For Mary

Intoxicated nights followed by dark, lonely days. The kind of emptiness nothing could fill. For once she wasn’t hung-over. She had class the night before. She passed on going out with the group as she always did on Thursdays. A few glasses of wine later, she fell fast asleep. She woke with the aftertaste of wine and stale cigarettes.

Water cooler talk was Denny needed a heart transplant on Grey’s Anatomy. Her coffee still hot, yet she impatient, put the mug to her lips. The burning sensation hit and she spurted “FUCK.”

The murmuring of phones and mortgage officers blended the early morning through lunchtime. Her desk phone rang. She had never met him, this friend of the family. He called to tell her about the car accident that took the life the night before. The life she had cared so deeply for. The life that mothered a child and friended a friend.