Love and the Side Table by Judy Darley

In the evenings, sunset soaks the garden at the back of their new house, shadows pressing their palms against the walls. Eileen likes to stand in the grass barefoot and feel the energy of the day drift through her into the ground, mooring her in place.

Devin describes their small house as “the project”, as though it is a problem to be solved. For Eileen, walking up the path for the first time, it felt like house had been waiting for her to come home, breath held and arms open wide.

They’ve been living here less than a month. Eileen would have liked to spend quiet weeks finding the perfect spaces for each item of furniture and the flea market treasures Devin calls her “knick-knacks.”

He has other plans, involving tools with sharp edges and teeth.

Eileen stares at the cornicing he’s sand-blasting and the staircase he’s hacked into, and she feels it’s their relationship he’s attacking, task by task. There’s sand in the roots of her hair and splinters threaten her heels until she stuffs her feet into shoes.

“Why don’t you move out?” Devin suggests. “Just while I renovate the stairs and get the roof sorted.”

“What’s wrong with the roof?” she asks, picturing a riddling of swifts and pipistrelles.

He shakes his head like she should know. “Chimney’s not safe. One gust and it’ll be over.”

Eileen doesn’t move out, but she takes to spending more time walking along the town’s coastal paths and steep streets. She plucks tips of rosemary and mint overflowing strangers’ walls and presses the fragrance into the skin of her hands.

She’s inhaling this sweet, ticklish smell late one afternoon as she turns a corner and glimpses her for the first time.

Her. She should think it, she knows that. But… Cherrywood surfaces glow a shade deeper than caramel, poised above three curved legs that meet in a posture like a ballet plie. Eileen runs her palm over a polished edge.

The handwritten sign is pinned on top by a large pebble: “Free”

That’s all she needs to know.

Eileen carries the side table home. Clouds cobweb the sinking sun and then thicken into clods. Rain begins to fall, bringing with it the fierce quenching scent of petrichor.

When they finally reach her back garden, crabapple branches rattle to welcome them.

From the hallway she hears a whine of drilling hollowing something deep inside. She thinks of exposed wires, torque and speed as the first streak of lightening fractures the sky.

Eileen lugs the side table to the shelter of a jasmine bush still tangled with the former resident’s fairy lights. She winds her arms and legs through the side table’s strong supporting curves. The underneath of the tabletop touches her hair. It’s the faintest suggestion of a caress.

The scent of water penetrating earth rises about them. Eileen nestles closer to the side table’s carved limbs and prepares to wait out the storm.

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JUDY DARLEY — Judy is a fiction writer, journalist and brand engagement manager living by England’s North Somerset coast. She is the author of short fiction collections The Stairs are a Snowcapped Mountain (Reflex Press), Sky Light Rain (Valley Press) and Remember Me to the Bees (Tangent Books). Her words have been shared on BBC radio, aboard boats and on coastal paths, as well as in museums, caves and a deconsecrated church. She is currently working on a short fiction collection and a hybrid memoir beast she’s not sure how to describe. Find Judy at https://bsky.app/profile/judydarley.bsky.social.

Art by DYLAN MANNING — Dylan is an artist and comedian and co-founder of money money productions, a comedy production house. She is a micro micro influencer on Tiktok with a whopping 23 followers. If you act fast you can be her 24th follower. Find her @imdylanmanning on Tiktok or dylan_s_pickles on Instagram.