The story of the women

The men had all come back changed from the War, in a handful of different ways.  Some had grown mean and angry, others always felt far away.  All had seen horrible things and watched both friends and enemies die.  They carried their wounds deep in their souls, and often got distracted staring out toward the horizon.  It was hard to come home, to change their clothes so quickly and return to being husbands, fathers, sons.  Few had made the adjustment well, and in the years that followed many took to drink.

And so the women continued to meet, just as they had when the men were gone, sipping coffee and eating crumble cake made with pooled flour and shared milk.  Habits die hard and rations sometimes felt like sharing.  They confided in each other still, but now about the hardship of the men at home.

They met for conversation, support.  They could tell with a look when the morning followed a bad night, sometimes they would sneak a nip of whiskey in the coffee.

There was one morning after a series of hard nights when the women made a choice the other residents of Griffon Manor didn’t understand, and not for lack of speculation.  They sent the kids outside to play in the field behind the houses.  No one noticed anything amiss until the strong smell of gas leaked into the apartment next door, and the man who ran the corner store broke down the door and rushed in to find the women all dead at the table.  The floor was soaked with spilled coffee, no blood.  The corner store man shut off the gas and opened a window, dragging the women outside to see if fresh air would revive them, which it did not. 

There were no notes left behind, no explanation.  The houses buzzed with whispers and arguments, the men were interrogated, the children ushered into the homes of friends and neighbors.  There were theories of abuse and mistreatment, never proven, and an assumption of secrets that would never be told.