101 Words

Lovers.

That’s what she’s scribbled on this week’s shopping list: tonight’s dinner—Lovers.

I puzzle over it, loading Tuesday’s gammon into the trolley.

Not a word we use anymore. We did, when our joints didn’t ache, when we had no cares, when we lived hand to mouth, lips to bed. Before her menopause and my GERD.

Is this our reawakening? Has she found what we lost?

When I get home, I slip my arms around her. “So, what’s for dinner tonight?” I nibble her neck.

She twists and shrugs. “Left overs.”

“Oh.”

She kisses me fondly. “But I prefer your suggestion.”

He’s out early again. My father, tending his garden. Neat rows of vegetables, fruits and herbs, flowers blooming in the spring warmth.

He’s talking to them. I wonder what he tells them. So silent around me but chatty around them. He pushes the soil, another seed going in. He pats it affectionately.

In the evening he’ll return. We’ll eat in silence.

I sprouted long ago. I blossomed but fell far from the tree. I returned home, looking for nurturing soil but finding only frost. I waited for the spring, but…

My father smiles at his plants. I go upstairs to pack.

The runes tumbled from Susan’s nervous fingers, landing on the silky white cloth below. Her desperate eyes watched me read, impatient for answers. I kept her waiting, slowly studying the half-familiar story.

“You were right to let him go,” I said finally. “He’s never getting divorced.”

When Susan left, the runes remained, staring at me in judgement.

“What? I didn’t lie,” I reasoned. “Not entirely!”

They seemed to speak back: Nor did you tell the truth.

They were right, of course. The runes said Susan was the one destined to be with my husband. But I‘d never tell her that.

“He’s coming!”

Wendy turned off the lights and giggled. This would be an epic surprise for her husband. She had told him she had an unavoidable meeting and they would have to celebrate his birthday on another night. Now sixteen friends and co-workers waited in the dark.

Mark’s car glided into driveway. The guests hushed. Two car doors slammed, and the front door opened.

Wendy turned on the lights. “Surprise! Happy birthday, big guy!”

Everyone applauded and cheered for Mark, who stood with his tie loosened, one hand holding a bottle of wine and the other around his divorce attorney JoAnn.

At age 90, Sadie hated her limitations. She hated her granddaughter jumping the fence between their fields to bring supplies. It wasn’t fair Miranda was the younger one, so nimble and fit.

“You’re such a show-off!” Sadie scolded her when Miranda arrived with groceries. “Just leave me alone!”

Then COVID-19 crept into the county, blazed its way through the Kiwanis Club, shuttered Main Street, severed Sadie from all in-person contact. Still, supplies showed up neatly arranged on her back stoop.

The old woman kept an eye on the pasture for hours. She didn’t want to miss seeing Miranda jump that fence.

He sat down in the bedroom, wearing a white dress shirt that bore a faded red spot at the collar. “My dear,” he grinned, “everything is fine.”

I clenched my teeth. Long nights away, gifts from ‘work,’ kisses that felt colder than winter, colder than death. And he didn’t even try to make a good lie. I glanced at the mirror. Did my forties make me so unappealing to my husband? “Don’t you trust me?” he asked.

“Yes, dear,” I answered, smiling. “I do.” My mom said women fight the biggest battles. My naïve husband had just declared war with me.