Arthur considered turning around to look at her, but resigned himself to say, “You don't have to yell Irene, I'm right next to you.”
She continued, her voice rising from a whisper to a rattle, “My baby is in the army. What if something happens to him, and he never comes back! I'm sure he's old enough to retire by now.” She tried to wring her hands in worry.
“He's not on the front line,” her husband scoffed, “I'm not sure what you're worried about.”
He waited for a reply, but only heard the silence his room afforded him. Worried she had passed into other realms, he coughed.
“Of course I'm anxious he'll die in battle.”
She scowled, because even separated by a wall, she could hear the laugh in his throat as he replied, “I would think that would return him to us faster.”
She felt a surge of energy, born of righteous anger, that she hadn't experienced in a decade. “They'll lose his body in a battle, and we will never see our boy again. He needs to rest his bones in a good plot of earth.”
“Aren't they all the
same?” he asked. She wanted to beat her arms against the wall.
“Not if it isn't his home soil. Our roots are deep. Everybody wants to return home when they die.”
“He's all grown up now. Perhaps he doesn't want to be buried in his ancestral grave. Remember, we lived in Arlington when he was born, moved to Springfield where we raised him, but he moved to Fremont when he married. People nowadays move on from their homes, tearing themselves up, abandoning memories and the old.” Arthur leaned tiredly against the wood, a chilling apathy permeating his bones.
“But,” she said, with a tear almost springing to her eye, “the graveyard has such a beautiful view. Remember when we picked it? The sun rises right through the trees, encircling it like a green halo, in the morning. He come to visit, sitting on the bench nearby.”
“Why should he? Nothing lasts forever, not the view, certainly not the seating arrangements or the greenery. It was a fruitless, purposeless decision, like most of them.”
“Not all of them?”
“I'm not sure,” he said, his voice betraying a hint of tremulousness. “I couldn't say they were all pointless, yet.”
She waited, expectantly, and then continued the conversation. “Do you remember the day we met?”
“Senior year, gym class,” Arthur grunted. “You'd just transferred to the school, but I didn't know because we didn't share any other classes.
“You fell over, onto your ass, trying to dive for the volley ball I'd served,” she reflected, stifling a giggle.
“And you ducked under the net, offering me your hand.” He paused, but in a way that she knew meant he had more to say. “You embarrassed me in front of my friends.”
“When you stood up, you bumped into me.”
“I'm certain you initiated contact.”
“Well, I guess,” she said, “It's all in the past.”
After some time, she took up the conversation from a prior position.
“I'd like him to join us, before we pass away. There's plenty of space on your right, or my left. Then the grandchildren could come to stay too.” She bumped her hand helplessly against the wooden wall.
“There's not enough space for everyone in this plot.”
“They say that you shrink as you age. I'm sure I could take up less space now, if I someone helped me move.”
“You're too old for that now. You wouldn't make it in one, or one hundred pieces.”
“Well I can dream can't I?”
“All too often.”….
“Did you hear, the children talking to their grandparents next door?”
“I was trying to listen to the wind in the grass. How can you hear so well?”
“I've still got my hearing aids.”
“Pshaw, like those still work!”
“They, the kids, who I guess are in their fifties now, said to them, their grandparents, that their parents, the kids' parents, will be coming to stay with them, the grandparents. Isn't that grand?”
“Both?”
“They, the kids, said it was a car accident. At their age (and in their condition), the parents, they shouldn't have been behind the wheel. Isn't that fabulous? You know the Jones were planning on moving on soon, so they'll get to spend some quality time with their children, and we'll have new neighbors.”
“All I wanted was some peace and quiet.”
“Maybe you'll get that, when you're well and truly dead.”
Recent:
Hades: The Capricious Will of the Gods
Relevant:
Comments
Post a Comment