The day was blackly overcast, rain fell steadily, and Alice hadn’t seen a soul all day, not even her nosy neighbour. She’d almost given up hope, when the doorbell rang. In the hallway, she screwed up her eyes, trying to identify the silhouetted outline in the patterned glass of the front door. The bell rang again.
Alice unhooked the security chain, edged open the door, and peered round it like a paranoid cuckoo in a clock. It was her mother, collar up, scarf tucked in, leather-gloved hands clutching a carrier bag.
“Darling!” she exclaimed and leaned in to kiss Alice.
“What are you doing here, Mother?”
“Your father has left me, and the day couldn’t get any darker. If it’s darkness we’re having, let it be extravagant.”
She pulled from the bag an extra-large bar of expensive dark chocolate and a Jeroboam of champagne.
Kim M. Russell, 11th November 2019
My response to dVerse Poets Pub Prosery: Meet Jane Kenyon
Victoria is our guest host for this month’s Prosery. The line of poetry is from ‘Taking Down the Tree’ by Jane Kenyon, an American poet, which Victoria found in a book of her collected poems:
” If it’s darkness we’re having,
let it be extravagant.”
writing in north norfolk 
Good on her! Not where I was expecting the story to go at all. I hope they had fun with that champagne.
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🙂
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I love it. We both took it in the same general direction, though I would have liked champagne and dark chocolate better then my ending (which I haven’t yet posted.)
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Thank you, Victoria! I’m just about to catch up with reading and commenting, and look forward to reading yours..
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What a great and pleasant surprise… sometimes the parting is the best part… and maybe mother and daughter can look forward to some good time together even after that chocolate.
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Thanks Bjorn – I think they will enjoy some quality mother and daughter time.
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Wow- this is great Kim, and took me by surprise.
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Thanks Linda. I took the opportunity to include an element of surprise and I’m delighted it worked!
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What a shock ending, slivers of hope midst chocolate and bubbly. Let’s assume Dad was a cad, and this is a semi-happy ending.
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You made me smile with ‘let’s assume Dad was a cad’, Glenn. I think Mum had been waiting for him to leave for a while.
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Wow. I liked this piece.
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That makes me happy!
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I was screaming no as she undid the chain on the lock. Such a happy surprise. With a loving daughter, this mom can get through anything. Great story, Kim!
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😉
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I loved the suspense followed by a joyful dose of humor. Bravo!
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Thanks Bev!
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Oh Brava Kim! That was really good. It made me laugh at the end 🙂
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Thank you, Christine!
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Chocolate fixes everything…. even great darkness!
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It does, Dwight! I wish they’d make better-tasting diabetic chocolate.
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Oh, my, Kim, if I had opened the door to my Mom and her luggage I would have groaned. But, it is better than a serial killer, I guess.
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😊
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Any excuse for a celebration. I like her spirit. (K)
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😊
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Now that is really dark. 😉
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This story made me smile when it went another direction then I’d thought. And google Jeroboam, so now I have a loot of new words for wine bottles. 🙂
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I’m glad you enjoyed it! I really like the word ‘Jeroboam’.
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It could have gone vey dark in my reading, then it turns to party, wonderful.
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Thank you!
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My pleasure
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Mother sounds like a classy woman with good taste. Love the way you used the line from Janes poem.
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😊
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I’m not a chocolate lover, but I love your story 🙂
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Thank you so much for reading and commenting, Crispina!
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Pleasure. A delight to find another Norfolkian. I’m to the east.
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Whereabouts are you?
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Sunny Great Yarmouth. And you?
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Not that far away in Dilham – between Stalham and Wroxham. Years ago I taught at Cliff Park and Lynn Grove. My late father-in-law and my other in-laws live in Belton.
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Wow, yea, I know that area, though not as well as I’d like. I walk a lot, and I don’t drive, so to get anywhere requires buses. And Sanders is such a long winding journey, not much time left for the walk.
And I’ve known lots of the pupils from Cliff Park, though my own childred attended Yarmouth High.
So… hi! Small world.
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