Mrs. Chapman

Mrs. Chapman had been a resident at Applewood Retiring Home for a little over five years and thus was fully integrated into its complicated social hierarchy. She was an esteemed member of what the staff called the “Porch Ladies”, who, moments after finishing their breakfast, staked their claims on the white, wooden rocking chairs that lined the balcony entrance. If she wasted even a few seconds before rushing to the door at mealtime’s end, someone else would claim her seat and she would be stuck inside the whole day, with nothing to do except drink apple juice while playing Bingo with residents that lacked the initiative to claim a seat on the porch. Mrs. Chapman didn’t particularly enjoy the thought of such a day, so she always made sure to shuffle out of the dining room first. 

“Did you taste the eggs today?” Angie, sitting to Mrs. Chapman’s left in one of the six revered rocking chairs, asked in indignation. She was thin as a twig and small as a mouse, her body sinking into the expansive white of the rocker. Three years prior, the kitchen had doubled her portioning at each meal, but Mrs. Chapman had never noticed a difference in Angie’s physique. Really,  it wasn’t their fault. Angie simply refused to eat anything she disliked, and she didn’t like much. “They were cold! Cold as the dead, I tell you.” 

“You say the same thing every day, Angie.” Mary Bell (not to be confused with Mary Beth, the banshee in Room 119 that screamed every night at 1:00 AM for a nurse because she had kicked the sheets off her bed), had suffered a stroke in 2015 and since then, her voice escaped through slack lips. Though her words slurred and carried little intonation, she always made herself easy to understand. “I’m tired of you complaining.”

Angie frowned, but kept her mouth shut. As the mistress of inside-information, it was always better to be on Mary Bell’s good side. 

Jocelyn shifted the conversation to the new volunteer pianist that came in every Tuesday and Friday and soon enough the Porch Ladies had started up a debate about whether or not the musician had any talent. Mrs. Chapman agreed with Jocelyn, Emily, and Daphne: the new pianist certainly had more talent than the previous ones, though Mrs. Chapman would have preferred a cellist for once. 

Around 10:00, one of the male nurses stepped out onto the porch where they sat, mid-discussion. “Do you ladies need anything?”

The ladies paused their conversation to respond. A few of the them asked for beverages. Mrs. Chapman, for one, requested a cellist. 

The nurse, Chris, smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The Porch Ladies waited for him to leave before Emily invited them all with a hand gesture to lean in towards her. “Have you seen him with the new girl?”

“The new girl?” Angie repeated, her usually whiny voice tainted with intrigue. 

“You mean the secretary,” Mrs. Chapman offered on behalf of Emily. 

“Yes, the secretary. What was her name again?”

“Sarah,” Daphne supplied. 

“Yes, Sarah. Have you seen the way he acts with her?”

Half the women nodded understandingly in response, sharing guilty smiles with one another. Mrs. Chapman glanced between them, the itch of being out-of-the-loop growing stronger with each nodding lady. 

“What?” She demanded. “How does he act with her?”

“You mean you haven’t noticed?”

“He looks at her like, like…” Jocelyn waved a hand in the air, as if trying to summon the right words from the ether. 

Mary Bell interjected, “Like she means the world to him.”

“Like he lives for her.”

“Like she’s his dream.”

“Like how my husband used to look at me,” Jocelyn finished. 

The glass doors to the porch slid open again, allowing Chris to step back out onto the porch with a tray of glasses. One by one, he set them down in front of the Porch Ladies as they watched his every move. 

“Did you find me a cellist?” Mrs. Chapman asked him as he set the last drink on one of the tables next to Angie.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t asked yet,” he responded kindly. “I can ask my boss now, if you’d like.”

“You should ask the secretary,” Mary Bell suggested. “Isn’t one of her responsibilities to schedule volunteers?”

“Oh,” Chris said, looking over his shoulder toward the building. “I guess you’re right. I should probably ask her.”

“Well, go on,” Mrs. Chapman urged when his feet wouldn’t move. “Ask her for me.”

He glanced back at her, uncertainty flashing across his young face. 

“Don’t tell me you’re nervous.”

Immediately, he threw his guard up. “Nervous? Why would I be nervous?”

Mrs. Chapman suppressed a grin. “Go ask her then. It’s been fourteen years since I’ve heard a live cellist play. I’d like to hear one again before I die, please.”

As Chris wandered back inside, Mrs. Chapman recalled her first conversation with the man that would one day propose to her. 

She sat at a bench across from Stephen Richards High School, a notebook resting on her lap. She used the edge of her pencil to shade in the shadows that fell across the front lawn, creeping towards her as the sun lowered. 

“Are you an art student?” A stranger asked from behind her.

She jumped and her pencil streaked across the page, drawing a harsh line directly through the middle of the building. For a second, she stared at it in horror. When the shock faded, she whirled around in a fury to deride the man. 

But he was already apologizing profusely. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he pleaded. “I only thought it was beautiful.”

Her anger began to dissipate as she turned back to her drawing. “It was only a building. Not even a pretty one. It’s okay.”

The stranger took a seat next to her on the bench. “No, it’s not okay.” He grabbed the notebook and lifted it up next to the high school she had referenced. “It’s like a photograph, but… It has more to it.”

She grabbed the notebook back. “I already said it was okay. You don’t need to make things up to make me feel better. I’ve already forgotten it.” She stood up to leave, but the stranger stopped her with a hand on her arm. 

“I’m not making things up. You managed to make something as bland as a high school captivating. In fact, I’d like to buy this drawing. Can I buy it?”

“It has a line going across it.”

“Something that’s my fault. In my perspective, that just adds more character to the piece. Can I buy it?”

“Why do you want it?”

“I’m a teacher at Stephen Richards. I’d like to show my colleagues. They’d all appreciate your choice of inspiration, I’m sure.”

She hesitated. 

“Just let me buy it already.”

“Okay.”

From where she sat on the porch of the Applewood Retiring Home, Mrs. Chapman could see through a window to where Chris approached the secretary. Even from afar, she could tell he was a bundle of nerves. She wondered how she hadn’t noticed it before. 

Chris walked up to the desk and Sarah smiled at him. He said something, and she laughed, her eyes brightening. She said something in return and his shoulders shook with his chuckle. Mrs. Chapman watched as he slid a thumb into the pocket of his scrubs, drumming his fingers against his leg nervously. He said something else, and Sarah’s smile widened. She nodded eagerly. Chris’s tense demeanor finally started to relax. 

As Chris and Sarah kept talking, Mrs. Chapman noticed her own grin stretching across her wrinkled face. She could imagine their conversation as if it were her own, fifty years ago outside a high school. As Chris started to make his way back out to the porch, Mrs. Chapman closed her eyes and let herself sink into the past for a moment. 

She sat on the same bench, palms under her thighs as she watched her boyfriend take a knee in front of her. Between his index finger and thumb he displayed a beautiful ring, studded with diamonds. 

“I won’t make things up to make you fall in love with me. I'll never be able to forget you. I won’t apologize for falling in love with you. Just please, let me have your hand already. Will you marry me?”

“I’ll forever be yours, Mr. Chapman.”

Chris stood like a little boy in front of her, his smile stretching from ear to ear and his face glowing. “I think we can get you that cellist after all, Mrs. Chapman.”