandparents' writing desk.  She sees a lovely young girl nestled under the protective arm of a homely young man.  This makes her wince slightly, remembering how he'd transformed so quickly from a tender lover to an angry and demanding tyrant.  She could almost remember the moment...just as the priest pronounced them man and wife, could it be?

He'd felt he owned her life once they were married and she'd allowed it because she was a meek young girl.  After all, her father ruled her mother so maybe this was the way it was supposed to be.  She wasn't happy.

Where had the determination come from to make her leave today?  Was it the final slap, the final insult flayed into her last night?  Was it an accumulation of slaps and insults carried in her subconscious for thirty years?

No, it was a chance meeting in the park with a young couple and their tiny daughter.  Janet saw them from a distance as she took her daily walk and found she couldn't take her eyes off them.  The man was pushing the stroller carrying his little daughter but stopped occasionally to talk to his wife and point out flower gardens that caught his eye.  He'd place his arm gently around her waist and point to colors or varieties that he wanted her to share in his enjoyment.  Nothing special, but...

Janet smiles at them as she passes and they smile in return.  She finishes her route and is deep in thought all the way home.  As she turns her key in the lock she's made up her mind.  They had only one old suitcase, a hand me down from a relative.  She packs it carefully, more underwear than housedresses, a sweater she's knit herself, and a spare pair of lace up shoes.

She takes the suitcase down the stairs to the front door and then sits at the kitchen table wondering what to write on the note she knew she had to leave.  He wouldn't be home for hours so she had time to say what mattered most.  "I won't be back".  No more needed to be said.

It takes her only minutes to browse the home that has been her life for so many years and, when she is finished, she walks to the front door and picks up her suitcase.  She places her door key on the side table and walks out the door.

Mrs. Conroy is gone for good.