Seafoam

Lately, those sort of silences had been arriving on an inconsistent yet unfailing schedule: during the mornings when Linda and Heather were eating a meager breakfast at the table, during the afternoons when she would hum to her reflection in the dingy bathroom mirror to postpone having to ascend the stairs, during the nights when she would convince herself that the distant waves licking at the rocky beaches were actually the sniffles of the man in bed beside her. Because that would break her heart less than admitting she hadn’t seen Paul cry since that terrible evening after the rooftop.