𝐄𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐭

click of the lighter. Once, twice. On the third strike, the flame catches. The night outside is dark. The kitchen is dark. The only light is the small, stubborn orange flame of the gas stove, flickering dimly across the walls.

Karen Wheeler

muffled Ted. Ted, don't walk away from me.

Ted Wheeler

muffled I'm going to work.

Karen Wheeler

muffled It's midnight, Ted. What kind of work is there at midnight?

The door opens. Light spills out across the hall, yellow, ugly. Karen Wheeler, forty but looking she's been forty for a decade, stands in the doorway. She's in a nightgown. Her hair is flat, and the mascara she never washed off has smudged into dark rings under her eyes. Ted is already halfway down the hall — hat in hand, coat half-on, not even looking back.

Karen Wheeler

not loud Look what you've done. Look. Are you happy? She doesn't turn her head. She doesn't look where she's speaking. She just calls, down the hall, into the dark kitchen, in the dark. Stella. Stella, come here.

The voice isn't asking.

Karen Wheeler

Stella, come here, please. pausing Your father's being impossible again. Come sit with me.