When One Door Closes - Second Edition

So I wrote the correct ending for this story. The first one was wishful thinking and a cop-out because I was getting sick. Yeah, that's my excuse and I am sticking with it. I hope you like this ending better. I know it's too late for the Trifecta contest but I needed to fix it. It is exactly 333 words long.

* * *

She went home with tears in her eyes, unshed as yet, locked behind the shock of the moment. She had no idea how he would react. They’d never be able to pay their bills with both of them on unemployment. She just knew they’d lose the house. Who was going to hire people in their mid-fifties? How did a person go on after working for the same company for fifteen years?

She opened the front door and their gazes met.

“I got laid-off today.”

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”

“No.”

He started laughing. She began to cry.

“It’s not funny!”

He held his stomach.

“You’re right,” he said. “You don’t know it, but we’re lucky this happened.”

She sniffed and took a breath.

“I think you’ve finally lost it. We’re going to lose everything we have.”

“Who cares? Let them have it all.” He waved his arms like a game show model. “We are free.”

“If you call living in our car freedom.”

He rose from his chair, danced over to her and grabbed her in a bear hug. She pushed on his chest.

“Let me go, you mad man.”

“Never.” He kissed her. “Come on.” He took her hand and pulled her towards the door. “I thought about going to kidnap your from work. That would have been romantic.” He tugged her onto the porch. He pointed at the bags she had missed on the way in.

“Are you leaving me?”

He hugged her more tightly.

“We always talked about just getting in the car and running away to see the country.”

He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. She looked at the bags again and saw her green ones next to his black ones. She looked at his face. Really looked at his face. The frown lines were gone from his forehead. The worrying lines between his brows were erased. His smile lit up his eyes.

Her chest hurt.

“Let’s do it,” he said.

She took a deep breath.

We Have a Winner!

The Random Number Generator brought back the number 1, so our winner of the Bunny is Susan of Inappropriate Sue. I hope your daughter, Chloe, really enjoys this babbit. Please email me at goldennib at gmail dot com with your shipping address.

(A note about addresses: If you ever give me your address, I will never give it to anyone else.)

I like to make things and give them away, so stay tuned for future give-aways.

It seems people have more to say about blogging. If you have not done a “Netiquette” (term coined by Quilly) post yet or have more to say on blogging practices, join me on Thursday’s 13 for more thoughts on blogging. I will put up a Netiquette Mr. Linky that will include the previous posts on blogging and you can link in with your new posts. I’ll do a Netiquette button, too, that you can use for the occasion.

Don’t forget tomorrow’s Tales on Tuesday with the theme of “Dark Shadows.”

Nichols visited this weekend.