Early morning sunlight was edging around the vertical blinds. Myron’s mind skated on the shimmery surface between sleep and waking. Feeling someone under his arm, he thought it was Lucy, once again cuddled against his body because she had gotten scared in the night. But as he inched closer to wakefulness, he realized it was Soosie who lay against him.
Somewhere in their sleep, they had turned on their sides so her bottom was pushed into his pelvis. He jolted to full consciousness when a fire, having nothing to do with brotherly feelings, exploded through him.
Bracing his hand on the opposite chair arm, he was able to lever himself carefully out of the chair without significantly disturbing his companion. As he watched Soosie sleep, he was totally aware of his desire to kiss her and not stop.
Blowing out a shaky breath, he headed to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. It wasn’t a smart move letting those feelings take root in either his mind or his body. Today, it all would end, and they were not likely to be in proximity of each other by tomorrow. Coming out of the bathroom, he headed down to the laundry room and flipped on the lights. He transferred the wet towels and scrubs to their respective dryers. Then, taking the broom, he swept the floor.
David had decreed the doors could not be unbarred until 6, and the clock said 5:17, so he couldn’t take the garbage to the dumpster. He heard a noise next door and saw the kitchen light go on. He wandered into the kitchen and saw Paul wearing a sleeveless sundress in lollipop-colored stripes with a white scalloped collar filling the coffee pot with water. He glanced at Myron as he headed to the coffeemaker. “You’re up early.”
Myron gestured to his attire. “I guess that means the war is over.”
“For the time being. We’ll see after the inspection. And speaking of that, sorry about interrupting your,” he hooked his fingers in the air, ‘moment’.”
Myron looked at him blankly.
“Okay, that must have been some kiss if you didn’t even hear an old man kvetching at you.”
Myron blushed as he looked away. “It was pretty amazing.”
“It’s because she’s a spitfire. You kiss one of them and it takes kissing to a whole new level because you never know if they’re going to kiss back or scratch your eyeballs out.”
“Voice of experience?”
“Damn right. My Gayle was hell on wheels. Our fights were the stuff of legends. So was our making up. We scrapped our way through forty-seven years before I lost her to ovarian cancer.”
Paul held out the skirt of his dress. “She made this. She was an absolute whiz with the sewing machine. She’d see something she liked, and two days later she’d be wearing it. She never saw a fabric store she didn’t want to dive into. We had mountains of sewing stuff everywhere. Couldn’t hardly sit in a chair without finding a pin or needle stuck in your ass.”
The coffee finished brewing, and Paul poured a cup. He held it out to Myron, who shook his head. “Thanks. No.”
Paul took a sip. “In one of those strange twists life slings at you, one of the last things she asked before cancer took over our lives was to check the outlet she kept her sewing machine plugged into. She told me it smelled hot. Of course, like any good husband, I put it off. Then it got shoved out of my mind entirely.
“Five months after I buried Gayle, I ended up standing outside our home in my skivvies watching our entire life together go up in flames from a short in the wiring. All I had left was what was in the detached garage. Gayle kept her old clothes stashed in totes there. I dug out the most butch thing I could find, which ended being a pair of pedal pushers and a top. The odd thing was, the minute I did, it was like she was with me again. I could smell her, feel her, hear her. I decided that if, by gum, all I had left were memories, then I would wear them literally every day the rest of my life. Battle situations excepted.”
“I get that. After my sister died and all the medical equipment that had been in her room was taken away, I went in and made everything just the way she liked it. Sometimes I would go in and pretend she and I were playing. I would even pretend to have the same arguments we did before…” Myron looked embarrassed. “It sounds really dumb but she didn’t feel so…so dead then.”
“Nobody is ever completely dead until there is no one left to remember them. None of us here at the center have much of anyone to even remember we’re alive now, let alone give us a thought after we’re gone. You’re all young with lots of years still to be lived, so I guess you three are stuck with being our only legacy.”
Myron grinned. “I’m okay with that, and I’m pretty sure I’m not ever going to forget you.”
*****
Returning to the laundry room just as the dryer with the scrubs inside clicked off, Myron pulled them out and began to sort and fold them in piles of blue, green, and pastels.
Adam came through the door. “Dude, Soosie is in your recliner. Did you two sleep together last night?”
“She crawled in sometime after I was asleep. I didn’t really notice until this morning when I woke up.”
“You’re telling me she squeezed into a small space with you and you didn’t notice?”
“I guess my brain was flashing back to Lucy. She would always come get in my bed when she got scared. After she got so sick, I would sleep on the floor by her bed so if she got scared, I could just get in her bed with her.”
“And that explains Soosie how?”
“I’m thinking maybe she was upset, you know, because of today.”
“Uh-huh.” Adam sounded dubious.
“Listen, absolutely nothing happened. I slept, she slept. I got up. She was still sleeping.”
Looking for an excuse to change the subject, Myron looked at the clock. It was now just a few minutes before six a.m.
David stopped next to the door. “Okay, you can open the back doors.”
“Come on, let’s get the garbage in the dumpster before we change,” Myron said.
When they returned, they found Soosie in the laundry room along with Olivia. Soosie was pale, but her tough-girl face was in place. Olivia looked on the verge of tears.
“I’m real sorry, kids, but Chief Braden is here, and he wants you to gather up your stuff and report to him right this minute,” Olivia said.