At Sunset (ChickLit)

Chapter Five

He still hadn’t called. Wes was supposed to get home two days ago but he still hadn’t made an appearance. He could’ve called, even to just check on the baby, Melanie thought as she looked at the answering machine that was blinking a big fat 0, taunting her to no end. It was three in the morning and nobody was up. Like a field mouse, Melanie clambered out of bed with the help of the night stand and bed post and slipped her robe over her night gown. She’d realized after a couple early mornings that she was actually stronger pre-dawn. Her muscles were surprisingly better than they’d been in the past few days.

Angela had begun making it a regular thing of sleeping over. Anna now stays home with her dad after the breathing incident. Melanie could have cared less.

Sophia came over almost every day to play with Sawyer and make sure he was getting all the attention he needed. Melanie was sure that if she lived long enough for Sawyer to recognize who his mother was that he’d pick Sophia over her.

Melanie would play with him on the bed or talk out of a teddy bear when he was in his crib but to no avail he cried and cried until Sophia would give in and pick him up. On those days Melanie would cry for hours. She realized that now she was losing everyone she had left.

Sawyer was hers, not Sophia’s.

Creeping through the living room, Melanie went into the kitchen taking out a jug of milk and draining it down before retreating to the porch.

The air was frigid as she stuffed her hands in her pockets and started down the steps.

She had no idea where she thought she would go but something drew her into the field. The frosted dirt crunched under her flip flops as she stumbled out into the open. There was something about the vast openness and the impossibility to see two feet ahead of you that was like a magnet. She’d never been in the field before but after that dream she found it hard not to wonder.

She’d slept dreamless since then and in all honesty it didn’t bother her one bit. It was always a playing game. It could be a good dream or bad dream; a dream full of happiness or a nightmare full of pain and death. Melanie was perfectly fine with avoiding both kinds.

Somewhere in the night an owl hooted and Melanie froze. After a second time and another moment of eerie chills sliding up her spine she continued walking.  By the time she reached the dead center of the field she was tired and out of breath and her bones hurt. Her joints felt cramped and her jaw ached from the cold. The wind was blowing extremely hard but Melanie hadn’t even realized it until she stood still. The howling of the wind increased the longer she stood watching the cabin. A lamp was on in Wes’s study but not another sign of someone awake.

She closed her eyes tight and when she opened them a figure was walking towards her.

“Melanie.”

She blinked into a flash light and put a hand over her eyes. The light went out and about three feet away Wes stood bundled up tight. His collar was flipped up against the wind and his hat was pulled over his eyebrows. He was as handsome as he was when he left.

It had seemed like a life time since he came back.

“Wes.” His name rolled off her lips with the kind of ease she liked. She didn’t like hard names that you had to work out the queerness before it sounded right.

“I tried calling you,” he said flatly. He was upset; she could see it in his eyes. She was always able to see when Wes was sad, angry, or happy, and it made her happy to know she could read her husband so well.

“I checked my phone,” Melanie said taking a step closer. He closed the distance and ran his hands down her arms.

For some reason the words she’d wanted to say couldn’t come out of her mouth. She opened her mouth and she knew she was trying to say it, but no sound came out.