This house - the inspiration for this story
The 83 year old man looked out of his upstairs apartment window wishing it would stop raining. It seemed like that’s all it ever did anymore, and he couldn’t go out when it rained like this. His cane probably wouldn’t hold up, and he would slip, or fall. Either way, it wasn’t a satisfying image rolling around in his head. Today he would be content to peek out at sheets of rain coming down in waves on the roof of the silver Nissan driving below his Brooks-E. Mountain St corner window view.
Days like this tended to bring back memories of his wife of 58 years. Equal in age and life wisdom, she quadrupled him in energy and “spunkness” – the description the kids had given her when they were younger – until she left him for another life. One he never believed or hoped in, until that day. The day of the car and the lights…and the rain.
“Why the hell did she have to drive all the time?” He thought to himself, feeling the new found flushness of his face.
“Because I still can,” he could almost hear her saying back to him, as smug as she always was, and as cute as she always would have been. A tear emerged from the inside of his right eye.
Just as he was getting lost in his thoughts, that boy came around the corner again, the one that lived in the house next door, but was constantly walking over toward his house, and moving towards his entrance. He knocked at the window, waving the boy away. This was not a loving gesture by any means from his point of view, but the boy waved back, as if to say, “I don’t really care if you’re being mean and waving me away, I’m still gonna hang out here where you can’t come down and see me anyway.”
“Dumb kid” he muttered to himself, certain that he was quite clear as to what he wanted from the boy. And even more clear that this generation of kids would ruin the world as he knew it.
It wasn’t like it used to be, for him or the world. The world used to be so simple, and he used to be so loved. She loved him. He didn’t know why, but she did. She always did. Through their young adult life and through his career, the kids and the bills – she loved him through all that. And now, she was gone. Sure the kids were still there, and their kids and even some of their kids, but about 3 months afer she left (he preferred to use this term), he realized their visits had been about her and not him. Love seemed to be no more.
Despite the bumping and movement he heard in his hallway, he was tired and wanted to take a nap. Tomorrow the senior agency would come and pick him up for his weekly appointment to “some kid doctor who couldn’t tell a cold from a cat” he would lavishly share with anyone who would listen in the waiting room. He needed his rest. “Damn noises in my hallway,” he spouted off, walking slowly away from the noise and towards his bedroom, where he hoped not to wake up.
In about two hours of napping, he dreamed. Dreaming always takes so much out of you, and he was never a fan, but this time it was no use. He couldn’t stop from dreaming. He dreamed he was at a party. The party must have been at his only daughter’s house. She was so beautiful, though he never told her so, preferring to leave the “mushy” stuff to his wife. It seemed that the party centered around him – they were celebrating him. Whether it was his birthday or anniversary, he could not tell. But he did see the sign that said his name, and for once his family all centered around him, smiling and laughing about his life. He decided that he would take the opportunity during a quick lull to ask them all a question. After all, they were all there, and he wanted to know.
“Why did you stop visiting me when she died?” He asked his room full of family members and friends. Immediately their smiles turned to scowls, and they turned away from him, one by one. Unsurprisingly, he opened his eyes in a cold sweat, and the daytime rain had given itself over to a nighttime drizzle. He took a sip of the water sitting at the side of his bed.
“Finally, the son decides to show its face,” the 83 year old man thought, smirking to himself as he peered out the same corner window he gazed at .
“What?” the man watching TV in the other room asked, deafened by the volume of old reruns of Miami Vice blaring from the speakers.
He ignored his son’s question, only to ask one in return.
“Why are you here again?”
Begrudgingly, the man stood from his father’s favorite seat and said, “I told you dad, I am going to take you to the doctors office today.” The younger man shut off the television and asked his dad if he was ready to go.
“Don’t rush me, I’m putting on my coat.” The man reacted a bit more harshly than he should have, the son thought, and responded, “You okay dad?”
“I’m fine,” came the predictable response, with an unpredictable tag along. “I just don’t understand why you people don’t love me. No one loves me…like she did.” The last 3 words trailed off, but the meaning was clear.
Silence in the room for the next 5 minutes as the man readied himself for the doctor. The son eventually broke the silence.
“Dad, who did you have fix your apartment door and paint the hallway?”
“No one.” The dad responded, looking at his son like he was an alien.
“Someone did it. And did a great job too. I asked your idiot landlord how much that was going to set you back, and he said he didn’t do it, and you didn’t ask.”
“Nope. I did not ask. And if I did, he would have waited until I got in a damn car accident to do it.” The words stung himself more he thought they would.
“Well, someone must love you, because the walls didn’t paint themselves and the door didn’t fix itself.”
His son opened the apartment door for him, walked him slowly across the freshly painted hallway, and towards the newly-fixed front entrance, as a beam of sunlight shone through it’s window and splashed on the old man’s face.
