3 Word Wednesday #55

Welcome to Three Word Wednesday. Each week, I will post three (or more) words. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write something using all of those words. It can be a few lines, a story, a poem, anything. I’ll also attempt to write something using the same words.

Leave a comment if you participate. Many fun and interesting people might visit your blog.

This week’s words are:
Feather
Misplaced
Useless

The slamming of doors echoing thru the downstairs signaled his arrival home at least three days out of every week. A bad day at work for him meant a bad night at home for her.

Grace had grown used to his misplaced anger. No, you never got used to it, but she had come to expect it. She avoided him whenver possible, staying upstairs, sometimes pretending to be asleep. But some days it was useless. Some days he was bent on finding an outlet for his anger, and far too often it was her.

She sat upstairs cross-legged on the bed. Everytime another door slammed, her heart would pound a little faster. She picked up one of the feather pillows she had cried into countless times before and buried her head in it. Then silently prayed she wouldn’t hear his footsteps on the stairs or him calling her name.

She didn’t. Not on this day.

Grace heard the familiar noises of cabinets opening, bottles clanging, and the TV being put on, and she began to relax. Still clutching the pillow, she drifted off to sleep.

Sleep was sound and restful, her dreams happy. And when she woke up, she wished she was still asleep. The room was rather dark. Terrified she had missed supper, she hurried downstairs. First, she went into the kitchen, then to the other rooms. There was no sign of him, and she figured he must have gone out to drink.

Lastly, she ventured into the living room. It was there she saw the empty pill bottle on the coffee table and the body lying limp on the couch.

Grace ran.

As she knelt down beside the couch, she was curiously calm. Gently shaking the listless body, she pleaded quietly, “Wake up, Mommy. Please wake up.”

“If you hear something late at night, some kind of trouble, some kind of fight, just don’t ask me what it was…”