To Hold the World

Sam stared at the fallen painting kissing his feet, as if trying to send up an apologetic offering. It didn't mean to fall. It didn't mean for the old nail to become so rusted that it couldn't cling to the wall anymore. It didn't mean to bring back the sad memories. It didn't mean to hold the weight it did. It didn't mean to let go. It didn't mean to beat him to the fall.

"Well I guess I'll get a broom," Sam said to the empty air of the perfectly poised house. It was a cute house on the outside. But the inside was uptight like a rubber band shaking against the invisible tension.

The house didn't even respond with a nod of acknowledgment, too afraid if it shifted even the slightest, it would knock something else out of place. And Sam knew when something was out of place.

Sam went to get the broom and dustpan from the closet where it was kept at a ninety degree angle fitting perfectly into the gap between the shelving and the door. The shelves stood to attention as the sun rays fell on the perfectly aligned and labeled canned goods, not a speck of dust in sight.

Stepping back into the living room, Sam crouched down his knees groaning and his leather shoes sighing with a squeak. His tie swung low getting in the way of the clinking of glass shards that made their way into the plastic dust pan. The shame of their journey was hard for even the flies on the wall to watch.

How could a picture that had hung for the past thirty years just give up? Everything in the house wanted to. Everything in Sam's body wanted to. But he was born with too healthy of genetics to even put his fifty year old body to the test. Everything but his knees. Five miles pounded out on the pavement every morning for the last thirty years put some wear on them. Even Sam couldn't deny that.

He gently leaned the wooden frame, absent of its thin glass face, against the wall. The painting blinked at the bright sun, no longer staring face down at the floor boards. It smiled at him. His heart broke for the millionth time.

He would never forget Rose crawling on the floor, paint smeared all over her tiny hands. Her tiny giggle as she dotted and splattered her masterpiece on the canvas.

"She's going to be an artist Mildred. I swear. Just watch. Our little Picasso."

Mildred would roll her eyes and say, "Let's just hope she's not as crazy as that."

"Who cares? We're just as crazy. Look at us at only twenty years old with our own kid." Sam scooped up Rose. Paint went everywhere. She laughed. Her blue eyes loved him. So did her tiny hands. Forgetting she had paint she reached for his beard. Paint would be stuck in it for weeks. So bad he had to shave. He never grew back the beard.

"Twenty isn't too young for a child," Mildred would argue.

"Not for most people. But for us. We were supposed to get married then have a kid. We were supposed to travel the world."

Mildred came up to the two of them joining in their paint frenzy as Rose jabbered something and with a smile smeared paint on Mildred's apron. The apron was still folded perfectly in the drawer where Mildred kept it.

"Who needs to travel the world, when I have the whole world right here," Mildred nuzzled Rose's baby face and kissed Sam on the cheek.

Mildred left six months later.

The grave wasn't very wide but its mouth still gaped at the tragedy. It gaped at the couple who once were inseparable, now were separated by the huge gap left in their hearts. That void spread to one another.

It gaped at the man shutting down in front of it. Darkened clouds casting permanent shadows on his heart. Sunk his eyes in.

No one knew how to handle the cruel, harsh words, "rare, aggressive, incurable disease." No one knew how to translate the message a giggling two year old. No one knew how to digest the sick pit of their stomach. No one knew how to process their world turning upside down so quickly. No one knew how to fill the void that had Rose’s name on it.

Mildred pleaded. She begged. She cried. She needed Sam. She didn't want to leave. But his cynical face grew. And he managed to fall into an untouchable routine. One word more than what he had to say to get through the day, sent him into a tyrant. Nothing was right. Nothing would ever be right.

The house was too dirty. The sky was too bright. The clouds were too puffy. The mailman was always late. Dinner was always too salty. The food wasn't salty enough. The laundry was too starch. The neighbors were too loud. Too many people checked in to poke around and be nosy.

"They're worried about us" Mildred would insist.

"Prying eyes. That's all it is."

He shut the door on everyone who rang the bell. So casseroles and flowers piled up on the front door. "Don't touch those Mildred. Bringing them inside will accept their pity. Their fake stupid pity. We aren't charitable causes."

He shut the curtains and swore at the incessant brightness of the sun. He shut the door to Rose's bedroom and sealed it. He hung her painting in the living room. And shut up all the other artwork in the house. Nothing could compare the masterpiece. The only piece he had left to hold onto. He shut down his heart. And he shut down Mildred’s.

She left in the morning, as the sun was rising. She never used the word ‘goodbye’. Because she didn't want to say goodbye. Goodbye wasn't the plan. Goodbye wasn't the fix. But maybe time was.

She stood in the doorway, with one lonely suitcase carrying the remnants of her heart. She stood in front of the painting. The rays of sunshine sneaked in the open door. Sam wanted to point out she was letting flies in. But he didn’t.

The painting shone proudly one last time, reflecting its colorful face in the tears rolling down Mildred’s cheeks. She talked to the painting, but her words were meant for Sam. "Maybe Rose was trying to tell you life still has color. No matter how much you shut out the sun. No matter how much it doesn't make sense. Life still has color."

Those words resounded in Sam's mind now thirty years later as he stared at the painting propped against the wall. He could hear Rose giggling.

Throwing the glass away and placing back the broom and dustpan exactly where they had been, he wiped his hands on his khaki pants.

He wasn't all cynical. He had this argument daily, going rounds and rounds in his mind all the time.

It would have been an argument for Mildred. But he had kept his mouth as shut as his stubborn heart and let her shut the door behind her.

Now the argument was with himself. Talking himself into a boxing ring of regret and insanity. The silent words to make her stay, haunted him.

He wanted to argue with Mildred and tell her that he reopened the curtains when he was thirty. A cynical person wouldn’t have done that.

Argue that he had allowed a nostalgic smile to creep on his lips when he was on a run and passed the train station in the distance. He let the smile linger for a vague moment before picking up his pace and not looking back.

The train station was where they met in what seemed like another lifetime ago. Love at first sight. It’s what made him stay in this small town. No questions asked. At sixteen years old, they promised each other the world. And they had meant it.

He wanted to argue that a cynic wouldn’t have shed a tear like he did, when he was on his front porch and picked up a runaway ball that a neighbor child had dropped. The ball was blue and green and reminded him of a globe. And for a split second as he handed back the ball to the grinning freckled face youngster, he indeed felt as though held the world in his hands once again.

He had so much he wanted to argue with her. To make her stay. To argue with himself. To make him heal.

He went back to the living room and scooped up the glassless painting. The wooden frame the only thing holding it, and him, together.

He took step after step out the door and down the street, his leather loafers squeaking in protest the whole way. He carried the painting all the way to the train station. Where more than thirty years earlier, he had introduced himself to the woman of his heart. Where now the woman of his heart waited for him, day after day. Never losing hope. Never saying goodbye.

The train conductor had become accustomed to the weary woman sitting on the same bench in a permanent sense of waiting. He was busy this morning. There was a bustle of activity as summer visitors rolled in and greeted families. Children running on the platform. Grandparents scooping new babies and kissing their delicate foreheads, welcoming the new members of the family. Exhausted parents carrying armfuls of suitcases.

But in the midst of the chaos, he saw a middle aged man. Clutching a very colorful, abstract painting in his arms. The painting reminded the conductor of the world.

No one had approached the waiting woman before, save for the every now and then solicitor trying to sell her discount train tickets. “You can go anywhere with these bargain tickets,” they’d go through their sales pitch.

“No thank you, I have all I ever need right here.”

The solicitors would look around at the bare platform around this lonely woman. “Where? There’s no one here.”

“But at least he knows where to find me. When he’s ready.”

The conductor watched the man approach the bench with the world in his hands. And the conductor smiled, as the man reached a hand out to the woman and said, “Hello, my name is Sam.”