Hal examines the grey slacks, cashmere blazer, shirt, and tie arranged on the bed. Underwear and socks are folded beside them, polished shoes set squarely on the floor.
He props the letter to his sister against a small brass lamp on his writing desk. He wraps the body of his ancient cat in the paisley dressing gown Bryan left behind and buries her beneath a blooming camellia. "Receive this sheep of your own fold, a sinner of your own redeeming," he murmurs. Sighing deeply, Hal stands. "Well, then, that's that," he says, and drives to the beach.
Elizabeth Westmark's essays have appeared in Brevity Magazine, Road Trip Journal, The Binnacle Ultra-Short 2009, Camroc Press Review, and Dead Mule, among others. She maintains two story-telling/memoir blogs (Switched at Birth and Sugar Shack), a food blog, and a microessay blog from her home in a Longleaf pine preserve near Pensacola, Florida.
Archived at http://girlswithinsurance.com/index.php/prose/micro/100-ew-1109-walking
