Don't cry for me

The gate creaked in the wind, swinging on rusted hinges.  She'd meant to oil them today.  She'd meant to oil them yesterday too, and the day before that, and the day before that... the days all stretched back until they became a long dark tunnel that she'd been walking through forever.  The oil was on the shelf exactly where Homion had left it when he'd left.  All she had to do was stand up, get it, and oil the hinges on the gate.
She didn't stand up, just as she hadn't any of those nights in the past.  She was sitting down now, in a chair that her grandmother had bequeathed to her when she died, the only chair in the three-room hovel that she felt comfortable in.  The upholstery – she whispered the word to herself like a charm, Homion had hated her using words he didn't understand – was threadbare in too many places and coarse white stuffing kept pulling free and collecting on the floor, in the corners and underneath the broken-legged coffee table.  She should get rid of the coffee-table too.  Homion had brought it back one night from a bar, won in a poker game of all things.  It had stains on it that she'd never been able to scrub out and didn't match anything else in the room.  She'd throw it out right after she oiled the hinges of the gate.
She tugged her knees up to her chest and listened to the hinges creak.  The wind was getting up again, and bringing a breath of chilliness into the house with it.  She thought about staying here, sleeping in the chair again, but her back was hurting and it was always worse when she spent the night in the chair.  Tomorrow, at the Laundro-tastic, she was on the ironing duty and although it was easier than when she had to do the service washes, hauling piles of wet clothes from washer to wringer, and bending over sorting the whites and the coloureds – mustn't call them that anymore, she thought with a ghost of a smile on her face – it was still easier to do when she'd slept in the bed.
The bedroom was cold because one of the window panes was broken.  She didn't fix that, Homion did.  When he was here.  Three of the others were papered over to hold back the wind; he'd said that he couldn't get the glass.  She knew that the money had gone on flowers and trinkets for the woman he'd skipped out on her with.  The largest part of it had gone on a green brooch, as long as her thumb, made of some soft stone.  She thought it might have been jade.  It went with her eyes, not those of the woman he'd skipped out on her with.
The crib, still standing by the bed, was still empty, and her breath still caught in her throat when she saw it.  She added it to her list.  Oil the hinges on the gate, throw away the coffee table, burn the crib.  Burn the crib and all its horrible memories.
She lay down on the bed, not bothering to pull the stained sheet over her.  Another chore; take the sheets with her to the Laundro-tastic, Tuesday would be best when Laurel would be at her bridge club braying with her friends and saying stupid things like "Oh, three clubs, Ethel!  What were you thinking?"  Slip them into a service wash, get them nice and clean.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen them clean.
Oh wait, yes.  Before she'd caught Homion and that whore here, in her bed.
She rolled over, she needed to get to sleep.  The insurance company still hadn't paid out on the car, said they were investigating.  What was there to investigate?  Homion and the whore had skipped out on her and were drunk when they drove through the level-crossing and got stuck on the tracks in front of the train.  The police said so, they'd called her at the Laundro-tastic to tell her that her husband was dead.  She'd even remembered to cry.