The old radio crackled with the monotone voice of the host of the Newfoundland ‘Open Line’ show. George could barely pick out the conversation between the host and the caller. Something about the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend. He tried to adjust the tuner but his hands, gnarled with arthritis, made it difficult to turn the knob. No success. The radio was old, worn and needed to be replaced. Like me, he thought.
He fumbled with the switch a few minutes and turned it off. Silence. His legs ached as he rose to his feet, pulling his old parka together over his chest. The damned zipper wouldn’t co-operate. He looked out the window. The patio was wet and the wind-driven October rain smacked off the glass. This summer had been wet, and cool; And the fall was turning out to be wetter and colder. Maybe he could turn the heat on for a bit. He turned and bumped into the black leather couch. His eyes rested on Mavis who lay there motionless.
“Mavis,” he called out. He shuffled to her side and shook her non-responsive body.
“Mavis,” he hesitantly repeated, hoping for an answer but knowing the truth. He had not seen her chest move. She was as dead as she was when he had found her on the kitchen floor. Laboriously, he had dragged her limp body from the floor and plopped it on the couch. Out of breath he had fallen into the dark brown leather chair facing his deceased wife. That had been Tuesday. Yesterday.
He picked up the blood-stained face cloth from the coffee table and hobbled over to Mavis. He gently tried to clean the blood from the gash on her left temple, but it did little good. The blood had dried and was now caked around her eye. He stood; wavering to control the dizziness, then remained watching his wife’s still form.
When he woke on Tuesday morning her side of the bed was empty. He had looked at the digital clock beside the bed. It was 9:03 am. He had slept in. He hadn’t heard Mavis get up but then he was usually up before her. He got out of bed calling out to her on his way down the hall. He almost collapsed when he saw her crumpled body on the kitchen floor.
He looked toward the kitchen. A small spot of blood on the floor by the table now marked the spot where she had lain. She must had hit her head on the kitchen chair when she fell, at least that is all he could figure out. There was nothing else it could be.
Mavis had been a sickly woman over the past five years. She was diagnosed with a heart condition and because of it she spent a lot of time in bed. They rarely went anywhere outside of church on the occasional time she felt well enough to go. He had gotten most of their meals and he ensured she took her medication when they had it. They didn’t have insurance and her medications were expensive. To save money, he would spread one month of pills over a three-month period. The doctor wouldn’t approve but then the doctor could well afford to follow rules.
He plopped down in the chair again. He was tired. Outside of taking time to change clothes, he had been in that chair. Day turned to night almost in a blur. He did not turn on a light to break the darkness and this morning’s daylight had nothing to offer him. He doubted if he had eaten but the empty mug and side plate with a half-eaten cracker convinced him otherwise. He watched his quiet wife as his hand slid forward on the smooth and cool surface of the chair’s arm. He smiled as he thought about that day he brought the chair home. All the other furniture in this small family room off the kitchen was black. He had seen it at the Home Depot one day about five years ago. He knew it was brown when he saw it, but he had convinced himself it was dark enough to pass for black. When Mavis saw it, she had looked as if he were a misbehaving child and said,
“Now what color do you think that is?”
Pausing briefly, he had replied, “Brack”.
She laughed despite herself and said in a non-convincing tone. “It will have to go back.”
His smile faded as he focused on his wife’s motionless form. His father always said that as you get older many secrets will be revealed to you. When he was young, he thought his father was talking about meaningful things, positive, affirming realities you wondered about your whole life. Now, at eighty, one secret was certain. Life on Golden Pond was only a movie. The themes ‘Grow old together’ once produced gentle images of couples living in comfort in later years. Yet, for most there was no cottage on the lake. He hated that word, cottage. It implied money, the one thing there had never been enough of in his life.
He looked at Mavis again. He should have called 911. It was the sensible thing to do. He had picked up the phone, but he put it back on the receiver when he realized that when they came, they would take her and he would be alone. Fifty-eight years they had been together. He had been twenty-two and Mavis was twenty-one. Together, they had one child, John, who now lived with his wife and two daughters in Corner Brook. He rarely got to St. John’s for a visit. There was no one else. The neighbours had been good friends, but they had all moved or died. Now, younger couples surrounded them and there was little contact with the world outside their little house.
Maybe if she had taken the drugs as required, she would still be here. Maybe a lot of things, he thought trying to suppress his emotions but despite this he felt a tear wandering down his cheek. The only thing in his mediocre life that he had succeeded in, was loving Mavis and now that was gone. Gone. Ripped from his soul leaving a ragged gap and a screaming pain that would not retreat. He would not be alone.
“You bastard,” he hissed, looking up at the ceiling.
He dropped the cloth from his hand and rose to his feet. He stepped over and kneeled on the floor beside Mavis. He leaned toward the cheap end table to reach the fileting knife he had placed there some hours earlier. Without thinking he sliced it across his wrist. Strangely, he felt little pain as the blood squirted out, spraying onto Mavis`s blue pyjamas. He knelt there feeling nothing but the throbbing of his life oozing away. A puddle of red was forming at his feet.
Ring! The phone broke the silence. Impulsively, he moved to answer it, but dizziness took over and he bumped the coffee table. Falling across it, his head struck the sharp corner of the maple wood heirloom, and he sank into a crumpled heap on the floor. The receiver toppled from the opposite end table and then fell from its cradle dangling about six inches above George`s head.
“Hello. “ The male voice said hesitantly and paused waiting for an answer. “Dad?”