You’re Never Here
by Tommy Paley
“You’re never here when I need you!” she said as I entered our apartment after yet another long day of thankless work.
“Never!”
I was hoping to come home to a house full of love and warmth and dinner.
Instead, I was greeted with an anger I was unfamiliar with and completely unprepared for.
The words hit me like a brick being thrown at a glass window and it shattered me into a million pieces.
“What did she need,” I wondered “and what was so wrong, this time?”
Panicked, I quickly searched my memory, looking for the right words to soothe her.
Nothing.
I was desperate. “Never?” I probed.
The room was dark and cold and she felt miles away.
She looked at me with red eyes that from this day forth will always be etched in my brain.
“Never” she replied before leaving and aggressively slamming the door behind her.
