Henry
and Ruth
Henry was a widower
who, late one evening, stood naked in his bathroom brushing his teeth before going to bed After brushing, he poured a small cap full of
blue mouth wash, tilted his head back, emptied it into his mouth and loudly gargled. Ruth, his wife, always complained
about the disgusting noise he was making. She’s been gone now for nearly three years.
As he spat it out, he leisurely observed the mouth wash and
his saliva mingling, forming a gelatinous stream on the side of the sink. He watched
as it slid slowly down the white porcelain, gathering speed as it approached the drain hole. Tomorrow was to be his seventy-six birthday and his daughter, Amy, thought it a good idea to celebrate the event next day at her home.
Glancing up, he switched
his attention to the image in the mirror.
There were shadows over his deep eye sockets. He was getting to be a farce:
overweight, his wrinkled face, ugly by anyone’s standards, was charmless. As he stood there, it occurred to him that he
has had this teeth brushing and mouthwash ritual every night since he could remember. He had no idea
why, at this particular moment, he should be thinking
about this. He wasn't thinking about this
when he was shaving this morning. Although
he looked into a mirror twice daily, it was only on this particular day, on this particular evening, when
he became cognizant that he never really looked at himself. True, there is his reflection, but he had only concentrated on the parts, never the whole. He
paused to take it all in instead of the myopic version. God,
how I’ve aged…and what a terrible shape my body is in.
Now I know why they invented clothes, he joked to himself.
He began
neglecting his physical appearance the moment he got married. Presently, he managed to hide his fat with
loose t-shirts and baggy pants. Still, he looked startlingly unattractive when naked. He looked in the mirror and
gathered in his pads of fat around his chest and sides. He grabbed his sagging pectoral muscles and
addressed the mirror. “God Amighty, I’ve
got breasts. Ruthie, wherever you are, I hope
you’re not seeing this.”
Staring at his reflected face, Henry watched it gradually contort and
twist into a scowl. Putting both hands
on the marble counter, he leaned over the sink and hung his head. After a pause, he tried to suppress a surge
of bile coming from his inner being onto the top cavity of his mouth. He couldn’t.
He released his grief with a gush, accompanied
by tears running down his face. “It’s so
quiet here, it really is, Ruthie” he whispered. “I have to shake this…silence. I don’t
want to do anything stupid, now do I?
I’m really tired…and my back is killing me.” He promptly plopped down onto the tile
floor. Sitting there quietly, he noticed,
through his tears, that there was rust around the base of the toilet bowl. There must be a leak, he thought. I should fix that.
“No, son, don’t
pick me up. I can still drive. I’m not helpless, you know. I’ll meet you
there.” Henry hung up the phone. It was a gray morning. His suit was laid out on the bed and he
thought he did a pretty good job of getting a matching tie to go along with it. Hardly ever wore a suit now since he retired
as a department head nearly twenty years ago.
He was but a minion in a large corporation where his main duty was to appear
worried. But that was long ago. He sat on the bed and fingered the tie. Ruth did all the selecting: his suit, his
tie, where to go on vacation, who their friends were, what kind of car to
drive, what to eat, and where. They were high school sweethearts and were
married right after graduation. He never
officially proposed. They got married because it was just the
natural order of things. She went to
work while he finished college. They had
two children, a boy and a girl three years apart. She quit her job when Henry began climbing
the cooperate ladder. Ruth took over the
business of family then and organized every thing so Henry could concentrate on his
worried look. By the time the nest was
emptied, Ruth became the dominant partner and steered the course of their
lives; Henry was happy that she did so.
In fact, when they went places together, she was the driver of the family car while Henry always
sat as the respectful passenger.
After his
retirement came the round of traveling, remodeling the house, and making
unannounced visits to irritate their grown children and grandchildren. Pay back time, Ruth would laughingly call these
visits. Slowly the novelty of retirement
began to wear thin and Ruth and Henry, having run out of obligations to others
and to themselves, began to have the leisure time of getting to know one
another. But it was cut short. The doctor said that it was a blessing that
the stroke finally killed her. Otherwise
she might live as a vegetable, unrecognizable to anyone and a burden to
everyone. Henry remembered sitting by her
bedside while she was in her coma. He
spent the whole day and her last evening just talking to an empty face,
reminiscing down memory lane, planning about future travels, about the kids and
grandkids and how great they turned out to be. He tried praying. He had no faith in religion but he felt he,
at least, had to try. Lying there in the
hospital bed, Ruth began to change in Henry’s eyes. She slowly morphed into the girl he married when
they were teens. By morning, the vision
and Ruth had faded.
After the
funeral, Henry became despondent and couldn’t bring himself to go
home. The children drove him to a hotel
because he refused their offer to stay with them. He was uncomfortable with his children’s
spouses when Ruth wasn’t there to engage with them. Hotel rooms were neutral and he stayed there
for weeks. The first night home, he spent sleeping on the living room
sofa. He had the television turned on, blaring out voices and loud music drowning out his thinking. The large screen flooded the room with its cold blue light exposing the dark corners so it would not threaten him. The television was constantly on for several
months, then gradually the volume was turned down and periodically he would
turn the set off for a brief moment. The
brief moment grew into hours, then into days, and finally he managed to sleep without it being on. Henry solved the problem of sleeping in their
bed again by talking to Ruth, as if she was there. Henry had now compress his grief into the deepest
recess of his mind and managed to keep it there by talking to his long dead
spouse. But as time passed, it became
arduous for Henry to keep up the pretense that she still existed, even in a nebulous way. The acceptance that she was
gone, never to appear again, began to surface and brought a burning sadness to his very
being.
As Henry drove away from the house, he took
a glance at his rearview mirror. It
showed the ranch style house they have been living in for over fifty
years. It was in need of
maintenance. The wooden roof shingles
were split and cracked as were the gutters.
Window frames were in need of repair and their screens needed painting. All the windows were in dire need of
washing. He used to love doing repairs but now he lets it all go. All his tools in the garage were covered with
the remnants of disuse. He was no longer
the caretaker of things. That would be
his children’s job, or whoever inherits the house after he’s gone. As of now, he couldn’t bring himself to
care.
It began to rain heavily
and, for a harrowing moment, Henry forgot where the windshield wiper controls
were on the dash board. The
windshield wipers stuttered to life as it was turned on. I have to get new ones, he thought. It was a twenty minute drive to Amy’s house but he was in no hurry.
Henry was a very private person and only comfortable when Ruth was around. Since her death, he dreaded gatherings such
as this birthday party, even if it is with his own family. He usually ended up with a drink in his hand,
sitting alone in the corner somewhere, radiating unfriendliness. It was okay when Ruth was alive. She did all the conversing when they were in
social gatherings, and all that was required of him was to nod, now and then,
with a few words sprinkled in. He was immensely happy with that arrangement,
and was sure that Ruth was too. But she
was no longer here and he would be standing alone.
There was a
grassy knoll over a rise in the road.
Henry parked to the side and turned the ignition off. Rain clattered on the roof of the car and
muddled the windows so visibility was nil.
The low gray clouds made the sky dark and menacing. It was cozy sitting there, so private. Reaching into his shirt pocket, he pulled out a package of cigarettes. He started smoking again weeks after Ruth passed away. Henry didn't have to please her anymore. In fact, he didn't have to please anybody. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke toward the passenger side. Placing his arm on the headrest he turned to
Ruth and said, “So, what do you think?
What am I going to do with what’s left of my life? You know, you were pretty, pretty damn
selfish leaving me like that. You could
have bail out a lot earlier and I could have married somebody else. Now, whose gonna hook up with an old fart like
me, huh?" There was a long pause. Henry winded down the window a bit and waved the cigarette smoke out with the flat of his hand. Then he continued, "Yea, I know the smoke bothers you and I'm sorry. A lotta things about me bothers you, don't it?. Heck, you could hardly stand me
when you were alive." Henry looked at the end of his cigarette, stuck it through the crack of the window and flipped it out. "I really thought I was gonna go first. Who'd think you'd beat me to it. You were really inconsiderate, you know that? You could've made it a lot easier for both of us by not dying. No, I’m not
kidding. I’m not kidding, I’m really not kidding,” and Henry bent his
head and began to silently sob. Ruth
smiled and stroked his hair.
A break on the
horizon let out a stream of sunlight. The
rain fell intermittingly and then stopped altogether. The break in the clouds broadened and the rays
of sunlight were sharply contrasted against the ominous sky. A rainbow appeared. The spectacular scene made Henry exclaim,
“Ruthie, look, Judgment Day and the second coming of Christ! No crap.
Wow, what a sight. We might be seeing Jesus coming down from the clouds at any moment now.” Henry had no
idea how long he had been sitting there, conversing with Ruth. It was so easy to talk to her.
Opening the glove box, he took out some paper tissues and wiped his
eyes. There he sat, quietly, for what felt like an hour, then he turned to Ruth and said, “I know it sounds corny… but we did have a really long run, didn't we? I had fun and I do miss you a lot....But there's nothing more left to say, is there?.. except I really loved you and I just didn't know by how much, until now...so, I guess
we can say goodbye, sweetheart....so, I'll go ahead and say it...goodbye.”
“Yes, it is corny and it is has been a long run," said Ruth. "Goodbye, dear, remember me to the children, see ya." And that's exactly what Ruth must have said, thought Henry.
Henry turned on
the ignition, shifted the car into gear, and joined the ongoing traffic.
He just turned seventy-six today and he wondered what sort of gifts his
children were getting him.
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