The Bride
There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t think about him, her blood chilled by his presence in the shadows.
Selling the Ford Explorer and leaving town hadn’t done the trick. He was still there. He would always be there
staring at her, his eyes ablaze. Gripping the steering wheel in the gloom of the garage, she could still see his face.
Forty-nine days of Gordon Jeffries. His name was an iron bit in her mouth, unspeakable, though it rang all day in her head.
Forty-nine days of sweating through her pillow at night, of jumping at the sound of every siren, of watching the news- white
knuckles clutching the chair. Worries crawled from underground, feeding on her nerves like legions of the damned, relentless
and undying.
She turned the key in the minivan’s ignition and tapped the remote on the visor, dreading exposure, obscurity her only ally.
The garage door slowly creaked open, illuminating the cavity. Every muscle tensed as the world rushed in, invading light
cutting her breath. Relax, she told herself, thinking of the twins’ cheery faces waiting at the day care. She wondered
how long that would last, every rising sun threatening her chance to see it set.
Those happy smiles were all she could think of on Sycamore Lane that day, when she hit Gordon Jeffries with
the front end of her Ford Explorer. He had come out of nowhere, an apparition appearing in the instant she reached
in the back seat to give one of the twins a bottle and turned around again. His bugged eyes burned through the windshield
just before impact. In the thick moments afterwards, the trees lining the street had begun to elongate, bending into bars
around her. This did not happen, she’d convinced herself in those seconds, pushing back images of black robed judges, gray cells,
and child protective service workers shaking their heads. Driving away, she’d had to look past the blood splashed on the asphalt
and the bowels the phantom had let loose on himself to keep the twins’ smiling faces from vanishing forever.
Her pupils collapsed in the glare. The green digits on the dashboard clock blinked angrily, demanding she forfeit her remaining
time, the idling minivan waiting for her to make a move. Breathe, she thought. But then she remembered that Gordon Jeffries wasn’t
breathing. Not anymore, and the evening news had said so. Man dies in hit and run on Sycamore Lane today…Police have no leads and
there appear to be no witnesses. If you have any information, please call….
There were no calls. No red and blue lights flashing through the windows of her house at night. No sharp knock on the front door.
Now, there was only the bloodletting of trepidation and the scraping away of bits of her soul. But always, Gordon
Jeffries was laid out in a parlor of darkness, thick curtains drawn over his tomorrows. She’d heard that those closest
to you are with you even after they are gone. And he would remain near, fixed upon her for all eternity. Long after
guilt had worn her down to silt, and everything she loved flew as ashes on the wind, he would be there. To her unknown
end she would move through this life, secretly wed to his death. Solemnly, she put the car in reverse and backed toward the light.
Morowa Yejidé is a literary fiction writer and a native of Washington, D.C. She was educated at Kalamazoo College,
where she received a degree in International Relations, and was accepted into the international exchange program at Waseda
University in Tokyo, Japan.
She has also been published in numerous international publications in Japan and Korea, including the
Korean Institute for Defense Analysis and the ISTEC Journal for her work on National Science Foundation
initiatives in technology.
She is the winner of the 2007 Chistell Writing Contest for her short story, "Precious," which will also
appear in the September 2008 issue of the Istanbul Literary Review. Ms. Yejidé won the Urbanite Magazine
competition in 2005 for her non-fiction piece, "Wolf Outside My Door." Web Site
Email: Morowa Yejidé
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