This Smaller Life

Miguel wakes up each morning and patiently goes downstairs to wait for the rest of the household. There is coffee in the coffeemaker from yesterday, so he pours himself a cup and heats it in the microwave. He’s waiting for breakfast, one of the main events of his day. He can actually make his own breakfast, with cereal, milk, a banana, and toast. But he hopes that today Lillian will decide to make an egg dish for him. (Miguel never cared to learn how to cook, and he notices that Lillian gets irritated when he makes mistakes.) He used to go upstairs to try and hurry her up, but he’s stopped doing that. It just made her angry, and an angry Lillian is less likely to cook breakfast. Besides, going up and down stairs again is tiring and holds the risk of falling again. He sets the table for breakfast, two place settings and salt and pepper and hot sauce.

Miguel sits, lost in thought, or perhaps in absence of thought. He looks at his watch frequently, wondering if it is late enough to tell Lillian he is worried about her failure to appear. This morning, Lillian appears before he has to make his own breakfast, or feels neglected enough to go and rouse her.

Lillian comes down and notes that he has finished the coffee. “Do you want some coffee?” she asks, before refilling the coffeemaker.

Miguel answers “Yes please, Love,” but follows it with “Are we having eggs today? I haven’t eaten yet.”

Lillian has followed her own morning ritual, preparing herself for the same conversation as every other morning before venturing downstairs, so she is calm as she replies “Yes, we can. Would you like poached eggs and toast or fried bacon and eggs? We have some bacon in the fridge.”

Deeply satisfied, Miguel says “Bacon and eggs sounds very good. And can I get a cup of coffee too?”

Lillian’s calm is already under siege. She turns away so he doesn’t see her face. “It’s just brewing now, Miguel, you’ll have to wait a few minutes before it’s ready.” She sets about gathering the ingredients for the breakfast. “How many eggs would you like? Two or three?”

Miguel puts some thought into the question. “Just two, I think. And is there some coffee?”

Lillian continues to make breakfast, ignoring his question. He’ll ask again in a couple of minutes, and by that time the coffee may be ready.

Eventually, Lillian places his food in front of him, and brings him a cup of black coffee before pouring her own coffee with milk, then going to cook her own eggs and toast.

Miguel compliments her on the breakfast, then adds “Is this a different coffee? It tastes weaker than yesterday’s.”

As Lillian flips her eggs, she says patiently “No, the same coffee as usual. Perhaps I put in a little less coffee grounds just now.”

Miguel complains quietly. “I preferred yesterday’s coffee. Are you sure this is the same?”

Lillian serves her own breakfast, and says agreeably “I’ll put an extra bit of coffee grounds in the next pot.”

They eat their breakfast and drink their coffee in silence. Not companionable silence, just … silence. Lillian mentally runs through the things she has to do today. After finishing his food and taking his plate to the kitchen sink, Miguel says “So, you’re going to get your hair done today? What time is that?”

This is a trick, and Lillian knows it. Once she tells him what time the appointment is, he’ll keep giving her time checks and telling her she needs to start to get ready. “I’ll be leaving here at about 10:30 and be back by about one. I’ll pick up some groceries on the way home. Is there anything we need?”

Lillian knows full well that they have eggs, bread, butter, milk, coffee, bananas and cereal in stock. Miguel doesn’t know about menu planning, so he only ever requests additional breakfast items. Miguel thinks hard, and says “No, we have enough bananas for a couple of days. Is there more milk in the other fridge?”

“Yes, there are two more half-gallons of milk,” says Lillian. “I’ll get us some fresh vegetables and liver for dinner, would that be nice?”

Miguel says “Ooh, lovely!” in response, then walks to the living room to rest in his recliner. Lillian cleans up the breakfast dishes and pans and goes back upstairs to dress and spend some uninterrupted time on her iPad.

She misses the Miguel she married, the brilliant young man with a bright future. She supported him as he moved from job to higher-paying job, accompanying him from country to country, taking care of the household, home cooking all his meals, taking care of the laundry and bringing up their two children. At the time, she had felt fulfilled, but only now that they are both older, and his brilliant mind is dimming, does she realize that she was never able to develop her own potential. In Miguel’s eyes, she is little more than hired help. In her old age, she has finally started to spread her wings, with social contact with her neighbors, and involvement in clubs and charitable groups. Her iPad connects her to a world of people and events that she wants to connect with more deeply. Meanwhile, Miguel’s world has shrunk to this house, and these few rituals.

Feeling sorry for him and how his life has become so small makes her feel sad. But she can’t help the resentment that builds inside her. She has lived for decades in his shadow, with him controlling every penny she spent, while he was free to spend as he wished because he “earned all the money.” And now that he no longer works, he still considers the retirement income “his” rather than “theirs.”

Downstairs, Miguel dozes fitfully. Whenever he wakes, he checks his watch. Before ten o’clock, he shouts upstairs “Lillian! Are you ready to go?” In his mind, she is incapable of getting out in time to get to any appointment without his assistance.

She comes down and asks him “Do you want a cup of coffee?”

He answers “Yes, please. But did you hear me? I asked if you were ready to go.”

She fetches his coffee and puts it beside his recliner. “I’m not leaving for another half hour. I’ll be back around one – will you be able to wait till then for your lunch? There’s ham or pâté in the fridge if you need it, and there’s still plenty of coffee in the pot.”

Miguel nods. “Yes, I can get coffee if I want it, and I’ll set the table for lunch while you’re gone. Go and get ready.”

* * *

While Lillian is out, Miguel goes over his to do list for the day. The items include fetching in the mail and the garbage bin, making his bed, and brushing his teeth. So much to do, so little time to do it. He decides to do the outdoor tasks this morning. The walk to the mailbox takes him a while, and he puts the incoming mail into his walker frame, then pulls the empty garbage bin back into the garage. By the time he gets back to the kitchen, he is tired. He looks through the incoming mail, throwing out whatever he considers to be junk mail, reading everything addressed to him, and squinting at the mail addressed to Lillian, trying to determine what it is. Then, exhausted by the activity, he makes another cup of coffee, takes it back to his recliner and rests.

When he wakes again, he sees that it is already noon. He goes back to the kitchen to set the table. Two place settings, salt and pepper and hot sauce. He doesn’t know what else might be needed, so he calls Lillian’s cell phone. “What are we having for lunch?” he demands.

Lillian doesn’t really care. “Well, there’s ham and pâté and soup and leftover meatloaf. What would you like?”

Miguel gets impatient. “Well, if it’s soup, I need to put out soup spoons. If it’s pâté I need to get out bread to toast.”

Lillian is still relaxed after her hair appointment. She sat as someone else took care of washing and cutting her hair, and made conversation about the news. When Miguel calls, she feels that peace slipping away. She closes her eyes and remembers happier times, when she set the table herself without having to make detailed plans. “Don’t do either yet. We can talk about it when I get home.”

Miguel, dissatisfied, puts out the soup spoons and takes a loaf of bread out of the fridge. He makes another cup of coffee, emptying the pot, and returns to his recliner to rest. He mutters to himself about how Lillian can’t even take a moment to answer a simple question.

As soon as Lillian walks in through the door, before she can put away the groceries, Miguel has updates for her. “I didn’t know what we were having for lunch so I put out soup spoons and I got the bread out of the fridge for toast. And there’s no coffee left.”

To a disinterested observer, it might appear that Lillian had done nothing and the onus of handling coffee, breakfast and lunch had fallen entirely on his shoulders. And that is how Miguel believes it happened.

During lunch (soup for Miguel, pâté on toast for Lillian), Miguel asks what they are having for dinner. Lillian announces that she has bought calves’ liver and there are already some vegetables left over from yesterday, so there is nothing that Miguel needs to do to help with the preparation. He draws her attention to the mail that has arrived for her, and asks if the letter from the credit card company indicates that there is a problem. After lunch he announces that he will go upstairs to make his bed, shower and brush his teeth. Lillian takes the opportunity to look through her mail, refill the coffeemaker, and go online to check her email. When he comes down she tells him she is going upstairs to rest.

“Dinner at 6 o’clock?” he asks. Dinner is at 6 o’clock every day. “Have you looked at the letter from the credit card company?”

“Yes, dinner will be at 6. The credit card company was just offering a credit limit increase. I won’t respond to that.”

Miguel still has obligations as head of the household. “No, you don’t need to increase the credit card limit. We don’t use it that much, and I pay it off every month. What time do you want me to wake you to get dinner ready?”

Lillian is stoic. She manages not to rise to the bait for the credit card argument. “If I’m not down by 4:30, give me a call. Is there anything you need before I go up?”

Miguel nods. “I’ll get the table set for dinner before then. I’m going to do some reading while you sleep. If you’re not around by 4:30, I’ll wake you. Have a good rest.”

Miguel relaxes and thinks about his life. He achieved so much in the past, and was surrounded by people who complimented his abilities. Now he’s too tired to do anything, and the work that used to fill his days and evenings is long past. No one from his old life contacts him anymore. Several of them have died; others simply have nothing to talk about with him any longer. There is no future for him. He worries that Lillian won’t be able to manage the house without his help. She doesn’t understand things the way a man would. He picks up the puzzle book and starts a puzzle before drifting off to sleep.

When he wakes at 4:15, he calls out to Lillian to make sure she is getting up. She is not surprised.