Red Lights/White Shoes

The young woman lay in the darkened bedroom. dim light filtered in through the half drawn blinds. It was past midnight and, like many other sin her neighborhood, she was sleeping. She turned on her side and continued soft snoring. It had begun to rain; heavy drops drummed percussion against the window pane. The woman woke with a start at the sound of crashing thunder. A streak of lightening brightened the bedroom.

The woman sat up in her bed and shook her head to clear it. She felt anxious because she had been dreaming but couldn't remember what the dream was about. She felt on the floor for her slippers then, only wearing her night-clothes, she walked through the still darkened bedroom into the living room. She did not need to turn on the light, there was enough coming through the window.

Along with the rain, a strong wind began to blow. She noticed a billowing of the long drapes that covered the sliding glass door. She pulled the drapes open and realized that once again, she'd forgotten to close the sliding glass door all the way. Damn, this was the third time this had happened.

Instead of closing the door, she opened it wider and stepped out onto the balcony. The April air was cool and the woman stood hugging herself looking out at the rain-soaked landscape, glad the balcony had a roof. The lightening still crashed but now it seemed far away. She could see streaks of it across the river. Even at this hour, she could see the headlights of traffic as it crossed the Mid-Hudson bridge. It reminded her of ants marching all along in a row.

She wondered again what she was doing in this unfamiliar town in Dutchess County New York. Why had she come here? What did she hope to find? Her thoughts once again went back to her childhood and the happiness she'd known before that awful day when her father died

They were close, the three on them. The shared almost everything, the summer picnics, the winter movies complete with popcorn, vacations at     the ocean. She smiled as she remembered the hot sand and crashing waves when the water pounded the surf. Her mother and father held her hands as they all stood at the edge of the water waiting again for the ocean to reach their toes.

Her memory shifted. She was now a small girl sitting on the stairs watching her parents and their company laughing and talking as they ate delicate finger foods. Her parents loved to entertain and they always allowed her to say hello to everyone before going upstairs to be tucked into bed. Then she'd sneak out of bed, ever so quietly, and sit on the top step, chin in her hands as she watched the grownups.

She remembered the last night her father was alive. They'd eaten dinner at six o'clock; chicken, rice, spinach. After helping clean up the kitchen, she and her mother had joined her father in the living room to watch Jeopardy.

They sat in comfortable silence watching the contestants, trying to out guess them. Her father said he wasn't feeling well and left to get some Tums. When he didn't return, her mother went to  help him find the medicine.

The woman remembered that her mother's cry had come at the same time the audience on television had clapped.

The rest of the evening was a blur. Para-medics, an ambulance, a trip to the emergency room and the doctor's final pronouncement of death from a massive heart attack.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she thought she heard a noise coming from inside. She listened and decided that what she heard was only part of the weather system.

She now noticed the chill and involuntarily shivered. She went back inside, this time remembering to close and lock the sliding glass door behind her. She left the drapes open.

A human shadow came out of the dark living room behind the woman. The hand held a gun with an extra long barrel pointed at her heart. Her cry was cut short as the bullet found its mark.

The killer left through the sliding glass doors, carefully closing the drapes behind him.