Storm Clouds

Storm Clouds

I move over the path through the trees toward our house. It’s cool, as the autumn breeze flutters through the tops of branches. I hear thunder in the wind and think a thunderstorm never happens this time of year. I peer up beyond yellow and red leaves, but see only blue sky. Near the house, the neighbor’s orchard hangs thick with heavy fruit. The end of the season always surprises me and I’m never prepared.

At the back door, I smell the chocolate and realize my husband Daniel has prepared me a treat. I open the door and see my favorite drink sitting on the counter. He shuffles in from the living room.

“I love your bones,” he says.

           “What?”

           “I love your bones.”

           “Why would you say such a thing?”

           “Because it’s true.”

           “You’ve lost your mind in your old age.”

           “Bones go deep.”

           Daniel approaches sipping on his mug of chocolate, and I turn to him. The sun flickers through the window and he squints. I take hold of him. He smells like shaving cream and hot coco.

He brushes my cheek with the back of his hand.

“I love you too, Daniel.”

“I know,” he says, “and I love your bones.”

           “I’ve got something to show you.” I smile, take his hand, and lead him through the kitchen into the garage, stopping in front of my surprise.

“What is it?”

“It's an electric lawnmower.”

He frowns, “It's not much, is it?”

“It’s easy to push. I couldn't crank the gas mower anymore. This may be something you can use.”

“I may be eighty-five, but I'm stronger than you.”

“I know, but you're unsteady.” I encircle his hand with my own.

“You said my mowing days were over, and that was years ago.”

“And now you're convinced that you can handle a motorcycle?”

He passes me a deep frown. “I have to do something,” he snaps. “I'm not dead yet.”

“I still haven't figured out how you started that thing. That was quite an accomplishment.”

His eyes shine. “There's an art to kick-starting a motorcycle. A pretty girl like you wouldn't understand.”

“I'm sixty-seven, and hardly a girl.”

“When I think of pretty girl, I see you.”

I smile and wrap my arm around him. “Let’s make lunch. I’m starving.” We turn in unison toward the kitchen.

“If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I’ll mow.”

I stop at the kitchen door. “I’ll agree, but I have conditions.”

“I reserve the right to negotiate,” he says. We go through the door, and Daniel takes a seat at the counter.

“You have to promise that you’ll never get on that bike again.”

“I should be allowed to sit on it, at least,” he says.

“Remember, you ran off the road.” I take out the frying pan and a bottle of olive oil from the cabinet. “You were pretty scraped up. You couldn't even figure out how to strap on the helmet.”

“Helmets just get in the way. Besides, I made it almost two miles.”

I take out an onion and the cutting board, and turn to face him. “I’ll agree to you sitting on the Triumph, but riding is out of the question. I was terrified when I found out it was you on the side of the road.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You haven't driven a car in five years, and you wake up one morning and decide it’s a good day for a motorcycle ride.”

“Saying you’ll never ride and knowing that you can ride, even if you probably never will, is not the same. I like to keep my options open.”

I chop a green pepper and an onion and make omelets and a piece of toast for each of us. Daniel sits at the table. He speaks to me, but his eyes stay on his food. “I can’t taste anymore.”

“What?”

“I’m sure it's good, but most food tastes the same.”

“You still go after sweets.”

“I can taste sugar.”

“That’s because it gives you a kick.”

“I like brandy too.”

“I know.”

“Something’s fouled up between my taste buds and my brain.”

He picks over his breakfast but doesn't really eat. It’s no wonder he's so thin. “Remember when we used to go to Susan’s for family reunions when your parents were alive?”

“That was ages ago.”

“I was thinking of it the other day before I took my ride on the 650.”

“Those were good times.” I gather our plates and take them to the sink.

“I was thinking about how I used to flip kids at the reunions. They’d stand right beside me, and I'd take hold of their stomach and back and flip them, head over heels, and set them back on their feet. Do you remember?”

“No, I was probably inside with my mother organizing the silverware.” I take a seat next to Daniel.

“One particular year, after the first day, even the teenagers wanted me to flip them. That evening, Susan came over and stood beside me. She must have weighed 160, and everybody got quiet. I guess they were wondering what I’d do.”

I lay my hand on his. “You flipped her right over, easy as a pancake.”

He looks at me. “You remembered?”

“No, I just know how strong you are.”

“I was certain you'd remember.” He leans back and turns his head toward the window.

“Is that what happened?”

“Yes,” he says. “She was light as a child.”

In bed, I hold him close and listen to the familiar sound of his breathing. His head, with his wispy hair—what little’s left—and his large ears that I absolutely adore, is barely visible in the glow from the clock.

I think of that fall, forty years ago, when we met. I was twenty-seven, Daniel was forty-five. My father had rented a beach house, and Daniel and a few friends rented the house next to ours. We talked across the balconies of our cottages and ran into each other on the beach in the early morning before the dawn. As the week progressed, we got to know each other.

On my last day there, Daniel took me for a ride inland on his Triumph. The coastal plain was as flat as a plate. The community away from the coast was rural then, with many large farms. After a while, Daniel pulled off the road, and we removed our helmets. There was a huge cornfield on the other side of the road that looked like it had been recently harvested. There must have been 100,000 Canadian geese grazing the field.

I unfold that day and often wrap it around myself for comfort like a warm shawl.

The sky was bright with billowy clouds, and the air in the field was clean, devoid of smells of sea or salt or earth. Daniel took my hand, and we walked across the road. When we reached the edge of the field, all the geese flew at once.

The air filled with the sound of flight, and we felt the constellation of feathers vibrating, encircling, and swirling in the turbulent air around us. That field came alive and that very moment became our moment. We held onto each other. From that day forward, there was no turning back.

When he wakes in the morning, he refuses to wait for the dew to evaporate from the lawn. I give in and push the mower to the front yard.

           He stands there, a very tall man looking down at a tiny machine. “Where's the power cord?”

“It has lithium batteries. We'll recharge it when you're through.”

“How do you start the thing?”

“You're an engineer, figure it out.”

It only has one switch. He reaches and turns the mower on. “Does that sound right to you?”

“It’s electric. I suppose it should be quiet. At least you’re not breathing fumes.”

“It sounds more like an air conditioner than a lawnmower.”

He starts with the section of lawn nearest the driveway, his thin frame wobbles as he tries to maintain a straight line. He struggles, and I’m sure he's about to fall. Then I realize I’m perched atop the yard with my arms crossed, looking very much like a mother hen.

I go back inside, and position myself where I can see him through the window. His jaw is clenched, and I can see his teeth. He looks like an old man wrestling a crocodile. He holds the handle in a white-knuckle grip. At the mailbox, he steps into a small depression that’s been there for decades, and falls. That area is flat, and when he lets go, the mower doesn't take off.

I lunge for the door, but catch myself. He attempts to lever himself up, his long arms wobbling beneath him like the legs of a newborn fawn. He turns and looks toward the house. I step back into the shadows. He takes hold of the mower and starts again.

That evening, when I bring him dinner, he is fast asleep on the sofa. At midnight, he finally finds our bed. Daniel moans now with age. I don't know if he’s aware of the sounds that leak from his body, but they’ve increased with time. When he gets up or lies down, he moans. At one time, it unsettled me. I thought something was seriously wrong, but I'm used to it now.

“You all right?” I ask.

“Sure.” He burrows under the sheet and puts his hand on my hip. “Never felt better.”

“You were exhausted.”

“It'll be one less thing you have to do,” he says. He presses me gently with his hand. “I’ll get better. I’m just a little out of shape.”

“What was that thing about you loving my bones?” I wanted to hear him say it again.

“Bones are the deepest thing in our body, and that’s the kind of love I have. I love every part of you, all the way through to the bone.”

I angle my head and it touches his. “What am I going to do without you, Daniel?”

“I can’t answer that.”

We lie motionless, listening to the sound of the cool air coming through the vent. There are no street sounds at that hour, and an unusual quiet permeates the room.

“All I know is I don’t want to lose you.”

“I know.” He rubs his nose against my cheek. “I heard a quote the other day, ‘Some men die with their boots on, and some die wearing fuzzy slippers.’”

I giggle, “Who said that—it’s ridiculous?”

“Probably Ben Franklin. Yes, I’m sure it was Franklin.”

I bump him with my head and see him grinning in the dim light.  

We both laugh, and then a slow silence fills the room.

He coughs, and when he resettles next to me, I say, “You'll kill yourself eventually you know. With the lawnmower or the snow shovel, one of these days you'll push too hard and that’ll be it.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he says. “But is a man with fuzzy slippers worth keeping?”

In the morning, Daniel takes a nap, and again in the afternoon. I work all day in the study and wonder if I should bother with dinner. When he gets up, he sits at the kitchen counter with his magnifying glass, studying a Greek lexicon and a study Bible. Daniel recently decided to teach himself to read ancient Greek.

I take a break at 7:30, and he’s still at the counter. “Perhaps we should take a trip to the library.”

“I have something to return,” I say. “Is there anything in particular you're looking for?”

“I’d like to find a better lexicon. The one I have has gaps.”

“The Strong’s lexicon I bought you for your birthday is in the study.”

“You didn’t buy me a Strong’s.”

“I most certainly did, but you’ve never used it.”

“Well, you’ve hidden it from me. That’s why I forgot.”

“Yes,” I can’t help but laugh. “I’m hiding lots of things these days.”

"Evil woman," he grins. “Remember that first Christmas after we married? You were writing something then. It’s so long ago I can't remember what it was.”

“It must have been my thesis. I finished it the first year of our marriage.”

“I remember that night before Christmas, it was all I could do to get you to stop working.”

I take a glass from the cupboard, fill it with water, and sit beside him. The room is in shadows, the sun moved away from the window, and it will be dark in an hour. “If you remember that evening, something important must have happened.”

“It was our first Christmas together.” Daniel looks past me, wearing his familiar, stare. “I took your socks off by the fire, and softened your feet with lotion.”

“You warmed the lotion in your hands first. I remember noticing that. I love how slow you go, between all my toes and over my ankles. It is very… Well, it is more than a foot rub.”   

“On the night before our first Christmas you fell asleep.”

“I did not.” I laugh, and bump him with my elbow. “There's no way I’d fall asleep on Christmas Eve.”

“Snored too,” he tries to suppress a smile. “It was that quiet, cute snore of yours.”

I laugh, “If that’s true, I apologize.” I rest my hand on his forearm, “and you still remember.”

“No need to apologize,” he puts his hand over mine. “If it ended with you sleeping with your feet in my lap, that was fine. It was all I wanted.”                                 

Bedtime, and I can't sleep. I keep rolling and repositioning, but can’t get comfortable. The events of recent months keep jabbing me. He's not eating and he’s losing weight. His need to reclaim his old self is beginning to look like desperation. He knows he's fading, and he's trying to reach back. It's clear that our time together is short.

For me, he has always been my foundation. I'd assumed that he'd be with me until there was not enough of me left to matter, but time accelerates as you get older. My aunt once said, “When one of the old ones go, the other one soon follows.”

That statement means different things to different people, but to me, the loss will be more than losing a warm body on the other side of the bed. With Daniel I have a multi-facetted diamond.  The light that reflects from him completes my view of the world. I need his perspectives. And I need intimacy with someone I implicitly trust. When you lose someone like Daniel how do you reshuffle and move on?

In the following days, his body recovers some of its strength, and he wants to mow again.

           “Daniel, I can’t see where the grass has grown at all.”

“It’s easier if I get it before it gets too high. That tiny mower can't handle high grass. And besides, they're predicting rain for the rest of the week.”

I watch him, as before, from the front window. With no visible marks to show where he’s cut, he mows in intersecting lines across the yard. I stand very still as he nears the mailbox. He straddles the depression, turns, and looks up toward the house. I step to the center of the window and wave. He acts as if he doesn't see but starts mowing again. His energy is better, and it looks as if he’s relaxed his grip on the bar. I breathe deep and smile at the image through the window. Will an image be enough to sustain me? Are memories a shawl I can wrap around myself on a cold morning?

I go through the door and approach him on the lawn. He looks up. When I reach him, he switches off the mower.

“I have regrets,” I say, tears in my eyes, “lots of regrets.”

He nods and turns toward me. “It's okay. We all have our share.”

“Me more than you.”

“Who's counting? I’m not.”

“Are you afraid of death?”

“No,” he shakes his head, “but I am afraid of dying.”

I step over and take his hand. “And I’m afraid of losing you.”

“I know.” With the fingers of his right hand, he brushes the hair from my eyes. “The things you have to do on your own are not always the worst things in life, but they are the most difficult.”

“I wish it was me.” My cheeks are wet, and I find it difficult to speak.

“What do you mean?”

“I wish it was me that you flipped on Susan's lawn thirty years ago. I've been thinking about it all morning. If I could go back, I’d stand at the front of the line.”

“If we lived our lives three times, we still wouldn't get it right. But I know how you feel.”

“I keep looking back,” I say, wiping my eyes. “Because I'm afraid to look ahead.”

“We all do that. But we miss a lot living in the past.” He turns toward the clouds forming above the hills to the west. “It looks like we’ll get that storm.”

“Yes, I’ll let you get back to the yard.” I walk toward the house. When I’m halfway up the driveway, he calls to me.

“Miriam.”

“Yes.” I turn to him.

“The time we have left will be our best.”

“Do you think so?”

“I do.”

I go to the house and watch from the window. I see the storm rolling toward us across the valley. Below a layer of blue-black clouds an angled curtain of rain reaches for the ground. Daniel works fast, concentrating on a patch of imaginary ground.

As the first scattered drops begin to fall, Daniel mows the last strip of grass next to the hedge, and pushes the mower into the shed.

He lifts his eyes toward the window.

I step into the light and smile.