A BarWarrior’s Short-Story

She closed the medicine cabinet and wiped the fog from the mirror. As she stared at her reflection, she ran her fingers over the crow’s feet and frown lines. She abhorred and adored the lines marking her face. Were they signs of decline or scars of victory? She sighed, and unscrewed the blue cap to her scented moisturizer.

The cream cooled the areas under her eyes. She dabbed the lotion around her face, then rubbed the rest into her skin. The wrapped towel slipped from her chest. She tightened it and sat on the toilet, applying lotion to her arms, her thighs, her calves. A child cried; she hung her head. The clock read 4:45.

The floorboards creaked as she crept into the chilly hall. She opened her child’s door and calmed him, rocking him to sleep, then kissed his forehead. He closed his eyes. The furnace kicked on as she returned to her room.

Heat pulsed from the vents, but February’s cold morning air remained. Frost covered the window’s outer edge. She glanced outside into the black dawn and shivered. She returned to the bathroom and wrenched the shower handle. Scalding water rained down into the tub as the room filled with steam. The mirror fogged. A drop of water formed on the sink, then fell to the tiled floor. Her breath was quiet.

Ten minutes passed. She silenced the shower and returned to the cold of her room. She dressed, stepping into a slip that pressed against her soft belly. She wore a plain navy dress and  matched it with a plain navy jacket. The cold floorboards creaked as she snuck to the kitchen carrying her shoes.

Black gave way to gray, and in the dim morning light she wrote a note to her children. She wondered why she was driving to a job that she hated, forced to leave them behind at this God-awful hour. She crumpled the note and wrote another, wishing them a good day and telling them grandma will get them to the bus. She signed the note with love and left it along with lunch money next to the mail pile. Bills and solicitations topped the pile, but at the bottom was a travel catalog. She sat in the gray light, and flipped through the bright pages.