The Chair Ajar

Most people focus on the copper kettle, polished to perfection. The first thing I always notice is the Hitchcock chair, ajar, not as if someone just climbed out of it—no—it would be farther away from the table if that were the case.

I don’t remember how long his coat hung there—I know it was weeks and weeks, perhaps months before she removed it. Like his pillowcase. Like his distinguished silk ties in the closet, most of them keepsakes purchased in England on ‘business’ trips that everyone knew were romantic getaways.

I remember standing in front of their fireplace in April. Peach roses on the mantle. Chocolate dipped strawberries on the kitchen table. Fine champagne in Edinburgh Crystal. ‘I do’ in front of two witnesses.

The chair ajar. I know it hung on a chair in the kitchen. I know I saw it, but did my memory paint it over that chair when it might have hung over another? It’s coming up on fourteen years, and it’s hard to remember. But the boyish grin, sanctioning new love, I will never forget.


This piece doesn’t actually qualify as flash fiction, inasmuch as it’s true…