Finally,

A Sahalie.

Finally, she thought after finishing cleaning the battub for the third time that week. A grimace more of tiredness than of the anger she had displayed earlier with her kids now appeared on her lips, which were drawn in a straight line. She cleaned her hands on her apron and left the sweeper against the wall, and turned to see her reflection on the mirror. Her eyes were semi-closed even though it was only afternoon, and her hair – her only beautiful, woman trait – was disheveled and opaque. She stared at her body – not even on her pregnancy had she stopped seeming like a boy, curves non-existent and shoulders just too bony. But she wasn’t sad by her looks – John still loved her (and she smiled at this), and her kids, her kids were her life, and the scar she had on her tummy from the last pregnancy, of Alec, was something she admired whenever she looked at her herself in the mirror. She absentmindedly fingered the scar, while thinking on her kids. Her kids. Leila was out with a girlfriend from school, and Sharon wouldn’t be back from Music practice till 7. But Alec… Alec was supposed to be here, in the TV or in his room making the according noise to a kid his age and hyperactivity, and she heard noting. Her heart beat one step faster. Alec. I don’t hear Alec. Her voice sprung out laud calling his name “Alec?” And she exited the bathroom towards his room, three doors apart. The door was closed, and she opened it with her mother worry avoiding her to think about the privacy her littlest son still didn’t asked for. The room, however, was empty. While her eyes adjusted to the blue tint of the shadows, she contained her breath in order to be able to hear him, to hear his voice or laughter or noise from some point of the house. But silence answered her, and in the entrance of the blue room she shivered. She turned and half-ran to the girls room, to her room, and down the stairs; to the kitchen, the study area, and still, calling his name, he didn’t answer nor appeared. Alec, Alec, where are you? Her mind raced, if possible, even faster than her steps by this point. A gush of wind flapped the backyard door once and then fell dead, as if telling her to go that way, and so she did, not questioning the wind, her heart, her instinct. She ran outside the house, and was relieved to see, faraway, the figure of Alec standing in the middle of the lawn, just meters before the woods that surrounded the house. “Alec!” She yelled, to call him to come to her, but got no answer. He didn’t move. And she was still not totally relieved. Something was amiss, and the fear possessed her body for the interminable seconds she started walking towards her son, with a precautious slowness as if any hard movement would be out of order. “Alec, can you hear me? What’s wrong?” The sky was clouded, and a thunder was heard, loudly and close. “Alec? Is everything all right?” She stopped walking some meters before reaching him. At this last question, he had turned to see her, hazel eyes misty and faraway. He gazed at her for some seconds, words and ideas forming in a dream-like state, which he was being slowly pulled off from. Finally, he answered her, words trailing into an unending silence “No mama… the wind is quiet”.