Here’s this next week’s 100-word entry. I had the blues tonight, a bit.

She never told him what it was, the grief that stole over her during these moments. He wasn’t sure she knew what it was herself, the thieving sorrow that took her away from him to some place where he couldn’t follow. Between them were all the vastness of her sorrow, and all the aching in him to fix it, the desperate tugging at his inside when he saw her go so still and joyless.

So he drove, ripping through the stillness of the desert night. Sometimes she would just sit motionless, her eyes staring out at the dark while the gravel under the tires roared like a hurricane and the wind whipped her face raw. He would push the pedal down, spiting death at every turn to try to coax her back to him, but somehow each time they made it around a curve she remained untouched.

Sometimes she would cry, tears sliding down her cheeks in silence. Her wet cheeks would glow, luminescent in the light of instrument panel. He would reach over and take her hand, turn up the stereo and sing to her simply because he didn’t know what else to do.

And sometimes it was like this – stars and inky night and his fair girl sitting beside him with her eyes closed, the two of them in his car, the hours whirling past them in the darkness until at last, she would softly steal her little hand into his and press it into his.

Later, he reached across the bed for her and felt the warmth of her body. She moved next to him in the darkness and pulled him across the space between them. Afterwards, she lay in his arms breathing softly in sleep, he thought how the night, when it was over, would be one less night he would be alive. He thought of them in his car. He shut his eyes and remembered the smell of heat in the damp earth. He shut his eyes and he could see her sitting beside him, smiling and happy. His girl.

He held tight to her, dreaming as the hours went by, unslept.

Frank flat-palmed the door to the kitchen, put his hands on his hips, then snorted to announce himself. Jenna turned quickly, her face registering surprise at his entrance. She raised a wooden spoon towards him and narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing in here? I asked you to mingle!”

“I cannot mingle when our baby sister is out there on the edge of disaster!”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “Calm down, Frank, your queen is showing. Now what the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s him,” Frank hissed, jabbing violently towards the dining room, “That – that ass!”

“Darling,” Jenna replied, “you’re going to have to be much more specific about to whom you are referring. There are a whole herd of asses out there.”