DWP - random book prompt

The Piano Man's Daughter - Timothy Findley

I had seen her just the day before - a day of pale blue skies and summer breezes. She sat on a white wicker chair propped underneath a huge multi-coloured beach umbrella in the middle of their grassy lawn. She wore large dark sunglasses, the kind where all you see was your own reflection and you'd never know if her eyes were closed or if she's looking at you. She placed two large adobe bricks beside her where she'd put down her book whenever she sipped at her large glass of iced tea, the breeze making a wisp of her dark curly hair fall on her face. She wore a white summer dress with tiny red polka dots with wide straps and low neckline and when she bent you could see her breasts.

Her husband (or, as people whispered about sometimes, her paramour, for they believed she wasn't married to him) came out from the house, holding a bottle of Miller Lite, walked the length of the lawn slowly saying something I couldn't make out before going back and sat on the grass in front of her. She lowered her large sunglasses and peered at him and put them back on, grabbing her book and putting it really close to her face. He yanked the book away from her hand and threw it against the white picket fence, hitting the coral red pansies. They yelled at each other and from where I sat in my kitchen I heard her scream, "I hate you! I hate you!"

I saw him storm back inside their bungalow while she sat on her chair, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking. She grabbed the glass of iced tea and threw it at the door where her husband disappeared to, wiped her face with the hem of her white dress and walked to the fence to retrieve her book.

It was a total shock then, especially to me, to learn that she had died just this morning when she stepped in the path of a speeding delivery truck right in front of their house.