The Wait

She stood at her kitchen’s sink, staring out the window, across the open expanse towards the tree line far ahead, recalling how he promised he’d be back within the week. In her mind’s eye she could still see him leading the two mules into the wooded area along the worn path.

It was a simple chore – one he’d completed many times before; resupplying the sheep camp in the upper meadow. She should have never let him go, she thought as a hopelessness racked her soul.

Then she caught her reflection in a window pane, an old woman, wrinkled and gray-haired.