"At the Table"

"At the Table"

She sat leaning over her coffee in her small apartment in the even smaller kitchen, moving her freshly manicured hands animatedly as sound left her mouth in a constant stream of quickly spoken words punctuated only by a grunt of disgust or a quick sip from her cup.     Her husband seated across the tiny table from the never ending flow of gossip was used to it. Nodding in approval, grunting in disapproval, sighing at the right times, all an attempt to let her release the pressure valve of thoughts that had built up in her while he was at work. If this was the only marriage grief he had to put up with for these twenty-three years, he considered himself blessed.     "Oh, and Francine kept going on and on and on about her Freddy and how wonderfully he's getting along in med school and how he can't wait to get his on office and finally get married to our Barbara, but I told her ...."     He chuckled slightly at the thought of those two kids getting married. They grew up on this same apartment floor for their whole lives--it was bound to happen, and both families hoped it would.     "And, you didn't hear this from me, but Barbara said that her best friend Julie--the one that babysits for Cynthia and Richard--she saw Freddy at the jewelry store--the one Julie's father runs--five or six times last week!"     A moment of silence slipped in as she sipped some more coffee and he flipped over his paper before she began tearfully reminiscing of their daughter's childhood. Yes, a blessed man, indeed.

Entry: Writing.com Daily Flash Fiction Challenge
Date: 05 December 2012
Prompt: "You didn't hear this from me."
Word Count: 273