Sylvia's Son

On a warm moonstruck night Elise stood at the bedroom window staring down at the shadowy garden below. The bright moonlight made the garden look like a stage: the flat green lawn and the black shrubs surrounding it like cardboard cut outs. A flicker of movement at the edge of the lawn drew her eye. A man, keeping in the shadows as well he might. Next, a flutter of white as Sylvia crossed the lawn, leaving a line of bare footprints on the dewy grass. Elise wanted to stop looking but she stayed where she was at the window, her hand clutching the edge of the heavy curtain. She saw the man step out of the shadows and open his arms, enveloping Sylvia in his embrace. Elise sighed and let the curtain drop into place. She knew it would end badly. She'd known it all along. Not just for the girl wrapped in the arms of her lover. For both of them.