"Quality" PIece

This exercise was hatched from a Tom Romano workshop this past Saturday. Cool idea!

Doubt called for the fourth time this morning…just to make sure. Her “ooh, just one more question, dear” sucker punched me, just as her previous three concerns had. Had she thought out my life more carefully than I had? Really? “You won’t forget to write, will you?” The apprehensions she instilled left me stammering like a seventh grader who had been caught cheating, as I shuffled my feet back and forth in the front hallway and gazed across the mist covered autumn patchwork pulled over the mountains on the horizon.

Just by the tone in her voice, I know she’s mimicking a conversation she’s just had with Guilt: “Are you sure you need to go all that way?” She prattles on. “Have you packed your toothbrush? Extra underwear?” But I’ve stopped listening to her nagging and have tuned in to the background noise of her children: Regret and Reflection beg, pull her apron strings and each other’s hair, tattling, retaliating.

“You're always welcome back,” is the last thing I hear she mumbles as I hang up. Resolution has just rung the doorbell.

But just as I turn to let him in, I look down and see that reason has sent me yet another text.