Lean On Me

My husband and I had just moved in. Actually, we were still in the process of moving in. We were down to the smaller boxes. Lamps, knick-knacks, stuff you put on your nightstands, end tables, and a few boxes of kitchen utensils. We'd been living on take out for the past few days. Moving is such a hassle, and by the end of each day Bob and I had been just too tired to cook or even think about preparing anything. 

    We had made some poor financial decisions in our lives, and as a result we lost our little bungalow--our house--and yep...trite as it is.....we ended up in a trailer park. The only plus being, after we paid off the bank, we had enough money left to actually BUY a trailer, in this one particular park. A park just for Seniors. It wasn't a bad park, really. It was clean, neat rows of trailers, nicely landscaped. Lawns were mowed. Cars were parked in driveways. Neat as a pin. No trash or abandoned vehicles anywhere. But still....

     Being able to buy, soothed our self-inflicted wounded pride a little. But I felt put down. Going from a house to a trailer is quite the adjustment. That's how I tried to see it. As an adjustment. The trailer we purchased had a small working fireplace, and that was 

one of the few amenities that salved our feelings of loss, and let's face it :

 failure. 

For the moving process itself, I had managed to come up with severe arthritic flares in both ankles, which I occasionally suffer from, sometimes necessitating the use of a wheelchair. I was wheelchair bound for the entire process. Lo-o-o-vely.

      In the middle of sorting utensils into a nesting tray in one of the small kitchen drawers, I heard a knock on the door. "Come in," I yelled. A woman with snow white hair cut in a bob style, stepped upward into the doorway, and hesitated for a moment.She closed the door behind her decisively. Then among the jumble of boxes, her eyes found me. 

"I hope you realize you cannot leave that moving van out in front all night.This is a park for the elderly. If an ambulance had to get down between the rows, it would not be able to. And somebody might die because of it," she said shaking her finger at me.      

    I leaned slightly backward in my wheelchair to let her know she had over stepped her bounds, and was not welcome to do so. I said nothing, because my husband and I had barely made it through the application process. We were only in our fifties, too young to actually live here, but the park owner had not held that against us. We paid cash. I almost laughed out loud, but just pursed my lips, instead.  

    She glared at me and marched toward the door. Just as she reached the door, my husband was on his way in with a small sack of sandwiches and potato chips in his hands, and another bag with sodas and napkins. She gave him a glare as well, and marched out. She grabbed the door handle and closed the door behind her with a small slam, while my husband stood there, open-mouthed. 

     "Who... what?" He said putting the bags on the countertop. I reached past him and grabbed a couple of paper plates from the stack in front of him. "I don't like this place," I said. "That woman was rude. She gives me a bad feeling about all this. Apparently, if we leave the moving van out in front, and an ambulance needed to get past us, and couldn't do it, someone might die and it would be our fault," that's what she said."

     "That's why God invented doorbells," said my husband. 

    Then he sighed, "Bad feeling or not this is it. "I know," I said. "Please don't remind me." 

"You'll get used to it," he said smiling. "And she can go to hell."  

     I chuckled. My 'forever the optimist husband!' I'm not so optimistic. But he never allows anything to get him down. I married a really good guy. He always manages to make me smile. And on the third floor of hell, he could still make me laugh. 

    He placed my sandwich on the plate in front of me and handed me my bag of chips. He opened my can of soda and set that down in front of me too. I unwrapped my sandwich and took a bite. Ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, light mayo. Just the way I like it. He even had my roll grilled. He had a Italian cold cut with light mayo lettuce and tomato. No grilled roll. Just the way he liked it. Both of us took a sip from our cans of soda, and we opened our bags of chips. Kettle cooked, lightly salted. 

    "We'll sleep good tonight," I said.     "Yes," my husband agreed. "Moving furniture all day."

 "You," I said, between bites, "Not me. I married a great guy," I said ..."Even if we are living in hell itself." 

"Enjoy," said my wise guy. "It's all we got." 

    I smirked and patted his hand. "Finished," I asked? He nodded, so I rolled everything up into a ball and shoved the remains into the large plastic bag we'd been using for trash. 

  "Is the bed made?" asked Bob as he headed for the bathroom. 

   "Of course," I replied. Jim and Dave, two friends of ours who had helped us move, took care of that before they left. I grabbed a small pile of my night clothes, unaccountably on top of the refrigerator, and rolled myself down the hallway. I went slowly. The bathroom was the size of a postage stamp, and Bob had just flushed the toilet, and it sounded like he was brushing his teeth. I hate being pushed by anyone, even in a wheelchair I like to be self-sufficient. Bob smiled when he saw me, and planted a kiss on my forehead. "I'll be right in," I said. 

"Okay," he yawned. I heard the bedsprings squeak. I pulled off my clothes and left them lying on the bathroom floor. There's always tomorrow, I promised myself. I tugged my nightgown over my head and stood up holding on to the counter top. Maybe a postage sized bathroom was not such a bad thing, after all. I folded up my wheelchair and propped it against the hallway wall. I can walk a bit, even during a bad arthritis flare. Thank God. 

    Holding onto the wall with both hands, I was able to negotiate my way to the bed. I fell back onto my pillow with a sigh. I refused to think about tomorrow until it arrived. 

I was just starting to wake up when I smelled coffee. I sat up in bed and yelled to my husband, "Smells good."

    "There's plenty of it. I made a full pot."

    "My hero," I called back.

     "Do you want me to bring you your wheelchair?" Bob asked. 

    "Already got it," I said- pushing my way into the kitchen. 

    My husband had plugged in the toaster and was toasting bagels. The butter and the cream cheese.were already on the table, along with knives and paper plates and a small stack of napkins. He handed me a cup of coffee. It smelled like heaven. Coffee is one of my simple pleasures. We ate, and discussed our day. He was going to finish emptying the truck and return it, while I was going to move around a bit, and try to bring a little organization into our lives. 

    I actually made a little progress that day in the "putting things away and finding a place for everything" department. My ankles were starting to feel a little better, and that was a tremendous help. I could move about a bit more freely. 

    Bob was in and out. We got things a lot more organized and the place was actually starting to shape up. The woman with the white hair walked past the moving van twice, shaking her head. We were criminals... apparently. 

     At lunch time I made us a couple of sandwiches with coffee. Bob finished first and drained his coffee cup, stretching his back. "Time to return the monster outside. You know, the one the old woman with white hair finds so offensive. We ruined her life I guess," he said. 

"Good," I replied. "I'm glad we ruined her life. She deserves it.'

    "You are so mean, Mrs. Crabby." 

I laughed, stood up and threw my arms around his neck and kissed him, and out the door he went jingling the keys. 

     I never saw him again. Twenty minutes after he left two members of the Faysville Police Department knocked on my door 

      "Are you Diane DeFalco?" asked the older cop of the two.

      "Yes," I gasped holding onto the doorknob. 

       "Mrs. DeFalco we regret to inform you that your husband was killed just a few minutes ago in a traffic accident. You have our condolences. From the entire department. Is there anyone we can call for you?"

      '"No," I said. I did not want to talk to anyone. But there really was no one. No one I wanted to talk to...really. 

I'll call my doctor-- I told them. I smiled, I hope, and still smiling gently, closed the door. I ran over to the couch and curled up in a ball. I'm not sure how long I laid there. I had no idea how much time had passed, when I heard a knock on the door. I ignored it, and closed my eyes again. Not sure if I slept or just laid there. 

    Another knock. This time I decided to answer the door. When I opened the door, the woman with the white hair was standing there. She was holding a small covered soup crock with a handle. I frowned at her. She sighed deeply and stepped up over the door sill. By instinct I stepped back. She gently took my upper arm and steered me toward the kitchen table. 

       "Name's Lane," she said. She put the soup crock down on the table in front of me.

       "Silverware?" she asked spinning around. She looked straight ahead, right at the wall for a minute, as if engaging in an internal dialogue. Then she sighed again, and opened the drawer she was standing in front of. She smiled when she looked down at the nesting tray and the neatly stacked forks, spoons, knives, tablespoons and steak knives. 

     She held up a teaspoon. I was still staring at her in silence. Her lips twitched. "Might as well sit down," she said pulling out a chair." That's where Bob usually sat. At the head of the table. I always sat on the side. I said nothing. Nothing mattered....at all.

      "Eat the soup" she said. "You're going to need your strength."

       I just stared at the spoon in her hand. She slowly placed it into bowl. "Cry if you need to," she said "it helps. I was widowed 2 years ago. Believe me it will get easier." 

        There was another knock on the door and she froze for a minute, then got up to answer the knock. A young uniformed cop was standing there. 

        "Grandma," he said, "is she okay?"  

        The white haired woman whispered something to the young cop. He kissed her on the cheek, and she gently closed the door and turned back to me.

     "He's my grandson. That's how I knew what happened. My grandson called to tell me someone in my park just got killed in an auto accident. That's how I knew. I've lived here for twenty years. I know everyone in the park, and I did not recognize the name. So I figured it had to be you. Sorry we got off to a rocky start. My name is Lane Billings." 

    I raised my eyes to her and started to say, " My name is Diane".....when the most dreadful howl came pouring out of my throat. Horrified, I clamped my mouth shut, my entire body shaking. "Here," said Lane, "Lean on me." She got me up and out of my chair, and she glanced toward the bedroom. "I don't want to invade your privacy" .....her voice trailed off. Then she pointed toward the couch and asked--- is that okay?

    I nodded miserable. She grabbed one of my couch pillows and fluffed it. She guided me onto the couch and gently covered me with the couch throw. 

    "I'll stay for a bit," she said. "It's not a good time for you to be alone. Is there someone I could call for you?"

I breathed out slowly and carefully. "No," I said.

"I was raised in foster care. Bob was raised by just his mother. My foster parents were elderly. They died several years ago. Just a few years apart from each other. Bob's mother is gone too."

    Lane was listening quietly. 

"They were really good to me. My foster parents. They were an older couple. I got lucky in the foster system. My foster mother had a heart attack. She died first. And my foster father had a stroke two years later. I was working in the town library when I met Bob. I got lucky there, too. I was lucky, I mean." 

I loosed a small sob. 

     Lane got up and walked over to the couch and bent over. 

"I can't squat," she said. "My knees won't let me." She slipped one hand under my shoulders and pulled me up. 

"Let's get you up and get something into you. Do you drink tea?

     She led me out to the kitchen and seated me in Bob's chair. "Let me reheat this for you," she said. She opened a cupboard door and removed two small sauce pans. "Same place I keep mine. Trailers are all the same. Some things never change."

She patted me on the back. 

    "This is my second widowhood. I can teach you the ropes. Count me as a friend. No mother no father.....hmph. I can help." 

     "Thank you, Lane," I said reaching for the spoon. "Thank you."

She smiled and I returned a small twitch of my lips. It was a start.