He glanced across the bed. Damn dogs. Margie was already up. They must’ve woken her. He was the early riser and Margie was the sleeper. If she got ten hours, she was a happy girl. Even if she wasn’t well-rested, she was energetic and vivacious. Most mornings during the week, she was barely stirring by the time he was walking out the door. On the weekends, he could be up for hours before she stumbled into the sun room to say good morning. Even Sundays. Our Lady of Sorrows had two Masses – one at nine am and the other at eleven - and for as long as he could remember, they had gone to the eleven o’clock Mass, which suited them both. He would read for hours, then roust Margie in time for her to get ready. A quarter after nine gave her plenty of time. She always had toast and orange juice, then set about getting dressed. They had whole wheat, he thought surely enough for both of them, though offhand he couldn’t remember when he went to the store last. Maybe it was muffins they had in the breadbox.
Awake by dawn most days, he still liked to lay there and get his mind together before his feet hit the floor. The whole day seemed better if he composed himself and didn’t just plunge in. At the office, he was the clear thinker, the straight path guy, the guy who knew where all the pieces went. They relied on him for that, just like Margie did.
He could wake her up a little early, say a quarter of nine, and if the weather was nice, they’d have plenty of time to just walk the four blocks to church.
This might be a good day to work in the garden after church. As long as it wasn’t winter, it was his custom to spend Sunday afternoons either in the yard with rake and shovel or in the sun room with a book. Margie would have her crosswords. A whole afternoon of crosswords. She worked in pencil, yes, but she worked them old-school. She always said “don’t write them down until you’re sure, and you’ll seldom have to erase.” She seldom did. Maybe a little lunch first, and then he’d head out to the garden. When they were done with church, not now, of course, he reminded himself.
He rolled to the right and slid his feet off the bed, then pushed himself up. Pause for a moment to settle the blood. No need to get light headed if you can avoid it. He then rose gently, so as not to waken Margie. She loved her sleep. She could go ten hours at a stretch and still want more sometimes, any day of the week. Even with his arm working its way into his robe, he was careful to close the bedroom door quietly and made sure it caught. “If we had cats, I don’t need them wandering into the bedroom and disturbing Margie,” he thought. She’d be awake soon enough and then they could walk right down St. Charles to Our Mother of Sorrows. “If we had cats …” Malcolm repeated the phrase aloud several times on his way to the kitchen, less of a mantra than a talisman. By the time he got to the kitchen, it didn’t matter what he intended to do if they had cats, but it didn’t really matter. They hadn’t had cats in years.
Some mornings, he’d look out the kitchen window and into the garden and be overwhelmed at how it had changed since they moved there. Some days, he scarcely recognized it, having that old first image seared into his memory. There’d been so many changes he sometimes lost track of what had and hadn’t been done. The house had been far from a “unique fixer-upper” as they used to say. The front yard and the interior had changed very little over the years, but the back garden had most definitely taken lots of work and time. He was proud of the work he’d put into it, with Margie’s help of course, at the start. He was especially proud of the carriage house they’d transformed into a mother in law house for Margie’s mom, so she’d have a place when she got to the point where she couldn’t take care of herself. He couldn’t recall, offhand, exactly why Glenda had never come to live with them after all that work. He just remembered putting a lot of work into that building. He scribbled a little note on the pad by the phone to remind him to ask Margie about it when she came home from the store. “Glenda – house?” was all it said, but he was sure that’s all he needed to make the association.
He pulled the coffee maker out from the back of the counter, a little surprised. Margie must have replaced the old one without mentioning it to him. Not that it was a problem, just a surprise. She was usually eager to show off her acquisitions, even for such mundane things as coffee pots.
The coffee can had an adhesive note stuck on it – “measure: full pot, three scoops” was all it said, so that was what he did. After all, if he couldn’t trust his own note to himself …
The scoop in the can looked too small, though, so he rummaged through the drawer marked measuring cups until he found something that looked right. Cup 1/4, it said. It looked right. He scooped, then scraped off the excess and dumped it into the filter basket. The note on the can was pointed right at him, so he very diligently scooped, scraped and dumped three times.
While the coffee began brewing, he walked into the sun room and settled into the glider rocker. He picked up a magazine from the top of his stack and found it was a National Geographic. The big picture on the cover was the space shuttle Columbia. It was an old issue – very old – but he couldn’t recall just when and from where it had come. He thumbed through it, expecting to refresh his mind, but it all seemed fairly new to him, so he opened to the first article.
Some of it, once he settled in, seemed a little familiar after all, but he must’ve read it somewhere else. He just couldn’t recall ever having read that particular article. Maybe he’d ask Maggie when she came in. She’d been gone a pretty good while. He just pondered that for a few minutes, then thought maybe it was about time to start the coffee.
In the hall, he could smell coffee, strong coffee, and knew that Maggie must be up and about. He could hear the coffee maker gurgling, so he went back and sat down. There was a National Geographic on the end table next to his chair. An article on the space shuttle Columbia caught his attention, so he jumped to that page and started reading while he waited for Margie to wake.
He would glance up from time to time, resting his eyes and letting them wander across the back yard. Sunday afternoon would be a good time to work in the garden. There were some azaleas that needed a little extra attention coming out of winter. He got up and turned on the stereo, cueing up a Miles David CD. He thought about turning on the TV, which he sometimes did. There was just too much going on these days to keep track of anything. Too much noise, too many things happening. He knew if he turned the TV on, he’d just get frustrated and confused, so why give himself the aggravation? It was the same reason he’d stopped getting a newspaper. So many things going on and it was just too much trouble to keep track of. He was retired. He didn’t need the aggravation of trying to manage thousands of things out of his control.
“I wonder if I locked the door last night?” It was late and he was exhausted. He couldn’t really remember doing it, even though it was something he always did. Years of automatic behavior gave him good confidence that the door was closed and locked, but every now and then, even the best system, the most faithfully observed patterns let you down. “Only human” he muttered and got up to check the door. When he hit the hall, he picked up the smell of the coffee and paused. That meant Margie was at hand. “There was something I was going to mention to her earlier, as I recall, but … it’s not coming to mind at the moment.” Maybe her face would refresh his memory, he thought.
“Margie … Margie …?”
He thought about going in search of her, but decided to return to his chair and relax. It wasn't an enormous house and wasn’t like she could have wandered far unless she went to the store, but he couldn't remember her mentioning a trip to the store. He decided to grab his coffee and go back to his chair, and just relax until she came in from the garage or the yard or wherever she was.
On his way back to his chair, he stopped by the fireplace. There was a stack of mail right on the end next to the large vase. All the postmarks were old, many months old, from government agencies, the bank, their mortgage company, the funeral home. Ah. Next to the vase, which was not a vase. He ran his finger around the base of the urn. Margie Kenton (1944-2013)
His chair was still warm when he settled back into it, which was comforting, since he had taken on a chill. The National Geographic next to his chair was open to an article about the space program. He thought about picking up where he’d left off, but he’d lost interest by then, so he closed it and picked up one of Margie’s crossword puzzle magazines. It still had one of her pencils wedged between the pages next to the spine, little marks up by the eraser where she’d sometimes nibble when stumped.
He stared at the rows for a while, his eyes drifting back and forth, then switched and stared at the columns for about as long, his eyes drifting up and down. The garden seemed to be calling him, but he was still in his robe and pajamas. He wedged the pencil back between the pages and set it down. He closed his eyes. Everything else could wait. He could doze for a bit and then tackle things anew.
The doorbell rang once, and then again maybe twenty seconds later. The first time, it was buried in the background behind a dream Malcolm was having in Acadia National Park. He was talking with two men at a campsite with a soft church bell ringing in the background. He knew there was something about the bell he needed to respond to, but he wanted to finish his thought. By the time the bell rang a second time, he had already started to rise back to the surface of his mind.
He was half way down the hall when the front door opened, startling him for a moment until his son’s face came into view. “Oh, hi, dad – sorry, I couldn’t find my keys, then I remembered they were sitting in the center console in the car. I hope I didn’t disturb you. Were you sleeping?”
All the words sailed by Malcolm, swirling down the hall. “David … I didn’t know you were coming. I was just reading in the sun room. I was waiting … ” he paused and rubbed his face “… your mom’s out. When she gets back, we’ll be going to church, I suppose.”
David paused to read Malcolm’s face, then closed the door calmly. “Hey, dad, how ‘bout we sit down for a few minutes … while we wait. I smell coffee. Come sit and I’ll grab us both some.” He took Malcolm’s elbow and steered him back down the hall.
“Did the kids come with you?”
“No, dad – they’re both off at college.”
“Oh, right. They grow so fast, don’t they?”
“It’s amazing. So easy to lose track, right, Dad?”
“Where are they again …?”
“The kids are at college, Dad.”
“No, no, I know that. I don’t remember where they … where the colleges are.”
“Oh, sure, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. Candice is at UT Austin and Brian is ~”
“… about church, David …”
“What about it, dad?”
“Well, like I said. We were going to go to eleven o’clock Mass, but since you’re here, I think we’ll go ahead and skip it, you know.”
David thought for a moment. “You bet, Dad. Whatever you think is best. So – how did it go with the home health care lady yesterday?”
David could see his father laboring over the question, mulling things and putting pieces together for a reply. “Oh, it went fine, I guess. Her name was … Michelle, as I recall. She left some notes ~” he flicked a finger toward the kitchen “~ on the counter in there. I was going to ask your mom to take a look at them, but she’s … gone.”
“Yeah, dad …”
“What is it, David?”
“Y’know, nothing. It’s not important.”
Malcolm took off his reading glasses and rubbed his face with the back of his hands.
He propped the glasses on his forehead and continued rubbing his eyes with his hands. He gave a deep sigh and dropped his hands to the arms of his chair.
David picked up the National Geographic and flipped through it, hopping through articles one after another.
“Hey, dad, here’s a picture of that state park we went to in North Carolina … dad … … hey …?”
Malcolm’s eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and steady. David considered his options, which weren’t too diverse. He could wait or he could wake Malcolm and let him know he was about to leave … or he could decide to just camp out there for a couple of hours.
While he was in the midst of undeciding, shuffling magazines around on the coffee table, his dad woke up.
“Oh, David. I didn’t hear you come in. Listen, your mom’s around here somewhere. Why don’t you visit with her for a bit? Maybe she’s in the yard. I’m going to take a little nap and I’ll catch you afterward if you’re still here.” He rose a little unsteadily and glanced out the picture window. He didn’t see Margie out there, so she was probably in the den or kitchen, or maybe the laundry room.
“Anyway, I’m just worn out. If your mom’s looking for me, that’s where I’ll be.”
Alright, dad. You do what you need to do and I’ll … I hang around for a bit and let myself out.”
Malcolm turned and looked back across the room at him. “Say … if you have a couple of minutes, maybe take a look at the notes from the home health lady …”
“Yeah, dad. Will do. If I leave before you finish your nap, I’ll scribble some notes down for you and … and we’ll talk later.”
“Yeah … okay.” Malcolm could tell something was out of whack, but the exact thing escaped him. That was fine. He’d sort it out when he was refreshed, after his nap. Margie would help. She always helped when he was like this.
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