DWP - night shift: prompt

Today is the day, and Belinda takes out the white dress she bought last week for this trip: a white jumpsuit with a square sailor's collar and trimmed with dark blue bias tape. She slowly brushes her auburn hair, gathers it delicately behind her head and holds it with a red scarf, the same colour as her new pair of shoes. By nine o'clock, she is ready to leave although Harold has written he will arrive only at noon.

Belinda takes mental inventory of the important things in her little suitcase, among them, the wooden frame with her and Harold's picture, the porcelain trinket box where she stores the golden bracelet Harold gave her for her sixteenth birthday, the little prayer book her mother gave her when she was six, and the rosary beads from her great grandmother.

She sits in the living room, taking in everything in it so she might remember it in the days to come. At noon, she stands by the door and anxiously awaits Harold's arrival. She feels thankful for the open field that stretches far beyond, as far as the road goes and she is able to see the few passing cars and trucks. She lets her mind wander to a long ago summer and imagines that Harold, all of his 15 years, pedals his bike to bring her flowers he has picked from his mother's garden. Belinda smiles at the thought. She continues to replay that scene in her mind.

At three o'clock, she waits by the phone. Harold is terribly late. He is never late, especially when he tells her he will pick her up at noon or whatever time it is he has to pick her up. At four-thirty, she hears a car pull up, but it was only the postwoman. She sits on the step outside on the porch and stares at the farthest end of the road that her eyes allowed her to see. The skies has changed colours from blue to the gray of the sunset to the velvet black of the night and yet Harold has not arrived. Then as the night shifts into the golden hues of dawn, she stands up, goes inside the house, terribly shaking from cold.

She goes upstairs to her room, opens the drawer of her vanity, takes out a letter that came two months ago and reads its contents again: "Belinda, my beloved, I shall come pick you up on November 30. I will arrive at noon. And we will live together at last in Bath."

Then she opens a telegram that came just the other day: "Harold Benstead died in a car accident." Belinda sits down on the edge of the bed, lets her tears roll down her cheeks.