Things Left Unwritten

Weekly story for fiction class...

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“I know! I’m so excited!” Brittany said into her bright yellow cell phone with the jingling bell charm hanging off of it. She walked into the hallway from the garage and tossed her keys toward the shelf. “I can’t believe I have a date with Sean Walker!”

She paused, listening. She climbed the stairs to her room and threw her backpack off her shoulders, still clutching the phone to her ear.

“No, he just came up and asked!” she bubbled. “It was at lunch, and I….”

Another pause followed, in which her mother came up and tapped on her open door. She motioned for Brittany to come downstairs.

“Wait, Kristen?” Brittany interrupted. “I have to go, my mom wants me for something. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow!” Brittany clapped the phone shut and ran downstairs.

“Well, you’re sure in a good mood, Brit,” her mother said as Brittany skipped the last two steps down into the dining room.

“Well, you know that guy I’ve been talking about for the past three months?” Brittany asked her mother, plopping down into a chair at the table. “I have a date with him for tonight!”

Her mother raised her eyebrow. “Don’t be out too late. You have Japanese school tomorrow.”

“I know, I know.”

“Is he going to pick you up?”

“Yes, Mom. Around 6:30ish.”

“Is he coming in?”

“Whatever! Do you want him to come in?”

“Yes, of course I do. Is that okay?”

“Yesssss,” Brittany sighed, hoping that was enough to satisfy her mother.

“Anyway, the reason I wanted you down here,” her mother continued, “was that Grandma and Grandpa decided to clean out their garage. They brought a few boxes of old books for you to look through.”

Brittany was excited, but she was still thinking mostly about her date.

“Most of the stuff in there is pretty old and useless,” her mother said. “I peeked through one box already. But if you find something, and I’m sure you will, they said you can take it. You know Nisei—they can’t throw anything away, but they can give it to the grandchildren.”

Trying to get equally excited about the boxes of books, Brittany managed a smile.

“Where are they?”

Her mother pointed toward the living room. Brittany made a hasty exit, still wondering what she and Sean would do that evening. She nearly stumbled over the first of three hefty, dusty boxes.

“Figures,” she muttered, opening the first. “I wonder what kind of stuff is in here?”

For the moment, curiosity overcame dreams of romance. Brittany lifted out book after book, each one as dusty as the box it came from. The first set of three volumes she pulled out was an encyclopedia from 1965. Old, but not terribly useful, she thought.

Next, she pulled out what looked like romance novels. She smiled furtively as her thoughts returned to Sean. She flipped to the inside cover. 1978. Getting a little bit more recent, though as she flipped through the pages, she didn’t think she’d be very interested in them. I might as well give one of them a try, she thought, putting the most liberal-looking one aside. Only finding some more research dictionaries and novels from the 60s and 70s, she moved on to the second box.

The second box was full of comic books. Not bothering to even look through these, Brittany put the lid back on. Probably her dad’s or uncle’s from when they were kids. They looked old enough, with their covers faded and falling apart.

Slightly disappointed, Brittany reached toward the last box. Opening up the lid, she looked inside and was startled to see Japanese characters over the covers of the first few.

“Find anything good?” her mother asked, as she joined Brittany.

“Not really. I think those are Dad’s old comics,” Brittany replied, pointing toward the second box. “But I haven’t gone through this box yet.” She held up a book. “What do you think these are?”

“You can probably read more of it than I can,” her mom admitted, taking a glance at it. “It looks like some kind of lesson book. Maybe you should take it in tomorrow and ask Sensei about it.”

“Hmm.” Brittany didn’t relish the idea of asking Nakamura-Sensei about some old fifty-something year old book, but it might be intriguing. She kept sorting through the remaining books.

Eventually, she and her mother had pulled most of the deteriorating texts out of the box. They flipped through a few.

“Ooh, this one looks like a hymnal or something—it’s got music notes in it.”

“That must be Auntie Jin’s; she went to church all the time before the war.”

“What’s this? It’s blank inside….”

“Looks like an empty journal. Kind of pretty, though!”

“Here’s another one of those lesson books. I wonder who used them?”

On that note, Brittany and her mother searched back through the stacks of books, trying to find some kind of name that would give them a hint. There was nothing at all in the lesson books, but they did find some kanji characters scrawled in the blank journal.

Brittany stared at it. She was learning some kanji, but she couldn’t read these. The script was flowing and natural, not at all like her strained attempts at Japanese school. She turned it upside down, and her mother laughed.

“We’ll have to get Uncle Tad to read it this weekend,” she said, alluding to their family get-together that Sunday. Since Great-auntie Mary was visiting from New Jersey, Brittany’s dad’s whole side of the family was coming to Brittany’s house to welcome them in for the few weeks they were in town. Brittany’s great-uncle Tad, Mary’s brother, was the best one to go to for help reading obscure kanji and vocabulary.

“I think I’ll take this one for now,” Brittany said as she picked it up along with the novel and some assorted lesson books. “The rest can go.”

Her mother winked. “Don’t tell Grandma and Grandpa. Just tell them you found some things that you liked.”

“Oh, I will.” Brittany glanced down at the hand-stitched flowered cover of the journal. She looked back up, and her gaze caught the grandfather clock.

“5:30! I need to get ready!” she shrieked and took off up the stairs.

Shaking her head, her mother covered the boxes back up and pushed them over to the wall, to be disposed of.

Upstairs, Brittany dropped the books on her bed and dashed into the bathroom.

#

It was 11:38 by the time she unlocked the front door and stepped into the entryway. The house was dark, except for the office light, which usually meant that her brother Jason was up. She peeked in. Yes, Jason was sitting mesmerized in front of the screen. Brittany tip-toed up the stairs.

“Brit, you home?” she heard out of her parents’ bedroom.

“Yes,” she called softly.

“Was it fun?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

She washed up and climbed into bed, still glowing about the night’s events. She was about to shove the books off onto the floor until she remembered what crumbling state they were in. Not quite sleepy enough to turn off the light, she picked them up one by one, looked through them once more, and set them on the floor by the nightstand in a neat pile.

Saving the journal for last, she studied the name inside once again. She thought she recognized part of the second kanji, but she didn’t know what the whole character stood for. She doubted she’d learn the next morning in Japanese class.

Struck by a sudden inspiration, she took a pen from her nightstand and wrote her name in kanji next to the first name, trying to make her writing fluid and casual. She might as well make use of this piece of her family history. Turning to the first page, she wrote, “February 17—Tonight was my first date with Sean….”

Continuing until the night’s narrative was recorded for all posterity, she finally turned out the light and sank back into her pillows.

#

Sunday afternoon was spent cleaning the house. Every room was vacuumed and dusted, and the bathrooms were Jason’s special chore. Brittany washed and dried the remaining dishes in the sink, as her mom had warned that that would be the first place Grandma would head if there was a lack of things to do when she got there. Her dad began barbecuing steaks marinated in teriyaki sauce, and her mother started cooking the special soup which was a Tanaka specialty.

Around 4:00, her relatives started arriving. Uncles and aunts galore trooped in, bringing the requisite cousins and traditional dishes. Auntie Mary made it in with Brittany’s grandma and grandpa, followed by Uncle Tad and his wife Auntie Grace. Eventually, they got settled in, and the great-uncles and aunts sat at the table, while the Sansei sat on the couches surrounding the basketball game, and Brittany and her cousins sat around in chairs and on the floor.

After a couple rounds of food and a Yonsei cousin Super Smash Brothers tournament, people started to talk about leaving, though they all kept sitting at the table eating Yoku-Moku cookies. Auntie Mary looked ready to fall asleep, sinking down into the big chair in the corner.

“Brittany,” her mother whispered. “Go get those lesson books and that journal, and bring them down here to Uncle Tad.” Uncle Tad was still going strong on the cookies, crunching and dropping crumbs on the table.

Brittany dutifully ran up and got the books. She brought them down as her mother was explaining things to Uncle Tad with her grandma listening.

“So you found some things in those old boxes?” her grandma asked as Brittany sat back down.

“Oh, yeah,” Brittany replied, handing over the books. “Pretty cool.”

Uncle Tad took the lesson books and looked through them.

“Wow, I haven’t seen things like this in years,” he commented. “They look like the things that we used in grade school, but I don’t know who used these ones. Mary? Mary!”

Auntie Mary started out of sleep. Rubbing her eyes, she called out, “What? Time to go?”

“No, come look at this.” Uncle Tad went over himself and stood by Auntie Mary’s chair, holding out the book.

“Oh, these were Sumi’s,” Mary said after some studying the pages. “She wanted them to teach her children someday. And then she never had children.” Her voice was somber. Their sister had passed away years before, during the war.

Brittany thought that this made the lesson books far more significant than if she had taken them to Japanese class the day before. She watched as Auntie Mary continued looking through the text and Uncle Tad picked up the journal.

“Oh,” he said, flipping open the cover and seeing the names written there. “This is yours, Mary. I don’t remember it at all.” He read the names. “Not bad, Brittany—I can read your name.”

Brittany blushed. Her kanji was horrible. But of course her uncle wouldn’t say so.

Auntie Mary took the journal tentatively. She ran her hands lightly over the embroidered flowers and rubbed her finger down the spine.

“I remember this,” she said simply and set it down, not bothering to open it, to my relief. I didn’t know how much of my love life I wanted my old aunties and uncles knowing about. Not to mention the additional entry of the day before about how much I disliked Japanese class.

Feeling that there was more to the story, I asked her, “When did you get it?”

“An old friend, well, you might call him my first boyfriend—he gave it to me the day we left for the assembly center at Santa Anita. I promised him I would keep a journal of everything I did, and when I came back, I would let him read it.” She paused. “Of course, I never did go back.” She folded her hands as if that told the story.

Working up the courage, Brittany asked her aunt, “Why is there nothing in it?”

Auntie Mary’s folded hands betrayed a slight tremor. “Once we left Santa Anita for Arizona, I packed that journal away in my knapsack. Of that story, the story of the wartime, I often think, some things are best left unwritten.”

#

Up in her room after the relatives had all left and her parents had gone to bed, Brittany gathered up the lesson books and placed them carefully on her shelf. She looked at the journal and opened the cover. Her finger traced the outlines of her name next to her aunt’s.

Her first instinct was to tear her own entries out. Next to her aunt’s pain and silence, how could she write such trash in a journal like this? She had the pages between her fingers when she thought of something else. Slowly, she took up the pen from her nightstand and wrote, “February 19—Maybe it is better that some things be written. Tonight, Auntie Mary told me a story….”

Pacific Coast Classic 2008

My weekend...

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“Drew! Drew!”

Mrs. Avelino was shouting over my shoulder.

“Andrew!”

Drew finally turned around.

“What?”

“Can you please go get me a pretzel? You can keep the change!”

“No!”

“Please?”

“No!”

“I’ll do it.” Timmy jumped up and spun around.

“See?” Mrs. Avelino told Drew. “Timmy will get me one.”

Timmy handed his own half-eaten pretzel to my brother James. “If you eat my pretzel, I swear, I’ll kill you.” He took the money from Drew’s mom and turned down the bleachers.

Drew sighed in exasperation and began to follow Timmy, as the other boys started placing orders too.

“Wait!” Mrs. Avelino yelled after him. “Take Gabriel!”

“No!” Drew emphatically shook his head this time. “I don’t want to take him!”

“I can go with Timmy,” five-year-old Gabriel grinned toothily out of the hood of his gigantic sweatshirt.

“Timmy doesn’t want him either, Mom!” Drew pointed out, as Timmy reached the floor and took off for the food stand.

“All right. Gabriel, honey, Mommy’s sorry, but you can’t go with them this time.”

“Can I have my juice?”

Mrs. Avelino rooted around in her purse for the small bottle of apple juice Gabriel wanted. I turned around and kept watching the competition, although I kept moving aside for Gabriel to play cars on the bleachers next to me.

Timmy came back with three pretzels in his hands. Drew walked behind him holding three plastic cups filled with cheese.

“What the f?” Timmy took his pretzel back with a noticeable bite gone. “I’m going to kill you!”

“It wasn’t me!” James protested. He pointed to Nick. “It was him.”

Nick, not to be outdone, pointed over at James’ other side at Jon. “Jon ate a bite too.”

Timmy whipped back around in his seat, and Gabriel clambered down the few rows to Timmy’s side.

“Can I have a bite?”

Timmy grudgingly offered Gabriel a bite, then ignored the tiny arm that went across his shoulders as if they were best buddies.

#

In another few hours, the meet neared the finish. The boys all got up and left to do who knows what. We figured we wouldn’t be able to get up the elevator in all the departing traffic, so we stuck it out in the same set of bleachers.

“I tell you story,” I heard from Timmy’s mom, Mrs. Wang. “In Olympic Trials, I get the Paul Hamm’s autograph for Timmy.” She was standing, along with my mom, while Mrs. Mondragon still sat in her seat. “Everybody goes in this door, but I say, ‘Timmy, we go to that door,’ and he say, ‘Mommmm, no one’s going in that door.’ But I say, ‘No, come here.’”

The arena was emptying out. If anyone was around us, they could probably hear Mrs. Wang telling and the rest of us laughing very easily.

“And then, we wait by the door, and the Paul Hamm sticks his head out, and I take him like this. (Here, she grabbed my mom’s arm.) And I say, ‘Come.’ The security comes and says, ‘No, no, no,’ but I say, ‘No,’ and take the Paul Hamm over and say, ‘Sign this,’ and all the parents are following me.”

By this point, we’re all laughing. The little Chinese mother stalking the gymnastics superstar.

“And then I ask Paul Hamm if he be in Hawaii competing, and he says, ‘Yes.’ So I say, ‘I will see you there, then.’ And he looks like he doesn’t believe me, but then, we go to Hawaii, and he comes out, and I am right there, and he says, ‘Ah!’”

Now we’re losing it. Stalking him all the way to Hawaii!

“And I get the whole Chinese Olympic team’s autographs too! I only missing Li Xiaopeng, but I get him too, right as he getting on the bus. I call, ‘Li Xiaopeng, Li Xiaopeng!’ and he turns around for me, and I take him by the arm, and he signs. And I got the Japanese team also, I get on their bus, and they ask me, ‘Are you Japanese?’ I say, ‘No, Chinese.’ They say, ‘Oh, that’s okay,’ and sign my thing.”

Is she crazy?

As if in answer: “The people around me at the Olympic trials, they call me crazy lady,” she said proudly. “And then the coach, he tell people that my name is Amy, so the people, they all call me ‘Crazy Amy’!”

My mom said that if Paul Hamm ever writes an autobiography and includes a section on crazy fans, we’ll be sure to read about Mrs. Wang.

By that time, the arena was pretty cleared out, so we stepped down the bleachers. Mrs. Mondragon started to finally stand up but stopped short and sat back down laughing hysterically. We looked back.

“I’m stuck!” she wheezed. “I’m stuck in the bleachers!”

The zipper of her jacket was stuck between two sets of bleachers. With four hours of sleep the previous night, she was in no state to free herself. Between hysterical giggles, we managed to get her unstuck.

#

“Where are the boys?” I asked as we left the arena.

“I’m sure we’ll find them,” Mrs. Mondragon said as we walked around the corner past the escalator that was curiously stopped dead, though people were trudging up it.

“Speaking of the boys,” said my mom, as we came across James, Nick, Jon, and Kevin sitting on the sofas in the hotel lobby. “What are you boys up to?”

“We’re playing hide-and-seek,” James replied in perfect seriousness.

“I think you boys are missing some part of hiding,” Mrs. Mondragon said.

“No, we’re seeking,” Kevin said.

“You’re seeking?”

“Yeah, well, by sitting here.”

“Where is the Timmy?” Mrs. Wang asked. “Timmy need to go to bed, do homework.”

“Yeah, James,” my mom said, whacking my brother with the meet program. “You need to do some homework too. Don’t be out too late. Come up in a little bit. You have the room key.”

“Timmy’s hiding,” Nick said.

“TIMMY!” Mrs. Wang called, as if he could hear her.

“He could be anywhere between here and the fourth floor,” Nick continued.

“TIMMY! Come down here! I give you five seconds!” Mrs. Wang yelled.

“If you guys ‘find’ him,” my mom said, “tell him to go up to his room.”

We walked toward the elevators. There were two guys standing there waiting too—they looked as if they’d come from watching the same competition.

“Ooh, Timmy,” Mrs. Wang was still fuming. “TIMMY!”

The two guys tried to hide smiles. I wondered if they were thinking of “Crazy Amy.”

The elevator opened with Mrs. Wang still muttering about finding Timmy. We packed several of us in and made the head judge from the meet take another elevator. We hit the button for 12, Mrs. Wang asked for 5, Mrs. Mondragon hit 4, and the two guys asked for 7.

We stopped at 2 to take on more people. The doors opened to a crowd of faces pressing in.

“YOU!” Mrs. Wang pointed out into the crowd. Timmy stopped dead.

“Get in here!” She pulled him in. “I looking for you! Where you been?”

“Mom, I was just playing hide-and-….”

“You need go to your room!”

The two guys were cracking up, as well as the hotel employee who had joined us on the second floor. The rest of our group was having trouble holding back laughter as well. We made it to the fourth, fifth, seventh, and twelfth floors without further mishap, albeit wheezing a bit on the way out.

#

My brother came in half an hour later.

“So did you have fun?” my mom asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

“We have to tell you the Mrs. Wang story.” We filled him in on the hilarity.

“Ha, that’s funny,” he said, as he put his phone and iPod away. “Did I tell you that the guys broke the escalator?”

“What?!” my mom exclaimed.

“Yeah, Timmy decided to ride on the side, but then the rest of the guys said, ‘Hey, that looks like fun,’ and they got on too. Then the whole thing just slowed down and slowed down, and then it stopped.”

“You broke the escalator?”

“I didn’t! It was them!”

Thus ended the 2008 Pacific Coast Classic.

The Killing of Spiders

Inspired by my roommates...

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“Hey Beowulf, when are you going to eat Grendel?” Meli replaced the lid on the giant chocolate chip cookie and looked fondly at the frosting version of a frog decorating it. “Don’t you want to ‘kill’ him?”

Janelle turned around, flexing fingers from her typing.

“Li’l bit,” she threw out and turned back around.

“Ooh, wait, don’t do the paper!” Meli put the cookie back on the counter and scooted over to Janelle’s computer. “Go look up that Spanish guy again. He’s hot.”

“You know, some of us have a bit more to do than sit around all day and stare at hot guys,” said Janelle, with proper sarcastic emphasis as she typed the name in the search bar and clicked for images. They scrolled and gazed in silence.

“Do the video,” Meli prompted.

Janelle gave an exaggerated sigh and went to YouTube. Pressing her lips together and making exasperated faces toward Meli, she typed in “Nadal wedgie” and clicked on the link.

The video played for eleven seconds, but it only took about three for Meli to giggle and fall snorting hysterically into the big comfy chair next to Janelle’s desk.

Trying to hold back laughter, Janelle looked over to say something biting but failed and could only shake her head. She exited YouTube and went back to the paper.

Finally, Meli’s breathless laughter subsided into amused giggling, and she turned back toward Janelle to try another request.

“Waaaaaahhh—Janelle!” came instead.

“What now?” Janelle muttered, still facing the computer.

“Spider…big spider! Right there!”

Janelle flung herself around in the chair and looked over to where Meli was gesturing wildly.

“’S pretty big,” she conceded.

“I can’t kill it!” Meli wailed and tried to leap out of the deep chair.

“I can do it.” Janelle walked over to the kitchen to get a paper towel and the Windex.

Meli watched her leave apprehensively. She wrenched her head back to the spider. It moved a leg.

“Aaaaiiiiiiii!” Meli managed to exit the chair.

“Whhaaattt?” Janelle came back with the necessaries in her hand. “It’s a spider. Get over it.”

“You kill it then!”

“I will! …Wait, where’d it go?”

“Whaaaat? You lost it? Go find it!”

Janelle moved the chair. “Oh, there it is. It’s on the wall.”

Meli moved over to look. “Well, go ahead.”

Janelle held the Windex out and squirted a short spray of liquid onto the black mass. It fell off the wall and landed dripping on the floor a few inches away.

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” Meli retreated to the far side of the room and jumped up on another chair.

Janelle sent another stream at the spider, and it started scurrying in her direction.

“Ghilch! Not at me!” She waved her hand and jumped backwards. When it continued scurrying, she turned back toward Meli.

“What the deuce! Go kill it!” Meli shrieked.

“I am! Gimme a second!” Janelle shouted back. She threw the useless Windex and paper towel on the table and grabbed her shoe. She crept up on the unsuspecting arachnid.

“I—AM—BEOWULF!” she screamed as she drove the shoe down into the carpet on top of the wiggling spider.

“Yeeeeeekkk!” Meli squealed.

“Die, die, die, die, die….” Janelle continued pounding the shoe.

“Are you even hitting it anymore?” Meli yelled.

Footsteps sounded outside, and they heard the screen door open and a key turn in the lock. They both looked up and saw Lynnette open the door. Lynnette dragged her backpack into the room, then shut the door and turned to see what Janelle and Meli were doing.

“Ummmm….” She held up a finger, as if it would help her figure out what Janelle was doing holding a shoe and what Meli was doing standing on the chair.

“It was…,” Janelle started, pointing to the spot she had been pounding.

“Grendel,” Meli finished.

“Well, I guess this paper towel came in handy,” Janelle commented after the laughing stopped, scooping up the remains of the enemy and carrying them to the trash can. She threw the shoe in the corner.

Lynnette looked at Meli again with a raised eyebrow.

“It was a spider!” Meli said defensively. “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy!”

“Welllll….” Janelle let the word hang in the air as she washed her hands in the kitchen and put the Windex away.

“What the deuce?!” came from the living room.

“Hey, I didn’t actually say anything!” Janelle came back into the living room.

“No, no, no, above your head, Lynnette!” Meli screeched.

Lynnette looked up. “Aiyah!” She jumped and scurried to the other side of the room.

Janelle looked up and saw another black dot on the ceiling. She sighed.

Meli cringed, then suddenly giggled. Janelle looked at her expectantly, and she wasn’t disappointed. Meli managed to stop her hysterical giggling.

“It’s Grendel’s mother!”

Valentine's Day

***Written today in fiction class...Lynnette's comment: "Anyone with a name like 'Wando' needs to be arrested."***

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“Glenna, Glen, it’s me! Let me in!” Wando pounded on the door.

It opened. He stepped back to see the wrinkled, beautiful face. Instead, a prim, wrinkle-less young girl stuck her head out into the snow and fixed on him.

“What do you want?” she asked icily. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I need to see her!” he shouted at her, waving his hands crazily. “It’s Valentine’s Day, for goodness’ sake!”

“She won’t recognize you,” the girl continued heartlessly. “She only lets me come near her. Even if you could see her, it wouldn’t make a difference because she’d yell like anything. That’s what she did when her nephew came to see her.”

Incensed, Wando cried, “That’s my wife in there! What’s your problem?”

“It’s not my problem, it’s your problem. You should be in jail. Marrying an old woman with Alzheimer’s for her money and spending it in Vegas. You’re lucky you even got bailed out. Get out of here before I call the cops and have them arrest you like they should.”

Before Wando could protest any of these charges further, she shut the door in his face, and he could hear the bolt click on the other side. Desperate, he ran to the side window, where Glenna usually sat, reading a book with glasses perched on her nose or knitting more socks for him despite her arthritic fingers.

The side room was empty. No lights were on, and the furniture was rearranged. He glanced around. The third window had a light on in it. He ran to it and peered in at the living room. Glenna sat in the oversized chair, gazing blankly at the opposite wall. Wando started to knock on the window but caught himself as the irritating girl walked in through the door opposite him. He shrank back. Eyes barely lifting over the window ledge, he watched as the girl lifted a cup with a straw to Glenna’s mouth, patiently holding it until Glenna took her lips away. The girl turned and set the cup down, while picking up a cloth napkin to dab at Glenna’s open mouth.

Wando could have cried. Even three months ago, Glenna wasn’t in such a state. Could she not even feed herself? He sank down in the snow, mind working wildly.

Mentally, he ran through the entrances to the house. Front door, locked and bolted. Garage code had been changed. He hadn’t checked the back door. Tearing himself away, Wando turned the corner around the house and headed for the small porch in the back yard. Reaching the glass doors, he tugged at the handle. Locked. Evidently, this nurse didn’t take chances.

Remembering one last chance, he walked around the house once more to the door leading to their bedroom. Small, almost secret, the door had rarely been locked. Then again, Wando thought as he neared, they had never had a nurse either.

Quietly, he tried the knob, and it turned under his hand. Slowly, he opened the creaky door and shook the snow from his boots before he entered. Nothing had been rearranged here, Wando noted as he came further in, but it looked as if no one had slept in the bed for months. He left his boots near the door and padded through the room in the last pair of red and black socks Glenna had made for him. He listened as he got to the hallway and wondered if the nurse was still with her. A high, sickly sweet voice coming from the direction of the living room disappointed him.

“Come on, honey, just one more sip.” She sounded like she was coaxing a baby to suck on a bottle. Glenna wasn’t a baby, Wando wanted to shout. She’s a lady.

Pausing, Wando thought and hit upon what he saw as a brilliant idea. Though he knew it wouldn’t give him much time, he slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and hit the speed dial for home. At least the phone number hadn’t changed.

When he heard the phone ringing in the kitchen and footsteps going down the hall, he made his move. Silent in his socks, he slid into the living room and crossed quickly to Glenna’s side.

“Hey Glen, how’s it going?” he asked, sitting down on the ottoman in front of her. He wondered if she’d yell as she’d done with Randy. He took her hand. She looked at his hand, then up at his face. He saw no glimmer of recognition, but she allowed him to press a kiss to her cheek. Awkwardly, he looked around for something to do to stop up his watering eyes. His glance landed on the cup of water.

A beeping sound made him start. His heart slowed when he realized that the nurse must be starting the microwave after hanging up the phone. A few more precious seconds.

“Thirsty, Glen?” He tentatively held the straw to her mouth and was gratified when she started sucking immediately. “I know you don’t much care for water all the time. I’d get you some orange juice, but I think your nurse would kill me.” He gave a short, disheartened laugh.

To his surprise, Glenna opened her mouth in a half-smile and began breathing heavily in a way that might have been a laugh! He brightened and leapt to her side but was struck by her sudden, ragged coughing. Footsteps came pounding down the hall—he couldn’t leave her! Holding her around the shoulders, he turned to face the doorway and the nurse who stopped abruptly in the doorway, face changing from concern to fury.

“You!” she screamed and leapt towards her charge.

“I can’t leave her! I can’t leave her!” Wando clung to Glenna, wanting to be with her but wanting to be gentle. “I love her!”

“You disgusting, money-loving bastard!” the nurse shrieked. Wando felt Glenna pressing his hand, as if she too were clinging to him.

“I’m calling the police!” was the nurse’s final outburst, and she ran out of the room.

Wando turned desperately back to Glenna. He hesitated, pressed a final kiss to her old, fragile lips, and was gone.