Empty Nest Syndrome

The children wouldn't be coming home. Of course she knew now they wouldn't.

Nothing but the hurting was left. She saw them in every child's eye. Smelled them even in the blonde, red, and chestnut locks of the infants she had rocked at the orphanage. Still, MeriLee Jones waited. The leaking tap pinged into the empty sink. Nothing could be done about the children. But well, Austin was a different matter. Austin would take care of the tap. He was always handy for fixing stuff like that. It's what Austin did best. The biggest lug of a fella, in these parts, massive body, large hands, and the kindest blue eyes MeriLee Goulette, as she was known then, had ever seen.

MeriLee rearranged the picture frames on the dresser with shaking hands. There was Jeremiah. Eban. Judah and Elissa. All of them gone now. First Jeremiah. Lastly Eban.

The children wouldn't be coming home. The red and blue trikes lay in the yard.

Forgotten now. The children wouldn't be coming home. The children wouldn't be coming home. She said it over and over and over. It's what MeriLee did best. Counting till her throat was hoarse and her fingers ached from tapping out the two thousand and three-hundredth drip as it crashed into the wet kitchen sink. The tips of her fingers were red, the nails bitten tattily to the edges of her fingertips. She didn't use that stuff that psychiatrist was always trying to get her to use. No point in that. No point at all. A little lemon juice atop them and she could suck them prudishly. It barely scrunched up her face any more. So what if her fingers looked like prunes. The only one to see that any more was Austin. And he wasn't apt to notice. He hadn't seen when she stopped taking her meds and began gnawing at her nails. Nor had he noticed her watching him wine and dine that prissy Dr.Solstein in the big city. Imagine! Her psychiatrist and husband holding hands and snuggling cozily while she, MeriLee, attended to the children.

Hatching. That's what it was. Then the pair of them had called her unfit to mother Jeremiah. Drugged her up so she'd signed away all rights to her firstborn. And she had had such hopes for the younger ones. Gone now.

The children wouldn't be coming home. Of that she was certain now. The fridge was empty. The boxes packed. She'd watched Austin from the sugar shack as he led them through the woods and out onto the bridge. She'd gasped as he handed their babies over one by one to that slut of a sister of his. Eban had clung so hard to his daddy's leg it took the two siblings to pry him loose and bundle him into the van. MeriLee didn't think she'd ever forget Eban's scrunched up face as he mauled at the back window of the van. Austin might as well have ripped them from her womb. Well, now it was payback time. MeriLee giggled uncontrollably as she imagined Austin's face when she thrust the commitment papers he had signed on her behalf into his face. Didn't he know she had scrubbed and polished every corner in this old farmhouse and knew when something was amiss? He'd thought he was so smart. In the ten minutes it had taken him to bring the children outdoors, tricking her, and she the roast out to thaw for tomorrow's dinner, life had forever changed. She had peeled the commitment papers from the bottom of the frozen rump and had felt her heart implode. Then the rage rained like tears until there was only coldness. Calm. MeriLee now loaded the shotgun, ready for her beloved and Dr.Solstein's silver BMW creeping up the driveway. Somebody had to pay. Of that, MeriLee was certain.

Because, without her babies she was nothing.

Biography

Maxwell is Dublin born and bred and now lives in Gorham, Maine with her husband Chuck and daughter Aoife. She is also a journalist whose non-fiction work has appeared online at Sprawlopolis.com, Irishabroad.com and Virtualwriter.net. Her work has also appeared in Maine in Print and Barbie Bazaar and Coping magazines. Two of her pieces are currently being considered for the "Chicken Soup for the Sweet Soul" and "Misadventures of Moms." Maxwell received an American Cancer Sword of Hope Media Award in 2003 for a series she wrote on breast cancer.