Seasons

Wendy’s frustration was disappearing as she became more preoccupied with seeing the road. Why did she go out in this storm, the wind’s howls drowning out the murmur of classic rock on the radio.

Lisa and Wendy weren’t close. They worked together at the supermarket, but everyone knew each other in this town. Lisa sounded so frantic on the phone. Wendy had seen the bruises when Lisa pulled up her sleeves in the break room, she’d watched Lisa use her employee discount on gauze and antiseptic. And Lisa didn’t drive.

Wendy pulled up in front of the modest house, almost invisible as unforgiving weather clawed at it.

Wendy reached into her coat where fingertips grazed a tube of lipgloss, a rumpled tissue packet and the handle of a pocketknife, which, at one time in the past, she had always kept nearby. Wendy opened the door into the dark, stinging world of a January night. Her boots scrunched imprints into the snow on the lawn. When she got to the porch, the door swung open. Lisa stood there, her eye swollen shut.

Behind her, Dan stood surrounded by the destruction he had caused, cracked and broken objects strewn around, his face screwed up in rage and remorse. Wendy grabbed Lisa’s hand and yanked her into the blizzard, it seemed now it really wasn’t that long ago that Wendy last saw this exact expression on Dan, different only in that the sun was blazing and the two of them were alone.