Home, MCS Williams

He drums his thumbs on the steering wheel and does not look at the woman sitting next to him. She watches the traffic light illuminate his face, turning him yellow and then red.

“I’m looking at a house in this area,” he says.

“When?”

“Now.”

“Now?” she demands, bewildered, “You didn’t tell me you were looking at a house. I’m tired and it’s late. Why now?”

“Do I need your fucking permission?” He snaps.

The light turns green again.

“What? I can’t have an opinion?”

“You don’t have an opinion. You’re just bitching.”

She waits in the car as he tours the house. It has one bedroom and one bathroom. There is barely enough room for one person, never mind two people. She knows this isn’t an accident. She used to read stars and tealeaves but the night is cloudy and she has only drank coffee for thirty years and now she reads people.

He spits on the ground, deciding that the house is already haunted. He likes it because the rafters are low and sturdy. He returns to the car and they drive in silence.

The snow turns to rain and the traffic lights keep changing. He looks over only when she is soundly asleep, her head resting on the window as her dreams seep across the glass, falling onto the side of the road in a town she does not know.

When they finally pull in to the driveway he cannot find a way to wake her up and say that they are home.