Word Count: 473
It wouldn’t seem like much to anyone else; in fact, her own friends simply laughed at her and called it old timer’s disease. And it was. Beneath the jokes and her own denials, it was.
Mary Anne first noticed when she burned a teapot on the stove. She thanked God she found it in time and told herself she had too much going on at once and must be much more careful. Then a missed doctor’s appointment, even though they’d called the day before to confirm. Then laundry left in the washer for two weeks.
Of course the thought had crossed her mind but she was only fifty-two. She told herself it was the stress of watching Jake die slowly from pancreatic cancer. With the help of home care, she seemed to still be doing so much of the physical work and the emotional strain was surely distracting her from normal daily routines. Simple things like breakfast toast that was second nature seemed to be beyond her comprehension.
One morning she realized she was driving to the post office in her slippers. She noticed when she stepped out of the car. They were pink and fuzzy like angry bunnies on the black pavement. Horrified, she got back in the car and drove home. But she went the wrong way and forgot for a moment where she was or where she was going and why. Her heart was beating, her confusion overwhelming. It came back, all the rational thinking, but she was frighteningly aware of what had happened. She didn’t go out again that day.
Jake had a bad night. Mary Anne helped him as much as she could, making him comfortable, praying. She was relieved when the nurse came in the morning. She made arrangements for twenty-four hour care. In the noisy isolation of the shower, she worried. About Jake, now that it was becoming so real, so inevitable, despite all the preparation and plans. And about herself; not about being alone, not about learning to live without him, that was something that just would have to happen. She worried about losing her mind.
He died a week later. She got through the last gasping breaths as she sat by his bed. The final whispered goodbyes and the last kiss. The service, the paperwork, the removal of the hospital bed, the walker, the portable potty and refilling the spaces they left with the furniture she’d moved out of the way.
And one morning, when she came downstairs and into the kitchen, made coffee and set out two cups and splashed milk into each as she waited, listening to the gurgling of the coffeepot, drawing in a deep breath of the delicious coffee aroma and smiling at the sun streaking through the window, she turned around and called out, “Jake, coffee’s ready!”
