Theme Fridays: expectations

  

THEME FRIDAY

 

Happy Friday everyone.  This week’s theme is the brainchild of Annie over at The Home Planet.  (Be sure to visit her today!)  And the theme is expectations.  i like to say i don’t have any for then, when nothing happens i’m okay with it, i am not disappointed because i expected nothing.  Then also, if something happens, i am delightfully surprised because i hadn’t expected anything!  But no matter how much i tell myself i don’t have any, they’re around- gathered into the dusty shadows that congregate in the corners of my heart, my mind.  Anyway, be sure to see what J expects.  And Annie, too.

So, without further ado…

expectations

A guessed at longing, he thinks, looking over the rim of his coffee cup at her face.  It is a soft face, though at the moment, it is stern with concentration.  She is working on the Sunday paper’s crossword.  And she’s not one of those who brags about doing them in ink.  She does them in pencil because “accidents happen” although, he’s never personally witnessed her wield an eraser on any puzzle.  “I hate drawing lines through words.  It’s murder!”  he’d never thought of it that way before and ceases to line through any words.

He watches her like this, each Sunday.  Her hair stands on end from sleep.  She never woke up looking like a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.  He was surprised the first time he spent the night.  She  told him, as they formed their bodies into one lump of damp heat that she snored like a buzz-saw.  And she did, boy did she ever.  She snored, slept hours past him, leaving him to get his own breakfast and watch television until she came to, and walked around in big ugly green slippers. 

He liked it though.  For the first time, the truth was there from the start.

He looks over again and there is nothing but hard slanting light sitting in her chair.  When they married, he expected to be loved to old age.  He looked forward to just he and she, puttering about.  He imagined her frail veiny feet sliding around in those battered green slippers, or squinting at a puzzle.  And he’d sit across from her, slurping Sanka.  His eyes burn.  He expected kids- they thought four would be a nice family- grandkids, maybe even great-grandkids…  It’s been three months, eight days, twelve hours and about forty-five minutes since she died.  How they talked of trips around the country, just the two of them.  Or maybe raising sheep, perhaps purchasing a cherry orchard.  Who dies at twenty-nine?

She does…

*          *          *                    *          *          *

It is 5:30 AM.  Her bed is made, the bureau dusted, Sanka swallowed and made a go of pushing wet eggs about her plate.  She knows she is early, but what else should she? could she? be doing now instead of waiting?

Her skin has that soft powdery film of things care-worn, of lives long lived.  She is showered, dressed in her best Sunday dress and hat.  She has shrugged herself into the lovely cardigan they sent for her birthday last month.  Of course, she doesn’t quite understand why they did not bring it by in person rather than mailing it to her.  It’s only two hours away and it washer birthday.  She knows it’s uncomfortable for them.  Even she dislikes the smell of the place and is constantly spraying her room with air freshners.  Even she is uncomfortable around so many old folks.  Some of them are mean, some are her friends and others are just waiting quietly, inwardly, brokenly for what comes next.  And she is uncomfortable also, reminded day and night through every sense of what comes next…

So, she sits outside, hoping that will calm their unease about the place.  She sits and watches the sun rise.  She watches children, young and strong, on their way to school.  She watches cars and the traffic lights change.  The get high and hot.  People come and go.  Nurse Decker reminds her of lunch, which she declines.  “My son and his wife are coming to take me to lunch today.  You’ll get to meet my granddaughter.  Oh she’s just sweet as pie.  And such wonderful manners!”  Nurse Decker brings her a tall and cool glass of water which she accepts with thanks.

Still no sign of the red Toyota Corolla that will take her to lunch.  It is noon.  It is one.  It is three and her stomach rumbles.  Her bladder is full.  She just knows the minute she goes inside they will drive on by, not seeing her out front like she promised… 

She loses her water and begins to cry.  This is not her.  This doesn’t happen to her.  But she can’t miss them.

She can’t miss them any more…

*          *          *                    *          *          *

Bella walks into the room.  She has a funny feeling in her stomach.  Mommy calls them butterflies because of the crazy flap of their wings and it feels like your stomach is filled with those wings- tickling there inside.  She’s felt them before- on the first day of school, when she went on the merry-go-round at the county fair, when Mommy and Daddy try not to yell at each other at night because they think she’s sleeping, when playing hide-and-seek with her friends, crouching in her favorite spot, behind the big oak at the side of her house.  But this is the first time she ever felt them walking into her room.

She looks around, her eyes search everything.  She doesn’t know what she expects to find but her tummy says there’s something.  She scrutinizes the lumps of her bed, which she made this morning all by herself!, the books, crayons, headbands and a little black comb on her little white desk with the pink trim she loves, the clothes like dead arms hanging out of her drawers.  She sighs and walks over to the desk, feeling like a baby.  Sitting at it, she feels those flutters again.  It feels like Mommy walked into the room, or Daddy. 

She is not a baby.  She will not turn around.  Her privates itch with the need to pee.  She sees a flash of dark movement at the corner of her eye.  She sits and thinks about cotton candy but something, whatever it is that’s filling her stomach with the clumsy flight of butterflies, comes closer. 

Bella begins to sing.  “Jesus loves the little children/All the children of the woooooooorld…”  And that’s even scarier.  She cannot stand it anymore and turns her head this way and that.

Nothing.  No one.  She stares at the clothes, the ones hanging out of the dresser.  Are they moving?  She stares and stares until her eyes cross.  “Such a baby!” she scolds herself.  She turns and heads for the bathroom, her eyes trained on the clothes which look like they’re moving.  She walks a little faster, but will not run.  She may be a baby, but she’s not that much of a baby.  She turns her head and walks quickly out of the room, forgetting to check under the bed.

*          *          *                    *          *          *

Will it come today?  Will it come tomorrow?  When?  When When?

I’m going to get it.
( but I didn’t  )

That could never happen!
( but it did and it hurt  )

She’s a good girl!
(  she’s a boy  )

A young Black man.
(  devoted father  )

 

Stay-at-home mom.
(  poet  )

 

(copyright 2008  )  c A Hughes
08.29.08