Freewrite -- Day 1259

"hot flash"

DeeAnn had excused herself, when she felt the hot flash coming on. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, the faint aura of the beginnings of perspiration making the skin of her face faintly luminescent under the bare bulbs of the medicine cabinet. There was also the warmth of two glasses of Cabernet emanating from the pit of her stomach.

Looking into the mirror, she was reflecting on the present, the future, the past. She had never been one to complain. Never as an adult, and not overly much as a child either.

DeeAnn tried to imagine what this whole experience would resemble had she not been graced and tasked with her 3 children. Two sons - Mark, Todd. A daughter - Jennifer. She felt this could be a true moment of despair, the moment when the creeping sensation of failure finally fully set in with the metaphoric heat of hell's own flames.

She told herself she should be grateful for having been given the strength and the resolve. And what came now and next was going to require all of it yet again. She splashed water across her face, rubbed it into the back of her neck and into the orbitals around her eyes.

"In His name, I give you thanks," she said, making the Sign of the Cross.

DeeAnn was a strong woman, and she had never had to shed too many tears.

She undid one more button of her navy blue blouse and was not embarrassed by the quality of her aging skin. She tinkled.

Then she went back to the dining room, where their little Book Club was gathered over dwindling hors d'oeuvres and a growing collection of reds and whites.

"DeeAnn!" Her friends had spotted her, and her name sprang forth like a cheery chorus of welcome.

---