She waits, has been waiting, has waited.

How long ? Since a long time.

She wonders, on storm-clad evenings, what she will do if he returns.
Now.

If he walks through- no, no, rings the doorbell and waits, seven-forty-five as always, and night begins.

She’d move- unsuspecting like the movies ? instinctively certain, like the books ?- to the door, unlatch it [peered through the eyehole-thing, couldn’t see anything], peer out, stop.

Unbelieving? Instantly relieved of all life’s burdens ? A surprising anger swelling up ? [Probing it, she finds that it is real, like a blister or a fester] Tired, does she give up thinking about it, accept just the release from the sympathy lists, from the endless talking to get around her aloneness, getting away from the nights alone in the double-bed, stealing warmth from the bodies of men she’d seen that day to stuff the side-pillow she slept with ?

He is still standing there, she remembers. He will have to say something. Something about having missed her ? Being glad to be back ? Meaningful silence? Meaningful small talk ? Meaningless phrases, heavy with emotion ? A mannish sound of never-to-be-articulated need ?
And what will he look like ?

The same ? Heavily changed, wasted and thin, tough from the knocks of the world ? A scar across his eyebrow [she loves those] from where a girl threw the razor at him to hurt him howevermuch at shouting-parting ? Or peaceable and prosperous… in the way they’d always scorned ? Corpulent, even. Hm.

And what would she do ? Shrink back, move unseeingly forward, hit him ? Cry, a moan of despair, or of longing... after all he was so beautiful, she’d always wondered how- Would she open the door and fully face him ? Throw up her chin, droop her head quietly, scrutinize him, his expression, his look? Break into a long-lost smile ? [the fake one?] Invite him in like a stranger, step back and let him enter, draw him in, slam the door in his face, shake her head slightly and step back and close it with a soft click and a sigh, turn away ?

Walk into the drawing room, bedroom, kitchen, to the drinks cupboard, out the bathroom window, off the balcony ?

She stops; looks out into the rain, feels the rush of it speed her blood, spray her skin, kickstart her brain.
And remembers that on still summer afternoons she cries.