Sophie stood at the window, the curtains snug around her shoulders,trailing behind like a dress, or veil. The sun was dipping down behind the trees across the way.

He should be home by now, she thought, chewing the already ravaged thumbnail on her right hand.

She thought about the fight they had the night before. How she had held onto the seeds of those feelings for so long they had germinated and grew and soon the roots were twisted around with her insides, and the branches and leaves moved with her arms.

The anger had grown and become parasitic. And then the tree flowered and she couldn't tell the two of them apart anymore.

He made an off hand remark, but to her it was the revving of a chainsaw. She imaged the metallic teeth approaching and growling. Threatened, backed into a corner, she lashed out. The tree of hate inside shook and swayed as if it were the lone tree in the middle of field during a thunderstorm.

If he's not back by now, she thought, maybe he really isn't coming home.