Unacceptable grief- A we-write 5 minute freewrite

The Start of the Story

By: @freedomtowrite

"Pull the plug already!" Gary growled.

"I can't," Jody whimpered.

"Stop holding onto hope when there's nothing left." His head dropped to hands as he leaned against the metal wall.

Jody looked towards the bathtub. Sitting amongst the bubbles floated her favorite bubble bath bottle that had been knocked over where the contents had flowed freely into the old, lukewarm water from their son's bath.

"But if I pull the plug, then it's really all gone...I can never get it back."

Gary tramped against the wooden floor towards the bathtub determination etched into his eyes.

"No!" Jody yelled throwing herself in front of him.

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Gary stopped, his hands clenched and his face lined with profound grief. "It is OK."
Jody's face was now set in anger. "I am going to cane Richie. This is the limit."

Gary held her by the shoulders. "Jody, Jody. Brandon has gone... camping. It is fine. I will make you another. I have some left over "essence of wild flowers". Come now I will clean this up and take my shower while you go and finish cooking the supper." Though Gary's words and actions were well practiced it took him 2-3 minutes to calm Jody and herd her out of the bathroom.

They had supper and talked about how Brandon had shown her new mobile apps and what TV shows he liked that were violent, when the fresh peaches (Brandon liked peaches) would come to the market and how difficult it was to handle Brandon without shouting at him.

Gary then gave Jody her medication and waited on her till she had taken all the pills. Afterwards they had a glass of wine while one of her favorite jazz albums played in the background. Jody took up the half finished mittens she was knitting but they were still unfinished when she put them back in the basket and went to the bedroom to retire.

Gary saw to his daily mails and checked his accounts. He cleared the benches in his garage- workshop. Then he went into the hall and unraveled the work that Jody had done on the mittens today, willing himself to not get agitated. Next he went to the small closet under the stairs where he stored the bottles of bubble bath and opened the lock. He took one bottle and locked the closet again. He went to the bath room and filled water in the tub, then he opened the bottle and threw the lid into the tub and balanced the bottle on the rim. This would fall in the water tomorrow.

In the bedroom Gary removed the small pink post-it from the mirror on which was written 441/135. He wrote on a new post-it 442/136 and stuck it on the corner of the mirror. It was 442 days since Brandon- their only child had died in a freak accident and Jody had suffered a psychotic break- everyday she used to get up thinking it was still That day while she her brain refused to remember her son's death or anything after it. She re-lived only that day, everyday of her life. Sometimes things like the TV or the neighbors shocked her out of her personal purgatory- then she would go catatonic for hours. It was 136 days since she had suffered any such shock.

The contest: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@freewritehouse/we-write-i-write-and-you-finish

Inspiration credit: story submitted by @carolkean