By M.P.F.
Arthur ran the vacuum cleaner forward and back over a persistent paper scrap, fallen to the floor from an envelope ripped open, the formality of the letter opener long abandoned, and looked at the clock, estimating whether he had enough time to change the vacuum cleaner bag before Reverend Laurel arrived. If the bag was too full to accommodate a paper scrap, there wasn’t much sense in vacuuming.
Lindy would have done it, or more likely, she would have told him to change the bag and finish the job so she could have the time to set out coffee cups, dessert plates, cocktail napkins, and brownies made from Ghirardelli brownie mix with caramels dropped in the batter once she’d smoothed it in the pan. Her Promethean addition.
“Everyone loves those brownies,” she’d tell their daughter, Rebecca, when Rebecca was fussing over what to bring to an office party, or what to serve dinner guests for dessert. “I don’t know why you make it so difficult for yourself, thinking you have to make something that takes so much time.”
“Because that’s the expectation!” Rebecca would answer. “Women now work outside the home yet no one with any self-respect serves brownies out of a box.”
“Well then, I’m glad I’m not your age and that apparently I don’t have any self-respect,” Lindy would say.
“It’s as if, in addition to working,” Rebecca would continue, “we’re all supposed to be milling our own organic flour and baking banana bread with eggs fresh from our backyard heritage breed chickens.”
“Now that’s just ridiculous. I serve my box brownies, and no one knows the difference. Just add some caramels. That makes them a little bit different.”
Those two were always on the phone, and Arthur appreciated that after Lindy died, Rebecca continued her ritual of calling once a day. He wished there was more to say when she did. This evening when she called, he’d tell her about the Reverend’s visit.
Arthur clicked the last vacuum cleaner bag from the box into place and wrote “vacuum cleaner bags” on a eight-by-five white lined notebook, which Lindy had said was the best size to fit in the kitchen drawer next to the pens. Lindy was as particular about organizing her lists as she was about what size paper they were written on. One for the drugstore, and one for each of the different grocery stores—certain grocers having better prices on certain items, or fresher produce than others. And whenever Arthur went out on an errand of his own design, or to meet another retired gentleman, such as himself, for lunch, Lindy would ask which direction he was headed so she knew which list to give him. “If you’re going up that way would you mind stopping by the drugstore? Here’s the list.” And she’d go on to explain under what circumstances he was or wasn’t to buy a listed item. The toilet tissue only if they have double rolls. The aspirin only if they had the brand featured in the shopping insert of the newspaper: it was on sale.
Arthur had done well in his work. Well enough that because they’d lived simply, he was year after year able to contribute the maximum amount to his company’s defined contribution plan. And he and Lindy were freer now with money than they’d ever been before. But Lindy kept up her same habits because, “there’s no need to pay extra for something when you don’t have to.”
When Rebecca would ask the inverse of the brownie question—why didn’t her mother make life easier for herself and buy all her groceries in one place—Lindy would say, “It’s better this way. It gives your father something to do. He likes to run errands. And I’ll take any excuse I can to get him out of the house. It keeps him from sitting in his chair all day.”
Lindy was right. Arthur did like running errands, having been in sales, always visiting clients. Being home all the time was an adjustment. As was living without Lindy. He’d found that fulfilling the lists was different than managing the lists, and he’d come to appreciate how much it was that his wife, and not just his work ethic, had made possible their comfortable retirement.
The vacuum cleaner, reinvigorated, sucked up the paper and a piece of yarn, a remnant of Rebecca’s knitting. She took the first flight after the news of her mother’s passing, and stayed on for two weeks after the funeral. During the days she’d gone through Lindy’s things—Lindy’s closet, her sewing room, drawers, and more drawers—organizing stacks to give to Goodwill, or to pack up and mail to herself, though Arthur wasn’t quite sure where Rebecca and her husband would find the room.
A practical man, Arthur didn’t favor excess, and if the circumstances had been different, he would have told his daughter, “You can’t hang on to everything.” This is what he’d said when he and Lindy had told Rebecca they were no longer willing to store all of her childhood books. “And I’m sure they’re unhealthy to have in the house,” Lindy had added. “They’ve got to be full of dust mites. We’ll donate them to the library.”
“So the library can have our dust mites?” Rebecca said.
“That’s right.” Lindy answered. “I’m sure there are some young readers out there who will really appreciate them.”
“The books or the dust mites?” Rebecca asked. Her mother had ignored the comment.
But now, Arthur was glad Rebecca wasn’t giving everything away, because that would have made Lindy’s life feel all the more disposable. And he had no prudent words about storage considerations, or the inability of inanimate objects to turn back time. And the latter, anyway, was something Lindy would have said, not him. Rebecca, he surmised, would surely find a spot for everything.
Maybe he should sell the house, all alone what would he do with so much space? So many rooms to vacuum? He could give some of the proceeds from selling the house to Rebecca and her husband for a down payment to buy something bigger.
In the evenings, after a day’s work of making her stacks for giveaway and for keeping, Rebecca would knit, and Arthur found her habit comforting because Lindy, especially in her younger years, when her eyesight was better, always worked on some sort of stitching project in the evenings. Arthur never paid much attention to what, though he’d often tell his wife she was overextending herself. Everyone knew what a good seamstress she was, and everyone, consequently, had a project that they said “wouldn’t take that much time.” And would she mind?
In the absence of warm brownies to serve, Arthur rummaged about the pantry. The Reverend was running late. Probably delayed at his prior appointment. Tragedy: no better impetus for ministerial demand. Everyone wanting an answer to the question to which Reverend Laurel had none: Why does God let bad things happen? Though it was only children who asked the question so plainly.
Thanks to generous neighbors, Arthur had eaten lasagna, chicken pot pie, and casseroles for weeks. And on the third shelf of the pantry, on top of some cans of tomatoes, he found a gifted tin of cookies. From a cursory inspection he decided they’d do just fine, unclear on how these condolence visits were supposed to be handled anyway. Was he responsible for providing refreshment? Or did the Reverend, as did the neighbors, bring something to share considering the circumstances? But surely the Reverend couldn’t be expected to bring sympathy refreshments to every household he visited. Lindy would have known what was expected.
When the Reverend had called Arthur to propose his visit, and had asked how Arthur was doing, Arthur had told the Reverend that he “was getting on,” which the Reverend had interpreted to mean only by the grace of lasagna-laden neighbors. The Reverend had seen it before. Women knew what to do when a husband died. Women had friends, a practiced support network already in place, but retired men, most of them didn’t have friends beyond those they’d met through a shared hobby or their wives. “I’m glad to hear it, Arthur,” the Reverend had said, “I’m sure Lindy would be proud of how you’re handling things, but why don’t I stop by for a visit?”
It’d been one month since Lindy’s funeral, and Arthur hadn’t gone to church once since, though he had mailed the tithing check that his wife had readied in the envelope, the stamp already on it. She had a system worked out of when she mailed checks and paid the bills—always on time but not too soon. Because, in the case of a bill, there was “no need for them to have your money before they needed it.” Stagflation had defined the economy during the early years of their marriage, and Lindy managed the household finances as if checking accounts still paid generous interest. Rebecca had gone through her mother’s desk, making sure there were no bills outstanding, and had suggested to Arthur that he transition to paying all of the bills online as soon as he received them.
Arthur suspected the Reverend would comment on his Sunday service absence, not in judgment, but as a way to welcome him back into the church community. It was Lindy who had dictated their church attendance. Did Lindy talk to God? Pray? Arthur had no idea but found his own relationship with God made more complicated as he and God had no shared hobby upon which to begin a conversation.
Arthur set the tin of cookies along with some napkins on the coffee table, turned on the television, and settled in his chair—the one that faced the television, the one that his wife had bought him two years ago because his prior chair had “served beyond its years and looked ratty.” For the entirety of their marriage, it seemed, she was shopping to replace something that in her estimation looked ratty. Over dinner, she’d detail her exploits, having been to this and that store where she’d found something that “would be perfect if it came in a different color” and another that “wouldn’t be perfect, but would work” if only it was available in a slightly different size.
After a day in the office Arthur found the narratives tiresome and repetitious, and he sometimes interrupted his wife, urging her “to get to the point” as if it was he who was the CEO of the house. But upon putting his feet up, and noticing the worn corners of his ottoman, he wished Lindy had replaced it at the same time as she had replaced the chair.
Hearing a knock, Arthur turned off the television, and made his way to the door.
“Arthur.” The Reverend extended his hand, knowing that most men of Arthur’s age were like eggs—opaque, with a hard shell, but extremely breakable—not wanting to be embraced. “It’s good to see you. I apologize for running late, and for not coming by sooner,” the Reverend said, even though it’d been Arthur who’d put off the visit, making excuses as to when would be a convenient time for the Reverend to stop by. “The weeks have gotten away from me. It’s been a difficult time.”
“I imagine it has,” Arthur answered, hoping that by referencing his imagination versus his own experience, he could make clear to the Reverend that there was no need for effusive sympathy, though his choice of words were rote. Arthur never thought through the impact of his words on others like Lindy did, a fact of which she’d been quick to remind him.
“Come on in and have a seat,” Arthur said. “Is there anything I can get you? Some of our friends gave us one of those pod coffee machines that makes one cup at a time.” Lindy wouldn’t have made reference to the effort required to make one cup of coffee or a whole pot, but amongst men, Arthur believed the Reverend would be more likely to say yes if he understood one cup of coffee was no trouble.
“I’ll take you up on that,” the Reverend said, and Arthur led the way to the kitchen, grateful for a task. “You can look in this drawer here,” Arthur directed the Reverend’s attention to the coffee pods of various colors, “we keep a few different types, even decaf if that’s what you like.”
From the time they were married to a few years ago, with the gift of the single-cup coffee maker, Lindy made a pot of coffee every morning in a percolator. Rebecca, on every visit before this last, commented on the wastefulness of the single-cup machine with its plastic pods, and Arthur had told his daughter that, “When you get old, you just want to do what is easy.”
He and Lindy had accepted their age, but Arthur was astounded by the swiftness of his wife’s death. He hadn’t wanted her to suffer. She’d always said “the best any one of us can hope for is that we die in our sleep,” which was arguably as sudden and unexpected as being gunned down at a big-box store. But not having known anyone who died in their sleep, Arthur assumed there’d be at least one week’s time, back and forth trips to the hospital, to work up to saying goodbye. But the last conversation he’d had with his wife was about shopping. She was stopping by Clover’s, she said, after getting her haircut, did he need anything?
“Any type of coffee you recommend is fine with me,” the Reverend said.
“I’ll give you my favorite,” Arthur replied, dropping a Dunkin’ Donuts pod into the machine, turning it on, and setting off a glug of water.
“Milk?” Arthur asked. “I also have this vanilla flavored creamer I like to use.” Lindy didn’t approve of the creamer. “Too much sugar,” she said. And Rebecca too had warned against it, to which he’d said, “I doubt this is going to be the thing that gets me.”
“I’ll take some of your creamer if you don’t mind,” the Reverend answered. “My wife won’t let me use it. She says it’s not healthy.” Arthur reflexively queued a comment meant to communicate that us husbands had to stick together considering the nonsensical notions of wives, but finding the appeal now gone in his wife’s absence, said, “Lindy didn’t much approve either.”
“I know you and Lindy took care of each other,” Reverend Laurel said, finding his opening, maybe a crack. “It’s one of the most difficult times, losing a spouse.” Reverend Laurel liked to make open-ended statements. Yes and no questions made it too easy for parishioners not disposed to share their feelings to avoid his pastoral counsel.
“Unfortunately, it’s something most of us will go through,” Arthur said. He was willing to consider church attendance, but emotional displays, he believed, were best reserved for women and younger generations, and he’d found that generalizing an experience was one of the best ways to politely avoid providing a personal reflection.
“Are you taking care of yourself?” the Reverend conceded.
“I’m getting along. Rebecca was here for two weeks.”
The coffee machine sputtered to an end, and Arthur set the steaming cup onto the kitchen island. “Say when?” he prompted the Reverend, holding the vanilla creamer above the mug.
“We’ve missed you at church,” the Reverend added, leaving Arthur to guess the amount. “Sometimes, when we lose someone, we can fight against God. And especially in a circumstance like this, when we lose someone so suddenly.”
“Here you go. I poured it the way I like it,” Arthur said, handing the sugar-creamed coffee to the Reverend. “Would you like to have a seat in the living room? One of the neighbors brought over some cookies. I shouldn’t eat all of them myself.” And Arthur motioned the way, pointing at the coffee table where the tin of cookies sat.
“It’s easy to be angry at God,” the Reverend continued, sitting in the guest chair, the one with its back facing the television. “We’re told He’ll take care of us, and at times like this, especially losing Lindy the way we did, we may feel abandoned.”
“Oh, I can’t say I’m angry with God,” Arthur told the Reverend, shifting his weight in his seat.
“It would be okay if you were. You know Jesus got angry at things that He believed were unjust.”
“Well, I can’t see what good getting angry would do.”
“No?” the Reverend prompted.
“It wouldn’t change anything.”
“That it wouldn’t. But sometimes people feel better having been given permission.”
“It’s just— It’s just senseless is what it is. I don’t know what makes anyone think they can take other people’s lives like that. And I don’t know what’s wrong with the culture: people shooting strangers for no reason. It wasn’t always like this,” Arthur said, shaking his head side to side as a demonstration of his disapproval. “It makes me glad I’m old. You didn’t hear about this sort of thing happening when I was young.
“You know Lindy didn’t like to travel much,” Arthur went on, leaning forward to pick up a napkin from the coffee table, but not a cookie, the Reverend noticed. “She prioritized her creature comforts, and routines,” Arthur said, setting the napkin down on the rounded arm of his leather chair where it slipped to the floor. “I’d just gotten her to agree to go on a trip,” he said, pressing one of his forearms into the armrest, and a hand on the other as if to steady himself. “We were going to go out west. She went with me out west once when I was traveling on business. That was a number of years ago now.”
“She left us too soon, didn’t she?”
“Too soon,” Arthur said, looking like an egg vigorously boiled, on the threshold of a hairline crack. And he abruptly leaned forward to pick up the tin, and offered the Reverend a cookie.
“I’m glad to see your neighbors have been of support,” the Reverend said, taking two. “It’s important we’re not alone.”
Arthur recalled when Lindy would stand over the kitchen counter, fixing a casserole for a neighbor whose sister, brother, or mother had died. “Arthur,” she’d say, “once this is ready, I want you to take it over.”
“Do you think that’s best?” he’d ask. “You know them better than I do.”
“Yes,” and then she’d say something like, “but I’ve got to run Rebecca to the store to buy some art supplies for a school project. I’m assuming you don’t want to do that?” she’d ask. “And if I go next door, I’m going to get stuck.” By which she meant consoling the neighbor for their loss; Lindy a more befitting listener than he.
It was the wives of the neighbors who had delivered the casseroles to him, perhaps saving themselves the trouble of asking their husbands, confident that Arthur wouldn’t keep them. Or maybe they’d made the deliveries themselves because they thought Arthur needed someone to talk to.
Setting down the tin, Arthur said, “I guess the truth is, we’re always alone, aren’t we?” Which he said as more of a statement than a question, and realizing how his statement may be interpreted, he hoped he hadn’t offended the Reverend.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the Reverend answered, “not if we choose not to be. But even if we choose to be alone, God is always with us. Available to us when we’re ready.”
“Well, I appreciate that Reverend,” Arthur said, as if it wasn’t that God was willing to make himself available because he was God, but that God had agreed to make himself available as a favor to the Reverend. As if God was the Reverend’s business partner, which Arthur thought, in a way, God was.
“Sometimes I find it helps to talk about a special memory,” the Reverend said, having found that unreceptive parishioners could be pried open if he spoke to them not as a member of the clergy, but as a friend and neighbor. And seeing Arthur again grip the armrest of his chair, he knew the boiled white of the egg was beginning to fizz through the cracks. “What about that trip out west?”
That trip. His meetings were scheduled to end on a Thursday and he’d suggested to Lindy that she should join him. That they could take a long weekend. Rebecca had just turned two, and he thought the both of them could use some time. Which is not what he’d said to Lindy, but he’d thought she’d understood.
They’d seen the Grand Canyon. At least he had. Lindy wouldn’t get any closer than three feet from the railing. “Who’s going to take care of Rebecca if we both fall over the edge?” she’d asked. “We’re not going to fall over the edge,” he’d told her. “Well, I’m certainly not,” she’d answered.
He’d hoped that when he retired, and with Rebecca all grown up, they could spend more time together, and maybe, Lindy would be freer. A little more adventurous. He’d worked on her for over six months to get her to agree to that trip. The hotel was advertised as a good place for newlyweds.
Arthur cleared his throat and readjusted his glasses. And just when the Reverend thought he had him, the phone rang.
“Rebecca,” Arthur answered, with an emphasis on the middle syllable, clearly delighted by her timing. “Reverend Laurel just stopped by. Why don’t you say hello?” And Arthur handed the Reverend the phone.
No sir. Not him. That’s just not how he was raised. A man of his age? He wouldn’t allow it. And the hairline crack scarred and sealed shut.
