Her face is like porcelain and her cheeks look like they’ve been heavily rouged but I know they’re not. Despite her dishevelment she looks incredible to my eyes. The one good thing in my fucked-up universe. She’s startled, she must have thought I’d gone for good.
There’s a long silence in which I can feel Em’s gaze on me. It occurs to me that she looks like the wife of an astronaut, waiting to receive a message from her husband who’s stranded a million miles from Earth.
“The spare bedroom,” I say. “I’ll have to paint it.”
She starts crying. But she’s smiling too.
“This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.”
“I know. That will take time.”
“You’ve got a hell of a lot of making up to do.”
She nods. She knows how much work is ahead of her, and not just being a mother. Then again, I know how much work there is ahead of me too, and not just being a father. I owe her that. Then I remember the dream, that dream, the one where I’m pursued by phantom children. And that boy at the head of the crowd, who do you think he is? Emily had asked. I’d been unable to answer her. No, not unable, unwilling.
I knew who the boy was and what he wanted. I could see it in his eyes. He had his mother’s eyes.
“My…condition means I have to relinquish my badge,” I say. ““Conflict of interest.” I’m not an agent anymore.”
“Oh, Danny…”
“It’s okay. Looks like I’ll have to find something else to do with my life.”
My wife looks at me and despite the whirlwind of emotions that are doubtless tearing around inside of her, she can’t stop her lips from curling. And then there’s that smile again. I’ve missed it, I now realize, I’ve missed it so much. It’s not her smile of sympathy or of resignation, and not the smile she used to mask her disappointment and the hurt I’d heaped upon her, some of it accidental, some of it deliberate. All the pain is gone and now here is her real smile, the one that fills the void.
The smile that leaves me sunblind.
Acknowledgments
The authors offer many thanks to Tim Major and Kate Jonez at Omnium Gatherum for their astute editing and advice on the creation of this book.
About the Authors
Tim Jeffreys is the author of five collections of short stories, the most recent being From Elsewhere, and a couple of novellas, The Haunted Grove and The Foundering. His short fiction has appeared in various international anthologies and magazines too numerous to name. He also edits and compiles the Dark Lane Anthologies where he gets to publish talented writers from all over the world. In his own work, he incorporates elements of horror, fantasy, absurdist humor, science-fiction and anything else he wants to toss into the pot to create his own brand of weird fiction. As if that wasn’t enough, Tim is also a talented artist and gained a university honours degree in Graphic Arts and Design in 2000. Visit him online at www.timjeffreys.blogspot.co.uk.
Martin Greaves is from Royton, a small town in the suburbs of Manchester, England. After drifting through a number of mundane office jobs, he enrolled to study illustration at the Manchester Metropolitan University. He contributes both writing and artwork to the Dark Lane Anthologies, edited by Tim Jeffreys.
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