All He Left Her

by Nicole. X. Allen

3 Minute Writing Exercise
Prompt: Five bucks left on the table

Five pounds. That’s all she had left of him. Five measly pounds lain haphazardly on their once shared coffee table, situated in their family room.

Not at that it mattered, her family were all gone. 

Their son had grown up, moved out and into a family of his own. Their daughter? Her only hope was that she wasn’t lying dead in a gutter somewhere. She replayed her daughters last words to her over and over. 

“I hope that one day you rot in the misery you’ve created”. She then sniffed, wiped her already dry nose and then walked out the door, taking with her the money she didn’t know her mother knew she’d stolen.

Of course she knew. It was her job to know what her children were doing. At least, it was back then.

She stared hard at the table. His one possession he hadn’t packed up and taken with him. 

Was he mocking her? He’d told her time and time again that she was too materialistic, spending more than they earned. ‘You wanted money so much, now that’s all you have left’. 

It was possible he’d merely forgotten. He wasn’t normally the vindictive type. 

Or perhaps he simply didn’t care enough for the money to take it with him.

She thought over her years with him. Her best years, and specifically this last year. Times were tough and he’d been laid off work. He was resourceful and managed to find a new job, but they were only just scraping by. Barely. Not that it mattered to her. After-all, outward appearances are so important. 

As she sat in the darkness her phone rang out, slicing through the thick silence of her empty home now haunted by the ghosts of laughing, playful children and a once loving family. 

“Hello” she answered, excited chatter poured through the speaker. Trying to make sense of the piling words “Coffee?’ she confirmed. She eyed the scrap of blue which marred her beautiful oak-wood table. The only piece of him left here. “I’ll meet you there”