Cut Flowers
“Hi Dad, it’s Marla.”
“I do recognize your voice.”
“Did we get out on the wrong side of the bed?”
“There’s no we, and I don’t sleep in the bed.”
Marla sighs. This is why she doesn’t like calling him. Half the time he won’t answer the phone, and the other half is always a challenge. It reminds her of when she was learning how to drive. He made excuses or talked around it or changed the subject until she quit asking.
“That sigh was big enough to swallow the ocean.”
She hesitates but can’t hold back. “What do you expect? You think basic civility is the plague. I’m your daughter, not somebody trying to sell you something.”
“Life insurance.”
“What?”
“Life insurance. That’s what I don’t need. So, if you’re going to call and try and sell me something, make it life insurance.”
“Why do you twist everything? It’s annoying as hell.”
“I’m trying to redefine curmudgeon.”
“Guess what? You’ve succeeded.” Her frustration boiled. She used to be able to control herself. Keep herself at a simmer. No more.
“How are the kids?” He asks. That’s what he always does. Change the subject, ask about something, anything, to avoid the present topic.
“They’re fine. Jacob asked me if I could play cribbage. I told him that you had taught me. So, he asked me, to ask you, if you would teach him. That’s why I called.”
“You should have said that. I’ll teach him.”
When did she have a chance to ask him? She exhaled the steam before it could blow, and her side of the conversation became a shrill teapot whistle.
“Thanks. Jacob will love it. He looks forward to seeing you.” The words were perfunctory. Polite business etiquette, she thought. She should not speak to her father in that manner. Her mind lurched for something else to say but he replied evenly, without the prior edge.
“So do I. He’s too young to learn curmudgeon.”
“So don’t teach him that!”
“I’ll stick to fifteen two and a triple run is eight.” He was quoting a score.
“Remember he’s ten. Give him a chance. Don’t push him too hard.” Jacob was at that age where Granddad was “cool”. It was adults her father curmudgeoned.
“He’s smarter than you think.”
“I know he’s smart. I just meant,” she stumbled, trying to get the right phrase, “he will want to impress you so give him a chance.”
“The last time I was impressed was 1995.”
Uh-oh, where was this going? “1995.” She tried to say it flatly, not as a question.
“Yea. Your mother actually baked a cake. It was John’s birthday, not yours. She baked a chocolate cake from scratch. No box. And some whipped frosting. We all ate it, and everybody liked it. The one and only time she baked a cake without a box.”
Time to use his method, change the subject before he went all nostalgia on her. “I have a doctor’s appointment Thursday. How about then? I could drop the kids off, go to the doctor and do some shopping. You’ll have all afternoon with them.”
“Great.” He said it with no enthusiasm. He seemed caught in thought. “Maybe I could bake a cake.”
“Maybe you could. Maddie would like that, but Jacob will want to learn cribbage. I’ll bring Maddie’s dolls. She can play with them for hours by herself.”
“There’s got to be a recipe somewhere. Your mother couldn’t cook without a recipe.” He wasn’t going to let it go. He’d obsess on it until he did it.
“Just try the internet, Dad. There will be so many recipes that you will get upset over having to chose one.”
“Great. Curmudgeon over and out.”
“See you Thursday after lunch, Dad.” But he was all ready gone.
——————-
The internet, everything he never wanted to know. The frustrating part was his inability to remember it was there, waiting to be used. He still spent hours trying to figure something out and then suddenly remember it was right there in the fog, or the cloud, or whatever they called it. Marla was right. He should start his search for a recipe there, but instead he went to the kitchen cabinet where his wife’s cookbooks still resided. There was also a shoebox full of recipes she had cut out of papers and magazines, and a few handwritten ones. He waded through the entire box but found no cake recipes. He dragged a few cookbooks down off the shelf. One fell apart. The binding just giving up. It was a waste of an hour. He still didn’t like wasting time when a task was at hand. You had to get it done and done efficiently. Even playing games, you had to concentrate and be quick and decisive. Be ready. Plan ahead.
He went to the spare bedroom his wife had turned into an office, which meant it had a desk in it and not a bed. Over the desk she had hung diplomas. She had her high school diploma as well as two degrees from college. The kids’ diplomas were everything from a grade school art course, to junior high science programs, to college degrees. And on the far left was his. He hadn’t gone to graduation. The university must have sent it to his parent’s home. His wife must have gotten it from them. He referred to the display as the wall of accomplishment. He should take all of it down and paint the wall a brilliant red. Then hang the
accomplishments as his wife had. Maybe that would make them more impressive. If he had found that cake recipe, he’d frame it and put it up. Right in the middle.
Marla was right. On the internet cake recipes were more numerous than fireflies on a hot summer night. Well, a hot summer night forty years ago. Now you were lucky if there were three in the yard at any one time. There should be an app for choosing among all the recipes, he thought, the firefly dart app. It would make each recipe into a cyber firefly and you would throw a cyber dart that would miraculously pick one. Of course, the developer would have to claim the choice was not random but based on results obtained by cyber comparisons of cyber cooking. He chose one based on the chocolate and butter content. The more the merrier was a theory the internet seemed to embrace and so could he when it came to chocolate and butter.
He got up from the chair and went the four steps to the couch against the opposite wall, tossed the pillow and blanket to the other end, and sat down with the recipe he had printed out. He had been sleeping on that couch or the one downstairs in the family room since his wife had died. The choice was determined by whether he was reading or watching television when he fell asleep. Though lately, there were times when he would surf the internet at night. But that was mostly in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep. Some incident on the news, some historical reference he had seen on public television, or mainly something he remembered and wanted to see if he remembered it correctly; the time, the place, the people involved. He would wake up having to urinate and be amazed at the dream he was having. Most of them made no sense to him, no reason to be, and they were peopled by individuals he had not seen in years. Strange surroundings, weird circumstances, a scene from a TV program he had seen but with a guy from high school in it. He actually looked forward to getting up at three o’clock to see what he was dreaming. His mind pulling pieces from today, yesterday, and never, putting them together. At first, he thought it must be what drug addicts experienced. Then he decided it was more like a jigsaw puzzle his mind was attempting to put together every night after a day of scattering the pieces and adding more. Having a job, kids, and a wife sure helped keep your mind straight, not wandering from the present to the past, from the what-if to it could have been.
He looked at the recipe. Why did he recall that birthday? Big deal–she baked a cake. Obviously, Marla didn’t remember. But it wasn’t her birthday. Thirty years from now though, she would wake up in the middle of the night and there would be that cake, but some girl she had not seen in fifty years would be eating it in the middle of a TV show Marla had watched that night. Did women become curmudgeons? He’d have to search the internet for women curmudgeons. See what they were like. But first he had to go to the store. Get the ingredients. Maybe tonight he would have a dream about butter, cocoa and baking a cake in a kitchen with a movie star that looked like his mother-in-law but talked like Sophia Loren. Sophia Loren didn’t talk; she cooed.
—————-
“Get your dolls, Maddie.” Marla was cleaning the dishes after a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and apple slices. Everything was half or three quarters eaten. Why neither child could finish a sandwich or banana baffled her. And if she cut something in two, they would complain about not getting a whole one. When she was a kid, she had made her mother cut the crust off the bread, but at least she ate the uncrusted sandwich completely. Her mother had been gone for a year now. She had been sick for an extended period of time. Not only because of the cancer but also the way they treated it. Her father called it barbarian therapy now, but she didn’t remember him saying that when her mother was under treatment. But he was right. If she got breast cancer, there would be no chemo or radiation. That year of treatment was as responsible as her death for her father’s present behavior. He wouldn’t eat tuna salad because it had been her mother’s favorite lunch, which she had ended up refusing to eat after barfing it up so many times. At the end, she said it just didn’t taste the same. That’s what her father said now. And his newfound desire to be a curmudgeon–what brought that on? It was antithesis of the forty years she had known him. He could be quirky. He avoided confrontation. At times, he would sit in the middle of a large group conversation and never say anything. He would just listen. But he was never mean. Nothing approaching cruel. But now? Now he turned it on and turned it off like a light. Unbearable one minute and the old Dad the next. Bitter with adults, sweet with children. The kids were totally unaware of any change in their grandfather. Last week Maddie had told her she should not yell at Granddad.
Jacob came into the room, a cribbage board tucked under his arm. “I’m ready to go,” he said.
“You can leave the cribbage board here.” Marla turned Jacob with her hands and gave him a gentle push back toward where he had come. “Make sure your sister has her dolls ready to go.”
“What’s wrong with this board?” Jacob protested.
- “Nothing. It’s just not necessary to take it over there. Leave it here, and I’ll play a game with you after you get back and see what you’ve learned.”
“Ok.” Jacob was disappointed but obeyed. “How many boards does Granddad have?”
“I’m not sure. At least three I can think of.”
“He always has one out that he plays on.”
“He and your grandmother used to play.” The last year her mother was in treatment her father would play regularly with her to try and get her mind off the situation. Maybe it was their collective mind? But Jacob was right. The board was still out on the dining room table where they had played. Sitting on the corner, pegs in place, cards in ready. “Come on. Let’s get your sister and go. I don’t want to be late.”
———————-
He licked the frosting off the knife. Not bad, he thought. Chocolate on chocolate, how could any kid resist that? Not bad for someone who had been cooking regularly for only two years and had no baking experience to speak of. He put the knife in the sink and reached his right arm over his right shoulder and patted himself on the back, twice. So much for congratulations. The kids would be here soon. He started to clean up his mess. That was how his wife had always referred to anything she thought he needed to clean or straighten up. Life’s a mess he would say. So clean it up, she would reply. She never relented. He had assimilated the mantra over forty-five years and now found himself to be a perpetual cleaner of every mess as it occurred. Except for the garage. That remained a symbol of his cluttered, unorganized existence before marriage. A sanctuary of the past. On hot summer nights he would put the car on the street, pull down a lawn chair, and sit in the garage drinking lemonade like he remembered his grandfather doing. Back then, once it got dark, the fireflies had come out, blinking some mystical code that he and his siblings would try to guess until the air became filled with twinkling lights. Then they would run through the yard attempting to catch them. It was one point for light on, two points for light off, and three points if you caught one, opened your hand, and the firefly would stay there and turn on, turn off, turn on, before flying away. His grandchildren didn’t even know what a firefly was. “Progress,” he snorted.
He heard a car door slam and then another. They were here. He rinsed out the dishrag and twisted the water from it. He heard the screen door open and close as he headed to the front room.
“Granddad!” Maddie reached out to give him a hug.
“Hi Maddie. How’s my butterfly?” He had started calling her that after she had spotted a swallowtail in the garden and had tried to catch it. But the yellow and black striped butterfly had managed to keep out of her reach. It was the first and last tiger swallowtail he could remember seeing in years.
“Hi Dad.” Marla gave him a hug. “Here are Maddie’s dolls.” She set a box on the end of the couch.
“Jacob.” He reached out a hand to shake his grandson’s. Jacob hesitated but when he looked up at his grandfather a smile broke across his face and he reached out confidently and took his grandfather’s hand.
“Granddad.” He said imitating his grandfather.
“So, you want to learn cribbage?”
“Yes sir.”
“You realize it may be years from now before you win a game?”
“Dad!” Marla scolded.
“Or after I teach you, you can go home, play your mother, and clock her.” He put an arm around Jacob’s shoulders, made a fist with the other hand, and swung a right hook in slow motion toward Marla’s jaw.
Marla shook her head, glanced up at the ceiling, and took a deep breath. Jacob looked at his grandfather with a wide grin. He swung his free arm just as his grandfather had, “pow, you’re out.”
“Great.” Marla was not pleased. But she had to admire their camaraderie. They had an instant connection.
“What do I smell?” Maddie followed her nose into the kitchen.
“Chocolate.” Her grandfather called out.
“You baked a cake?” Marla asked.
“Chocolate on chocolate.”
“And where did you get the recipe?”
“Off the internet. It took me two hours to find one and pick it. Your mother didn’t have one.”
“When she baked it was off the back of a box.”
“Not that one time.”
“One time,” Marla repeated.
“Yea. Just like she told you about having sex. One time can put it in the oven.”
“Dad!” She couldn’t believe he would say that. “The kids!”
“What? Just explain it. They won’t believe you anyway.”
“Explain what?” Jacob asked. “Nothing.” Marla switched the burner off in her head and gained control of herself.
“Come on kid, let’s get out the cribbage board and play for a piece of chocolate, chocolate cake.” He took Jacob by the hand and walked into the dining room. “See you later,” he called back at Marla.
Marla stood still for a moment. Why did he do that? Just to see her boil over? That wasn’t the father she grew up with. She told herself to let it go. He was always patient and evenhanded with the kids. She picked up her purse and called out goodbye as she left.
———————-
The dining room was typical for a two-story house in the suburbs. The wood furniture, stained dark, looked heavy. There was a glass front cabinet filled with a complete set of china, a serving chest loaded with table clothes, cloth napkins, placemats and serving dishes, and a table with eight chairs. There had to be two leaves in the table, but they were not visible since the table was covered with a linen tablecloth with an elaborate crocheted border. The chandelier was cut glass and looked dated. Something bought when the house was new and never replaced.
Jacob entered the room with his grandfather trailing. He stopped and stared. He was confused. There was a board and a stack of cards at each end of the table. He looked up at this grandfather.
“This is where your grandmother and I play. We’ll play at the other end.” His grandfather pointed. Jacob looked at the board and cards as he passed them. The plastic pieces used to keep score were in the middle of the board as if in the middle of a game. There were cards lying face down on either side of the deck as if they had been dealt and were waiting to be picked up and played. His grandfather pulled one of the heavy, over padded chairs out for him to sit in. Jacob looked back at the other end of the table.
“Were you playing a game?” he asked.
“Yes.” His grandfather sat down and looked him in the eye seeing another question his grandson was hesitating to ask. “I still play with her. Well, actually I play both hands, but I pretend I’m playing your grandmother and not myself.”
“Oh.” Jacob looked back at the other end of the table. “Who wins?”
“It varies. Sometimes her. Sometimes me. She always plays the red pegs. It was her favorite color. I play the blue. But she always goes first. It’s a little handicap I give her.”
“A handicap?”
“It’s an advantage to go first. You’ll understand once you learn the game.”
“It’s not nice to always go first.” Maddie had entered the room with a doll in each hand. She had gotten into the habit of repeating the phrases her mother used trying to direct her behavior.
“That’s right, Maddie,” her grandfather replied.
“But she’s not here. She died.”
He hesitated. “That’s right.”
She set her dolls on the table and struggled to pull a chair out by the game in progress. “I’ll be Grandmother.”
“No Maddie. Go play with your dolls. Granddad is teaching me how to play.” Jacob was irritated but spoke evenly to her.
“Don’t raise your voice.”
“I didn’t.” But now he did.
“Ok. Let’s don’t get started. Come to this end Maddie. You can help your brother.” He gave Jacob a conspiratorial wink. But Maddie ignored her grandfather and continued to struggle with the chair.
“Maddie.” She didn’t reply. “Are you ignoring me?” She got one side of the chair to shift back from the table. She tried to climb onto the seat.
“It’s not nice to ignore an adult when you’re spoken to.” Jacob tried his mother’s method. It didn’t work. His grandfather got out of his seat and walked to the other end of the table. Maddie already had a red peg between her fingers and was pulling it from the board.
“Enough little girl.” His tone was calm but with an edge of irritation. “Leave the peg where it’s at.” She pulled the peg and quickly put it in another hole. “I can’t keep track of the score if you move the pegs.” She reached for another peg. “You don’t want to get your grandmother angry with you, do you?”
She looked up at him. “No.” She paused, looked at her brother, and back at her grandfather. “But she’s not here.”
“No. But if she were, she would want you to not touch the game.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re in the middle of the game. We haven’t finished yet.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s not here.”
“But you said you’re playing with her.”
“Yes.”
“Is she coming back?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t play with her.”
“Well, I can play with her in my head.”
Maddie scrunched her face. She looked at her brother. “Can he do that?”
Jacob shrugged. “I guess.”
“Sure I can. It’s just like you when you play with your dolls. You pretend who they are and even speak for them. I sit where you are and play my hand then I get up and sit here and pretend to be your grandmother and play her hand.”
“Oh. What does she say?”
“Ahh, she says things like “these cards stink.”
“What else?”
“Well, she’ll play a card and call out the score.”
“What’s the score?”
“That’s why you can’t move the pegs. They are the score.”
She looked at the board and back at her grandfather. “Mommy says you act strange.”
He narrowed his eyes in a questioning squint at Maddie. “Is that right, Jacob?”
Jacob was caught, surprised. “I…. I think she uses a different word.”
“What word?”
He stumbled over the pronunciation. “Abber, abbrant. Something like that.”
“Aberrant?”
“That’s it.”
His grandfather looked from one child to the other, put his left hand up to his face and squeezed his checks rubbing down to his chin.
“Ok. Let’s try that cake.” He got up and pulled Maddie’s chair away from the table so she could get off.
“Come on Jacob. We’ll have cake. It’s chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Our favorite. We’ll learn the game after we eat.”
“What about me?” Maddie asked.
“We can cut some small pieces you can serve to the ladies.” He picked up her dolls. She quickly took them from him.
“They love cake, especially chocolate.”
“That’s not aberrant.” He whispered under his breath. He placed a hand on each child’s back and steered them toward the kitchen.
————————-
Jacob caught onto the game quickly. After playing five hands with all the cards showing he started playing his own hand and asking questions when he wasn’t sure he knew the correct thing to do. Learning to score came fast. Maddie was in the kitchen. They could hear her speaking for both dolls. Her mother was right, she could occupy herself in her mind easily.
The cake was a hit. Not a home run, but at least a double. The kids liked it, and it changed the subject. There was no mention of his wife or his behavior. Have your cake and eat it too, he thought. But Marla, that would be a different story. He had always been able to steer her away from a subject or situation but obviously she had noticed some of the things he was doing and not doing. They might be odd, but not aberrant. So what if he didn’t sleep in their bed. And the cribbage game gave him something to do. Baking the cake…hell, he had to eat, and the kids liked it. What was he supposed to do? Sit on the couch and watch TV? Get pissed off by the politicians and write letters to the editor? Maybe he should go out and wander the neighborhood, stopping to talk to anybody and everyone while dressed only in his boxer shorts. Now that would be aberrant. At least the snoopy old lady across the street would think so. But really, what was the difference if you wear a swimsuit, shorts, or boxers? Who the hell decided what was appropriate? Or rather, inappropriate.
The doorbell rang, and the door opened. Marla’s way of announcing herself, or was it a warning? It was a habit she developed after her mother died. It always struck him as odd.
“I’m back,” Marla called from the entry. Maddie quit her game and ran to greet her mother.
“Jacob and I are in the dining room.”
Marla and Maddie came through the kitchen. The dishes had been rinsed and put in the dishwasher. The cake was covered and sat on the counter. Maddie’s dolls and two teacups with saucers smeared with frosting and cake crumbs were on the table.
“How was the cake?” Marla asked as they came into the dining room.
“Jane said it was very good, but Tammy said it was too sticky.” Maddie had named her dolls for their luncheon date.
“It was chocolate and the only thing that beats chocolate cake is chocolate frosting, right Jacob?”
“Right, Granddad.”
“Well, I hope you left room for dinner. Cake in the afternoon isn’t the usual snack.” Marla looked from one child to the other.
“Normal’s for parents, not grandparents.” Marla’s father put his hand up and out, palm towards Jacob, for him to slap.
“Right,” Jacob said as he slapped an open palm against his grandfather’s.
“Let’s limit that to one grandfather and not generalize.” Marla’s tone was pointed but friendly. Her father looked up at her but said nothing. “How’s the card game coming?”
“I think I’ve learned most of it. At least the rules. But deciding what cards to keep and what to put in the pot, I don’t always get right.” Jacob replied.
“That’s life kid. You get to make choices and they aren’t always the best.” He looked at his daughter. “Right?”
She wanted to ignore him, change the subject, but said, “Most choices in the end are meaningless, but there are a few that really count. They determine where you end up.” She tried to smile.
“Sounds like your mother.” Her father said. He picked up the cards and shuffled them. Jacob looked back and forth between the two of them. He sensed the tension and said nothing.
“Here’s where Grandma plays.” Maddie was pulling on the chair that had been designated as her grandmother’s.
Marla squeezed her face into a question. “You mean that’s where Grandmother used to sit when she played with Grandfather?”
“No. She still sits here and plays. She plays the red.” Maddie had gotten on the chair and had a red peg in her hand.
Marla looked at her father. “What is she talking about?” She asked calmly but could feel her loose grasp of control.
“Maddie please put the peg back and tell your mother what I told you.”
Maddie put the peg in a hole and reached for the other red peg. “Grandpa pretends. Just like I do with Jane and Tammy.”
“What does she mean?”
“Jane and Tammy are her dolls.” Jacob tried to interject.
“I know that.” Marla narrowed her eyes at her father.
“What she is saying is I pretend to be your mother and play both hands.”
“Pretend?”
“Yes.” He paused. “Your daughter and I have something in common. We pretend.” He looked down the table at Maddie. “And we don’t play with the pegs, do we?”
“No. Grandma will get mad.” She scrambled to put the peg in her hand back in the board but couldn’t remember which hole she took it from.
Marla hesitated, took a breath. Looked at her father and blurted. “Where are you sleeping?”
“I’m awake.”
“You know what I mean.”
“In the house.”
“In your bed?”
They locked eyes. “I sleep on the couch by the TV or upstairs by your diplomas.”
“Not in your bed.”
“I didn’t list that.”
Marla didn’t know if she should harangue him or plead with him. “It’s been a year, Dad.”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Please don’t.” She shifted her eyes quickly to Jacob, to Maddie, to him.
“Message received. You’re right.”
“So, we can pick up that game,” she pointed where Maddie was sitting, “and fold up the blankets and put the pillows away that are on the couches?”
He looked at his feet. “I’ll get it.”
“We can help.”
“I’m capable.” He stood up. “It’s getting close to supper time. The kids will be hungry and so will your husband.”
“I made a tuna casserole. I just have to warm it up. Why don’t you come over and join us?”
“Thanks. But tuna anything is not for me. I’ll grill a steak here.”
“You used to eat tuna.”
“I used to do a lot of things.”
“Dad.”
“Marla.”
“Let it go, Mom.” Jacob got up and started for the kitchen. “Come on, Maddie. Let’s get your dolls. It’s time to go.” He got to the doorway and stopped. He pivoted around and came back to where his grandfather was standing and stuck out his hand. “Thanks for teaching me, Grandpa.” They shook hands and smiled at each other. “Come on, Mom. You owe me a game.” He took her hand and pulled her towards the doorway. “I’m gonna kick your butt.”
“Jacob!” She turned and looked at her father. He shrugged but didn’t try to restrain his smile.
“No mercy, kid.”
“You said a bad word. You shouldn’t say bad words,” Maddie scolded as they all walked to the door. He hugged the kids good-by. Marla tried to fix her eyes on his, but he ignored her and gave her a quick hug.
“See you guys later.” He opened the door for them, watched them get in the car, and waved as Marla backed out the driveway.
He turned and went to the kitchen. The leftover cake was sitting on the counter. He pulled the cover off and the chocolate smell went straight to his nose. “Maybe I’ll just eat cake.” He said to no one. He put the cover back on and went into the family room and turned the TV on. He went to the couch and sat down next to the pillow and neatly folded sheet and blanket. He had placed them there earlier in the day after sleeping on the couch the previous night. The first thing he did every morning was clean up his mess. He stared at the bedding. Then got up, turned the TV off and picked up the pile.
He carried it upstairs to the bedroom and into the walk-in closet. He looked around and realized the bedding belonged with the linens down the hall. The walk-in closet had its own scent. A mix of clean, freshly washed clothes, and the musk of an old man. As he pivoted to go his eyes traveled over the row of his wife’s dresses, blouses, and skirts. At the end were pegs where a sweater and a sweat suit were hanging that she had worn when she felt chilled. Which happened a lot towards the end. And her night shirt. He set the bedding down on the floor. He took the night shirt off its peg. He pressed it to his face and inhaled. Her scent was faint, and he inhaled deeply a second time. He held it away from himself and shook it out holding it by the shoulders. He looked up, hugged the shirt to his chest, and walked out into the bedroom. He went over to the bed and lay on it, clutching the cloth and its lingering scent. He didn’t know how long he lay there. He didn’t fall asleep. It was as if he were just numb. He stared without thought. Maybe it was just minutes, maybe an hour. Then he roused himself and rolled onto his back. The ceiling was as blank as his mind.
Then suddenly, as if someone had turned a key and started him, he sat upright. He looked at his wife’s shirt. It lay there wrinkled and shriveled. “I guess you’d call this aberrant.” He reached down to smooth out her shirt. He couldn’t get all the wrinkles out. He picked it up and gave it a little shake, then a firm snap. He turned and went to the closet and hung the shirt on its peg. He went back to the bed and tugged on the blanket and smoothed its surface with his hands until his impression was gone.
He retrieved the bedding he had brought upstairs to put away and headed for the stairs. Maybe he would make some lemonade and go sit in the garage and have lemonade and cake and stare into the night like some old codger. He turned on the landing and started down the stairs lurching side to side.
“At least a curmudgeon knows the definition of aberrant,” he mumbled. “Alone.”
He went through the family room leaving the bedding on the couch and turned into the kitchen. He took the cover off the half-eaten cake and let the chocolate fill his senses.
Maybe I’ll cut some flowers and put them in a vase, he thought. She always liked that. He turned and pulled a drawer open and took out a pair of food scissors she had used to trim meat. She would not approve, he thought, and neither would Marla. He headed for the back door.
• • •
Doug Van Hooser splits his time between suburban Chicago where he uses pseudonyms with baristas, and southern Wisconsin where he enjoys sculling and cycling. His fiction has appeared in Red Earth Review, Light and Dark, The Riding Light Review, and Flash Fiction Magazine, and his poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. More at dougvanhooser.com