Moving Day

The house was empty, the last boxes packed and in the car. Gabby watched the removalists close the rear doors of the van - on couches and tables, their king-size bed, the piano, her life with John.

She wondered the house, cheeks pink from the heat, gathering the last bits and pieces. A tea towel here, a marble there. Sam's mitten, missing since 2010. Little tangles of hair and dust shifted in the breeze from the open front door.

The day they had moved in, cool with threatening rain, had been full of optimism. She pregnant with Sam, in love, John in paint splattered overalls. That hideous orange feature wall, gone before they spent even one night under their new roof.

Now the last items had been divided, within hours the solicitors would split the house payment equally between two bank accounts.

Gabby descended to the basement, the fourth step complaining one last time. Why did it only creak going down? They never did figure it out. Running her fingers along a shelf above the washing machine taps, incongruous without their hoses, she felt gritty dust and a small hard object.

The USB had lost its cap. Emails across the miles - their relationship swelling and exploding into blossom - rescued from a pocket one Saturday morning. Gabby shook her head - she needn't have bothered. They had been washed clean of their love, spun and hung out to dry.

She sighed, picked up a broken plastic basket, trudged up the stairs. She dropped the little red stick into a shopping bag half-full of rubbish. Then, the last scraps of her marriage in the laundry basket balanced on one hip, she walked out the front door and into the life of Gabby.

292 words.