Mask or Menace ☂ IC Phone Post

[numberthree]

INBOX Voice | Text | Call | Video | Surprise Me A flat computer automated voice comes on and states in monotone: "This is the voicemail box for Allison Hargreeves. Leave a message at the beep."

Luther

Diego

Klaus

Five

Ben

Vanya

code credit

Comments

[numberthree]

[There isn't any question about who, but there is a little bit of how and a rather heavy dose of why when Allison freezes, right before she'd been about to toss her purse and the day's heels on her bed, aiming originally to jump drop on the sofa near the window.

Maybe not why. (And yet.)

Her purse and her heels ended up placed on the bedtable, and she sits down, looking at the bundle of flowers, so obviously not professionally made. Loose, with some nodding heads, in various states or open and growth. The not perfectly symmetrical tie o of the twine. She couldn't even begin to count the number of flowers sent to her in the last decade. But she could count the number of flowers picked for her, not by Claire, from their garden.

(One.)

Allison sat down, reaching out for it after a second, something at the very edge of her thoughts. Hazy. Uncertain. The edge of a half-remembered smile. A touch. She rubbed a delicate white petal between her fingertip and thumb. Who was easy. How was even not hard. Why. Why was a question she wasn't supposed to ask.

They had a name for this.

The same name they'd initially had for this.

The same name under which she'd never fully managed to stay within.
Not then. Not when it didn't exist. Not when she was married.
Not now in the sudden aching loss of their family.

(When it seemed so easily he might vanish.)




Allison curled her knees up, leaned her head back against her headboard, and rubbed that same petal slowly. ]