A Modern Cinderella

The End

Written by FantasyGirl on Tuesday, February 12, 2002

Author's Note: PG-13 for the ending. Tell me what you think of it … please?

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One Saturday shortly afterward, Sarah woke up to the sound of the phone ringing. She rolled over and asked Jonathan to get it. Then she remembered: Jonathan had to leave late last night for some four-day lawyer-conference-thing in Chicago. He'd asked her to come along, claiming that he needed her there for moral support --- but she didn't feel up to drinking with a pack of people bent on boosting their opinions of themselves --- which was all this conference amounted to, as far as she could tell. She missed him already. She picked up the receiver on the tenth ring.

After she'd told the guy on the other end that he'd dialed the wrong number, she turned on the TV in the living room and went to start the coffee machine in the kitchen. The news anchor babbled about some plane crash in a Chicago suburb during the early hours of the morning, but Sarah wasn't really paying attention. It always took her half an hour in the morning to become fully aware of the world around her. Then she heard the words "American Airlines Flight 775". Her sleep-muddled brain wondered why that seemed familiar as her eyes settled on the paper stuck to the refrigerator door. In his chicken scratch, Jonathan had written out his entire itinerary with his flight information and all the phone numbers and addresses of where he would be. He'd also jotted down a note telling her that he loved her and, half seriously, not to act like Chicken Little while he was gone. Among the semi-organized jumble of numbers and letters was "American Airlines Flight 775".

******

Sarah was alone. It had been a six months since Jonathan's funeral, but she didn't have it in her to return to work. She missed him so much --- his merry brown eyes, his jokes, his snoring --- that she hadn't noticed how she'd cut herself off from everything and slipped into depression. After spending the morning in tears, she also didn't realize that taking a paring knife to her forearms might not have been the best solution.