Waiting

Things were just no good anymore. 

This was the only thing that Joel could think as he stared at the window. At, not out, the raindrops that escaped from the outer layer of mesh plinking against the window pane. Joel put his hand up to it, his fingers hovering just for a second before touching down, pressing until his whole hand was pressed against the frigid glass. The wall groaned around it as his hand pushed harder, his arthritic knuckles popping in pained agreement. 

He coughed, wet and mucousy. It burst from his chest suddenly. His hand dropped away from the glass as his coughing fit subsided. And he looked out the window, onto the street below, as  a bicyclist rode past. She was soaking wet. Joel became aware of the low hum of the cars on the street, windshield wipers on their highest setting, red taillights streaming off into the oppressive darkness of the heavy rain clouds like the trails that sparklers leave behind. 

He stared at them for what felt like seconds. Minutes. Years. 

He closed his eyes. The red streaks of light remained. They turned blue with a pale glow around the edges, lining the roadways in his mind. The streetlights, too, were now small bursts of purple. They floated above the lines making up the road, wavering in shape. 

Joel breathed in. He hadn’t even realized he was out of air until he took the oxygen in, a fullness expanding his chest. He opened his eyes. The world of lines and pops of lights overlaid the real world for a brief moment. He blinked it away. 

He shuffled away from the street facing window and down the stairs, his old house creaking in time with his movements. He needed to be by the phone.

He trailed his hand along the banister. The pads of his fingers found the gently carved swoops in the wood and he counted each stair that groaned under his feet. 

With each groan he thought of his wife, Millie, lying in her hospital bed. Even in his mind, she was exactly as he saw her last Tuesday, pale blue and small against the white of the sheets and the walls. The persistent hiss of the rain against his house turned into the static of machines that beeped out Millie’s tenuous signs of life. 

Joel coughed again, the reminder of why he couldn’t be there with her. It sat at the base of his throat, wet and heavy. She was in a delicate state right now, the doctor had said. It wouldn’t do for him to pass his cold to her. Even the slightest setback could tip her scales towards the worst outcome. 

Especially now, when the doctors were deciding if there even was anything they could do for her. 

He needed to be by the phone.

People have always said that wisdom comes with age but Joel would trade all that wisdom for Millie to be younger again. There were too many complications that came with the shuffled march of years. They added up. Advanced age might have brought wisdom, but it had also made both Joel and Millie delicate creatures. 

He pressed his lips together and looked up at the ceiling. Joel blinked, and blinked again. He focused on the lines of light that reappeared each time he closed his eyes. Finally the tight feeling at his temple and between his eyes went away. He stared hard at the ceiling just a little longer for good measure. 

And then he continued on, shuffling the rest of the way to his and Millie’s book cranny, the room that they had decided would be theirs for retirement when they moved in some fifty years before. He needed to be by the phone.

Framed between the two armchairs was a beautiful stained glass picture, suspended in front of the room’s picture window. Millie had made it for Joel to celebrate their fifth anniversary. In their little cut glass forms, he and Millie stood side by side in a forest on a clear day, hands clasped tightly together. On days that the sun was in full force, sunlight streamed into the room, lighting up the stained glass's vibrant colors. The greens and reds and blues would pour over the carpeted floors and the walls, transforming the room into a kaleidoscope as the colors shifted with the sun. 

Now though, the room was overcast by the massive storm clouds that stretched over the house. The rain poured down the window pane and obscured what little natural light there was. Joel turned on the lamp to the left of what was officially his armchair. It flickered to life. He slowly eased himself down into Millie’s chair. Hers was the plushest of the two chairs and, Joel thought, the most comfortable. 

He glanced over at the phone waiting just the room over, visible through the doorway. When it continued to not ring, he picked up one of the many books stacked on the small wooden table between his and Millie’s armchairs. He shifted until he was perched on the edge of the chair. The book was in his lap and the pages were caught spread open by his gnarled fingers as the pads of his fingertips rested on the edge of the margins.

Joel cocked his head to the side and kept an ear out for the trill of their landline but the only sound was the hiss of the rain against the house. He listened harder. Waiting. 

He’d done a lot of waiting these last several days. 

Joel never realized his focus split in its single mindedness. The static of the rain took over his senses and his eyes drifted shut. And then he saw her. 

“Millie…” 

She stood before him, beautiful as she always was. Ethereal. Vibrant in a way she hadn’t been in a long time. Embraced by soft blue lines and gentle purple lights, she stepped towards him. Her wrinkled cheeks pulled up in a sweet smile and her brown eyes shone out from underneath thick, silver eyebrows. 

Joel went to her, weightless in his euphoria, unable to feel the creak of old bones or the gravity that usually weighed so heavy on him. Millie met him in the middle of the room, moving just as effortlessly as he was, seeming to almost dance towards him. His mind flashed back to Tuesday. The image of her washed out by white sheets overlaid her form in front of him. 

She had seemed so small and fragile in the hospital bed. 

The doubled image was broken as Millie made that final step towards him and smoothed a thumb over Joel’s cheek. Her hand cupped his face. She stood there in front of him once more, out of the white covers and away from the white walls. 

“You look great, Millie,” Joel said simply. “Beautiful. Healthy.”

Her lips twisted up at one side and she smiled wryly. “Now you stop that, Joel Hennessy. You’re a fool if you thought I was going to lose any fight. Have I ever lost a fight in all the years you’ve known me?”

“Never,” he admitted. 

“Not even when that awful Pat McCormick tried to jump us after our first date? The one at the Star Theater?”

“Not even then.”

She leaned up and he leaned down as she pressed their foreheads together. “Then you should have known that all this couldn’t take it outta me. It would take a lot to snatch me away from your side, dear, and I’m not ready to go yet.”

He breathed her words in. And he nodded. “I hear you loud and clear, Millie Hennessy. Not going anywhere.”

They stand like that for seconds. Minutes. Years. 

Joel opened his eyes. He was sitting back in Millie’s chair, hand splayed over the worn pages of the book in his lap. The rain was still coming down, pattering against the window, leaving streaked patterns spilling over the floor. 

The phone rang.