Page 51 of Of Literature and Lattes
“I love you,” she stated simply.
Seth smiled and moved close to kiss his beautiful ex-wife-turned-fiancée when a man caught his eye. He pulled back. Janet’s eyes clouded in confusion before her head turned to follow his line of sight.
“George?” he called down the hallway. He squeezed Janet’s hands, both still clasped within his own, and stood.
“Seth.” The old man sighed as if he had found safe harbor. “Janet.”
Seth noted George’s tone carried a little uplift in question with Janet’s name. He couldn’t blame him. All the members of their men’s group had walked beside him during his divorce and its lonely aftermath. And George hadn’t been around much in the last couple months to hear the updates.
“What are you doing here? Is Margery okay?”
George looked back down the hallway. “Winsome Pharmacy is closed; the hospital’s is the only one open right now. I ran out of my heart pills.”
“Couldn’t your hospice nurses help you out?”
“I needed something to do. Margery is finally sleeping.”
Seth gripped the man’s shoulder. George and Margery had been married for sixty-three years, and he couldn’t imagine the pain George was enduring. “You need sleep too, my friend. Let us take you home.”
“My car is right outside the west door. But you’re right. I’m getting tired now.” George shook his head. “David Drummond told me about this.”
Janet laid a hand on his arm as well. “Told you what?”
Seth noticed George’s eyes looked rheumy, red and alone, beyond anything he’d seen in his friend before.
“The night is the darkest time. The kids are home, five of them, and yet in the night I’m empty and alone, deeply alone.”
Janet stepped forward and engulfed George in a hug, and Seth loved her for it.
After long minutes, George stepped back. “I’ll go now. I expect I’ll be able to get a little sleep. Thank you.”
Seth rested a hand once again on George’s shoulder. “How about I drop by tomorrow?”
“I’d like that.” George nodded and walked past them. He stopped and looked back twenty feet later, just as the hospital’s sliding doors opened for him. Seth stood with his arms around Janet, who had her forehead resting on his chest.
He smiled and headed out into the parking lot. He had always thought those two would get back together. For years everyone labeled Janet a shrew or worse, but he’d always had a soft spot for her. Just wait, he’d told Margery. Don’t give up, he’d told Seth. Seth hadn’t seen his wife clearly, and all the fear she carried. But he had—after all, he’d raised Devon, Bella, and Terrell. He knew a wounded soul thrashed as violently as a bitter or broken one. But once soothed and made safe, that soul healed well and was all the more beautiful for the hurt it once carried.
Upon reaching his car, George pulled out the small pad of paper and pen he always carried and made a note to call Devon the next morning. He smiled to himself. It was already morning, but without writing it down he’d still forget.
And that’s what he did. After only four hours of sleep, George was wide awake again and had completely forgotten his plan to call his fourth child.
The sun wasn’t up yet—which was just how he liked it. He used to love it when the kids would come down for breakfast and find a good meal laid out on the table. He had often made eggs and bacon and always burned the toast a touch. How they would exclaim, as if fairies had left the grub by magic. They knew he did it, of course, but they never realized how much work it required. It took a full hour to make that meal, and by the time they thundered down the stairs before school he’d also already had his quiet time, downed his morning coffee, and read the newspaper. They’d laugh together over breakfast, then head to school and he’d head to the office. It had felt like magic. Maybe it was. He chuckled. Magic for me, he thought, and for them, but poor Margery always got stuck with the dishes.
He put on a cardigan and walked out the front door, greeting the day-shift hospice nurse in the driveway.
“How was the night, Mr. George?”
“She slept well. Deeper, I think.”
“She will, and longer now.” The slow, compassionate way she said the words signaled to George that this was not a sign of good restorative rest, but the start of the next stage of the journey. “You need rest too, Mr. George. Your coffee will still be there in a few hours.”
“Won’t be the same, Denise. I’ll be back soon.”
George walked down Bunting Street, turned left onto Spruce, and within fifteen minutes—it used to take eight, he thought—he crossed the town green to Andante.
The owner pushed the door open just as he reached for the handle.
“George Williams?”
