By Ellen Comley
Three children, two bowls, one bottle. Pink kitchen, white Chevy wagon, brown beagle. Rayon sweater set, nylon capris, calico apron. Nancy often took mental inventory of her day, her life. Things seemed more substantive in a list than in reality. The colorless reality of seven years, four months and six days of marriage.
Jack always came home at five forty-five. It allowed enough time before Cronkite to change out of his coat and tie and start on the first of two Manhattans. He’d nod absently as she recited details of the baby’s teething, the son’s schoolyard fight, the daughter’s crayon artwork. She never told him about finally finishing Madame Bovary during the precious quiet when the baby napped and the children weren’t yet home. How afterwards she sat still with the closed book in her lap, watching the shadows of clouds pass across the kitchen table and the refrigerator clicked on, starting a new cooling cycle.
Her husband thought she’d grow out of her obsession with books when she left college early to marry him and have their first baby. “Join the garden club or something,” he’d urged her, wishing she’d socialize with other housewives more. But she had no interest in gossiping about how to discipline two-year-olds or whether Marilyn’s photos in Life Magazine were touched up. Those conversations made her brain congeal like the oatmeal she fed her family every morning.
One night at dinner, she asked him whether she might take classes, maybe finish her degree. As he mopped the last bits of tomato sauce off his plate with a heel of Italian bread, he laughed, asking, “What the hell for?” She looked away, over the heads of her children and towards the kitchen window where her reflection stared back at her, a watery paleness against the night sky.
Tomorrow: one train ticket, two suitcases, and three hundred from savings.
Interesting format that pulls the reader along. But I’m struck with a question. Why is the protagonist, Nancy, abandoning her children?
Does Flash have to have every question answered?
Li, that is the irony of this story. Is she really the traditional female protagonist? Or is she a woman — a complex human being — who wants to be more than simply a mother and servant to her husband?
I like hook of the lists at the beginning of this story, it captured a time and the setting adeptly. The relationship between Nancy and her husband was filled out with so few words.
Terse prose, yet it says so much! Beautifully done. I, too, question the ambiguity about the children at the end: Can we assume that the two suitcases include one for the children’s things?
I don’t think so. She clearly feels stifled by marriage and motherhood, so it wouldn’t be much of an “escape” if she brought the albatross with her. I agree the story is powerful in how tightly packed it is–coveys so much with so few words. But…a boy younger than 7 is already getting in school fights? How did she save $300 with her husband unaware? (A pretty good sum considering the time period of the story.) Also, not sure Madam Bovary is exactly the literary “heroine” I’d want to associate with this character.
Run away, join a book club, finish your degree, take the kids and get on with life. You go, girl!
She’s leaving it all, imo! Maybe one suitcase is for books. Brings to mind “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin. Not all women are bound to motherhood. (Mom of four here, happily bound to motherhood.)
The inventories are an effective and concise way to begin and end this story. Excellent craft, saying so much with so few words. I could hear her heels click, click, click down the sidewalk as she left.
Excellent story and so well written. Not a word wasted. I like the fact the idea as to whether or not one of the suitcases is for the kids is left up in the air. A little well-placed ambiguity means the reader gets to decide and promotes discussion.
Re a six year old getting into fights: it happens. As a former elementary school teacher, I’ve had to intervene in a few. Six year olds who sense their mother’s unhappiness and live in a home dominated by an insensitive father might be especially prone.
Thanks for sharing such a great story. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
I don’t believe the children were part of her plan, “She looked away, over the heads of her children and towards the kitchen window where her reflection stared back at her,…”
To me, “over the heads” says it all.
I liked that the story started and ended with the inventories. A smart way to paint a full picture with limited words.
Reminded me of the equally evocative movie, “Puzzle” starring Kelly Macdonald and Irfan Khan.
If this story leaves us with angst, or feeling vexed, it has done quite a job in just 313 words. Logic suggests that she abandoned the kids simply because she could not support them on her own. But if that’s the case. the mores of those times would have made her the worst of irresponsible women. In some parts of the world, she might be charged with abandonment. At the very least, society would have turned against her.
Which brings us to the very best part of flash fiction. We’ll have to resolve all that for ourselves.