The End of the Chapter

She saw. That was enough. Now she understood. She closed the door. She walked away. She closed that chapter on her life with that closing door.

She walked for a while, for hours. She walked along down by the river with the autumn wind blowing her red-gold hair around her face as it blew the red-gold fallen leaves up around her feet with each step. The sky was grey and moody with heavy clouds threatening rainstorms that never came.

She would have liked the rain, would have liked its cold stinging drops thrown against her bare face by the wind. She would have liked to feel washed clean by it all. She would have liked a storm to wash away the visions of what lay beyond that door.

She stood for a while, watching the river, swollen with autumn rains, tumbling on down between its banks. She would have – if she'd ever really though about it – expected her thoughts to be tumbling and troubled like that heavy river, but they were not. She felt as calm as a lazy summer afternoon when even the river feels slow and placid.

When she got back to the house that was her happy home until she opened that door, she did not need to open that door again. It was already open and the room beyond was full of an absence that she knew she was already getting used to.