After the Children Have Gone

She stands on the sidewalk looking up at the monster of a house.  It's the
biggest one on the street.  The one with the red brick and matching red
shutters resembling a dollhouse and the one she still has a key to.

The front door was always a favorite part of the house, it was a deep red
and had a stained glass window with a rose in the center.  She went in
and removed her shoes, something she had done since that first day
when they bought the house so long ago.  She's surprised at how everything
looks exactly the same.

She slowly makes her way up the stairs to each of their rooms, stopping to
glance at the pictures hanging above each step.  Her daughter's room still
smells of flowers and perfume.  Posters of rainbows, peace signs, love bugs
and Marilyn Manson cover more of the wall than the fading, green paint. 

Just a ways down the hall is her oldest son's room.  The door remains open, 
she pauses there in the doorway to catch her breath.  On the floor are barbells...
one large and one small, how that boy loved to work out!  He said it was
to impress the girls.  She laughed at the memories of him posing in the
bathroom mirror with his shirt off.  A Sports Illustrated calendar from 2002
hangs in his closet.  Closing her eyes, she draws in a long breath and is taken
back by the lingering scent of his cologne.  She closes the door and turns to
the last room at the end of the hallway.  She pauses before opening the door
slowly.  This was the room of her youngest son.  He is in the Army and is over in
Iraq somewhere.  He never tells her any details, he doesn't want her to
worry.  She is so proud of him her heart could burst.  He left one of his uniforms
hanging in his closet.  She presses the jacket to her chest, tears forming in the
corners of her eyes.  Damn her husband for making him go away when he was
just eighteen!

This big house that was once her home seems so uninviting now.  There is no
more laughter in the middle of the night, no footsteps running down the stairs
and a table for five now seats just two.

She looks in the mirror and doesn't recognize the face that stares back. 
Her chestnut red hair is now streaked with silver, and the lines on her face
tell the story of the life she's had.  She wonders where the time has gone, how
the years have grown so much shorter than she remembered them to be. 

The sound of someone clearing their throat reminds her that it's time to go. 
Back to her tiny, musty room at the long-term care facility...the place she now
calls home after the children have gone.