Part Four: A Stranger in Town
by: KLS
Girl watches the doorway Consolation Husband just walked through, willing him to return. Then she chides herself for being so foolish. Of course it's not her dear departed deadboy! He had been dead for six years. Dear departed deadboys just don't show up one day on your front door. She's just about to give up thinking about dear departed deadboy and engage Stranger in some Polite Conversation--maybe what he thought of Smalltown, when she turns and realizes that he's standing right next to her.
Girl makes a startled, "Yip!", then places her hand over her heart, as though that could keep it from jumping out of her chest.
"I didn't mean to startle you," Stranger says, his voice low and close to her ear. Girl has the distinct impression that he is lying, he did mean to startle her, and her reaction pleased him.
"No, you didn't, I was--I was just thinking of something else," she says, taking two steps back. Stranger closes the gap between them.
"You have a lovely son," Stranger says. "He looks like you."
Girl thinks, Who?, before remembering the weight on her hip. Junior just stares up at Stranger, eyes wide. "Thank you," Girl says. She looks back at the doorway. What would Consolation Husband think if he walked in right now and saw Stranger standing so close? He had a tendency to get very jealous at the slightest thing.
"You said you were thinking of something else," Stranger says smoothly, not looking at Girl, but at Junior. Stranger reaches out his finger to Jr, and Jr wraps his tiny, fat fist around it.
"Oh, nothing. It's nothing. It's just that--," Girl begins, about to tell Stranger about his resemblance to dear departed dead boy before stopping herself. She wants to tell Stranger that this is the day when all of her dreams had been shattered, and though she has put the pieces back together they didn't seem to fit the same way. Maybe if she hadn't been leaning over to kiss dear departed boy, he would've seen that the bridge had been washed out and they would've stopped in time. They would have gone back to her mother's, by the time they pulled into the driveway laughing about how close that was. But why did she feel this urge to tell him anything about deadboy? Consolation Husband didn't even know everything, didn't even know that this had been their wedding day. "My mother was supposed to come to dinner tonight, actually--"
"You're lying," Stranger said in a calm voice, still looking at Jr.
"Excuse me?" Girl says.
"I said, you're lying. You weren't thinking about your mother."
Girl opens her mouth. "How dare you!"
"Indeed," Stranger says.
Girl doesn't know if she's more angry that he accused her of lying, in her own perfect dream house, or that he was saying it so calmly.
And then Stranger surprises her more by asking, "How well do you know your husband?"
But before she can say anything, Consolation Husband comes through the door
in a rush saying, "Sorry, I'm sorry. What did I miss?"
...to be continued...
DISCLAIMER: This fiction is property of its authors and has no connection with/to The Lifetime Channel or Movie Network or The Lifetime Original Movie beyond being a satire thereof.
