He found her on the floor. The yellow linoleum diamond shapes contrasted yet complimented her light brown hair as it spread from her skull in wisps and tendrils. Jack looked at John inquisitively, wanting to know the meaning behind this.
John did not speak, but merely bent down and with a soft grunt, lifted her off the cold floor. Her skin was cold, and her feet dangled and swayed like the dress she was last seen in. But she was still breathing, low.
He laid her in bed and piled the quilts on her with a hot water bottle at her feet. He left her side only when the hint of a rose hue crept back up into her cheeks.
“Does this happen often?” Jack demanded as they sat at the small, square kitchen table, lined in chrome, under a bare bulb shining over bright into the dark, quiet night peppered with crickets.
Every few weeks or so.” John said, as if the words didn’t matter. But the bright shine of pain in his eyes that he worked so hard to conceal spoke differently.
“Why didn’t you ever say?” Jack asked, amazed.
“It donn’t get spoke of.” He said with gruff finality.
John sat quiet for a long stretch of time taking a long sip of coffee.
“Why?” The words were Jack’s and were spoken just barely above the audible hum of the electric light, and the one stubborn fly trying desperately to beat its way through the window screen beside the back door.
“I don’t know why. Every now and then something gets too much for her. She’s gotta run away and hide. It’s the only way she knows how.” He said in a sigh of bewildered defeat.
“And you go and find her?” Jack asked.
John nodded, tipping the last of his coffee back.
“Is she always in the same place?”
“No, sometimes it takes days to track her down. But every time, she always out cold, laying just like that.”
“Why do you do it?” Jack asked after another long pause.
John stared long into his coffee cup, refusing to answer.
“It’s cuz you love her, ain’t it?” Jack said low.
“It don’t get spoke of.” John replied, staring intently into his cup.
