That Moment

She woke up to a new, glorious day.

Glancing lazily across to the sun streaming in through the crack in the curtains told her she had slept in. But it didn’t matter, did it? No; it didn’t matter. She would just lie here a little longer, smiling up at the ceiling. She remembered times when she had felt this good, when she was a young girl, playing in the park with her friends. Now she was claiming back those lovely feelings at the age of forty, or was it forty-one? It didn’t matter.

She sat up and stretched. She would go down and make a late breakfast. She could do that, and she could make the eggs the way she wanted them. Just the way she wanted them. She wouldn’t dress yet either. She needed music as well; some of those old numbers that she never got a chance to listen to.

A few minutes later, she stood on the back step in her dressing gown, breathing in the late morning air. It filled her lungs with new life. She went back into the kitchen and hummed to her favourite music as it drifted through. She started to cook breakfast when suddenly she paused with her spatula hanging in mid-air. It had flashed briefly through her head; that moment. Then, just as quickly, that moment, the moment that had given her so much pain, so many sleepless nights, just faded. It simply went, leaving not a trace of guilt, not a trace of regret, nothing! She was just left with a sense of calm acceptance, joy even.

All that was behind her now; all gone. In fact, as she stood there, she could go through it step by step with so much clarity that hadn’t been there before. That night in the bathroom, holding a cotton-ball and dabbing her latest bruise. It was so painful yet the incident was hours before; before he went out. She could see herself now, crying, staring into the mirror, then… that moment. That moment when she had let it all out. The shout and the glaring eyes, and the curse that would send him straight to hell… and the face looking back at her from the mirror that she had never seen before.

It had been days after the evening of the accident that the full significance of that moment came home to her. It was in the police report. The eye-witness’s statement that gave the details of how he had staggered out of the pub straight into the path of an oncoming truck. A statement that included the time; the exact time. The very time of that moment.

She smiled now at the silly feelings of guilt that had plagued her right up to the gathering of friends and relations after yesterday’s funeral service. They all said how sad it all was, but they knew the truth. Each one of them knew what he was like. But now, there would be no more rows, no more violence. There would be no more being told how foolish and worthless she was, no more being screamed at when she didn’t have his tea ready when he came home, no more being punched when she tried to explain herself, no more hiding broken things, evidence of his brutality.

She finished breakfast and left all the dishes in the sink. She could do them later. She could do them when she felt like it.

She stepped out into the garden. All the colours seemed so bright, the sky seemed to be extra blue somehow, and even the clouds looked whiter than she could remember.

She had woken up to a new, glorious day… and a new life.