39 Minutes, by Paul Shirley

The following is a work of fiction…

Something’s different. I feel breathless, like I’m choking. But I can swallow, and I’m able to scratch out, “Hello”, to an empty room. I turn my head to check the clock. Even without my glasses, I can see the red numbers.

4:02.

I close my eyes, trying to recapture the dreamless sleep that’s slipped away like an expert thief. But I’m nervous. Anxious. There’s a feeling like I’ve never felt in my stomach. And then I figure it out: For the first time in my 89 years, there aren’t any decisions left.

Long before Arthur died on our front porch on a windy August afternoon, he‘d come home with the big digital clock whose numbers stand in relief against my eyelids. He’d been inspired to buy the clock after fouling an alarm-setting the night before one of his trips to the elementary school to read to the third graders to start their day. Those children had loved Arthur. More than I had, at the end. They say love is forever, but “they” are young and probably haven’t cleaned up spots of poo after they dripped out of a husband’s adult diaper as he staggered his way to bed.

Arthur had been husband number two, of course. He’d come after Jim, who died young, a victim of the three eggs a morning I’d fed him for 13 years and the two packs a day he’d fed himself for even longer. After Jim died, I’d resolved to find someone a little more dashing. Someone romantic. Someone different from Jim, whose bright blue eyes hid the war and the military’s influence on him.

I tried, and for one night at least, succeeded. But in the end, there’d been the man whose impression lingers in the bed next to me. A man not the same as my first husband, but a man similar to him. As I open my eyes, I can see what Arthur has left behind. I don’t see it like my grandchildren would expect me to. There’s no inch-deep depression in the bed. And I don’t see it like the batty old hens at the grocery store would see it. There’s no pasty ghost of my second husband lying there, grinning back at me. But there are memories.

And because tonight’s different – because tonight, I’m not the hardy, put-together old woman that my friends at the grocery store think I am – I allow myself to slip into them. Just this once.

Before Arthur, before long holidays in the mountains, and longer talks about all the surprising things we’d learned we shared, I’d found what I thought I’d been looking for when I’d finished mourning Jim.

I was only 37 when Jim died, and still a pretty woman. Not pretty by today’s standards – I’ve never done what my daughter calls a “crunch” in my life. We didn’t have to back then. Men had no need for stomachs.

His name was Chester. It was a conservative name that disguised the dashing way he lived. Dashing to me, anyway. On our first date, he’d taken me to a greasy Mexican restaurant. Less than romantic, some might say. But it had been so out of the ordinary that I’d been impressed. The few other men I’d seen (but never slept with) after Jim’s death had gone the usual route. Flowers, a tasteful dinner at an ethnic restaurant, a promise to call soon. They always kept that promise, but that became as obnoxious as the mediocre wine at the Italian and Greek restaurants. Kids, questions, interruptions.

Chester was different. He was cocky, of course, because he wouldn’t have caught my notice any other way. He wasn’t handsome. His nose fell off his face like a waterfall and his chin, or what there was of it, was covered with a beard that wasn’t anything to be proud of. But there was something about him. Something I’ve spent a lifetime discussing with my friends. We didn’t discuss Chester for a lifetime – he was only in my life for a few weeks. We discussed the Something. Even now, as I close my eyes after staring at the red numbers as they work their way from 4:05 to 4:06 to 4:07, I don’t know exactly what the Something is.

The Something is what inspired me to take Nina and Rex to my sister’s house. Because I had known I was going to invite Chester inside. After dinner at the taco joint the whole town knew, we’d run, laughing, through the rain for the shelter of his car. Once inside, he asked if I wanted to go somewhere to get a drink. Coyly, I said no. Poor Chester was shocked. His eyes went wide, and he retreated to his side of the car, jangling his keys as if to prepare to start the engine. I told him to come closer. He leaned over the bench seat in his Chevy, his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. I said something I’ll never forget.

But one thing at a time. Right now, I need to pee.

I push myself off my stomach with my right arm. I take a deep breath. The choked feeling is still there, but I ignore it, more pressing matters on my mind. I turn, plant my rear end on the bed, and slide onto the carpet. I reach for my cane and begin the eighteen-step trip to the toilet. I know it’s eighteen steps because I’m old and I’ve lived alone for three years. I’ve had little else to do, other than to count my cane-assisted steps to the toilet. I move slowly; there’s no hurry.

As I sit, I pull down my underwear. The underwear I wear now is not so different than the underwear I’d been wearing that night with Chester. My generation missed the Victoria’s Secret revolution, the flag of which my granddaughter carries with pride, right above her behind, even at Thanksgiving.

I relax, tired from the exertion. Being 89 is being constantly tired. It wasn’t always like this. I used to run. I used to play. I was a child once. Even at 37, with Chester anxiously waiting to hear what I was going to say on the vinyl seat in his car, I was full of energy.

With his ears as wide as the cone of the Victrolas I remember from my childhood, he waited like an attentive retriever. Men are like that. They’re simple beings, I’ve come to learn. They’ll listen to anything if you keep it mysterious. I leaned my share of the distance to the middle of the front seat and whispered in Chester’s ear. I told him that I didn’t want to go get a drink because I wanted him to take me to my house and ravage me.

I giggle a little at the memory. “Ravage”, I’d said. “Ravage,” like I was in a soap opera. Actually, I laugh at two memories – the event and my re-telling of it to my best friend at the time, the woman named Bertha who lived across the street from the house Jim and I had shared for the 13 years we were together before he dropped dead in the basement. She’d been shocked. In 1957, real people didn’t say such things. Especially not 37-year old widows.

Chester did as he was instructed. The sex was not nearly as good as I had imagined it would be, but I did my best to spice it up, continuing to use that queer word on multiple occasions in the four minutes it took him to come.

As I waved to Chester as he left my house, a bewildered look on his sloping face, I’d known I’d never see him again, at least not in those circumstances.

I wonder what my children would think if they found out what’s plodding through my mind in the darkest hours of the night. I’d often wanted to know what my own grandmother had thought about in her last years. By the time I was old enough to know about sex, I was old enough to wonder if Grandma still thought about it. With her bun of gray hair and caved-in chest, it was hard to imagine.

But here I am, staring at the reflection of someone very similar in the bathroom mirror. I never looked much like my grandmother or, for that matter, like my mother. But time has a way of making us all look the same. As I wash my hands, I take in my reflection. I don’t like it very much. More optimistic souls than I have said that we see what we want in our reflections, much like we see what we want in an aging spouse. I don’t know what they’re looking at, because when I watched Arthur sleep, on the rare occasion when he did so longer than I did, I saw an old man with liver spots on his face. And now, as I look in the mirror at 4:16 in the morning, I see an old woman with sunken cheeks and not enough white hair.

I fill a glass with water and drink it, hoping it will help with the feeling that’s still lurking in my consciousness. It doesn’t, but I fill it again and carry it to the nightstand anyway. Slowly.

As I lean my cane against the wall, I look at the clock.

4:21.

I think about my children. I’m old, but I’m still a mother. I shouldn’t worry – my children are old themselves. I imagine my Nina asleep in Boston, where it’s 5:21. Her husband Scott asleep nearby, in the ground at the cemetery whose proximity to their house had made the funeral procession a short one. Like me, Nina couldn’t escape being widowed. Unlike me, Nina couldn’t escape being a widow. Her bed is empty, a fact I bring up far too often because it seems we have so little else to talk about.

Talking with Rex has never been a problem. If I were pressed, I would admit that Rex is my favorite. Not because he’s smarter or funnier or more personable than Nina. Only because he talks to me more. It’s the same time for Rex that it is for me. If I remember anything about men who are 62, it’s that they’re often up in the middle of the night, usually for the same reason that just took me to the bathroom. Once again, I feel a kinship with my son.

I look at the clock one more time.

4:23.

I close my eyes, hoping that sleep will be waiting for me. It isn’t. That other feeling is too dominant. Too urgent. Now that I’m lying down again, I can’t shake it. It feels like someone is lying on my back, like Arthur used to do after we’d make love. For all my harsh words for the decrepit Arthur, I have ten times as many complimentary ones for the version of Arthur I met soon after my dalliance with Chester.

Arthur had been at the shoe store when I’d first seen him. He was tall, which I liked, and he carried himself with a dignity I aspired to. No matter that he was at the shoe store because he was selling shoes. By then I was 42 and old enough to know that a man’s profession doesn’t make him who he is. Not with the good ones, anyway.

We wasted no time with a lengthy courtship and I was married again at 43. Unlike those before him, Arthur was put off neither by my brood of two nor by the husband that had come before him. He’d led a lonely life and was thrilled to have a full house to live in.

If I were religious, I’d say that Arthur had been heaven-sent. Because I am not, I often say, with a wink, that he was my knight in shining armor. He always loved hearing that, even though he knew I was joking, at least halfway. Nina and Rex liked hearing it more and, really, I said it for their benefit. They were happy I’d found Arthur; their subdued natures were perfectly suited to his. All three spent many a quiet afternoon in our modestly furnished living room, sharing copies of the New Yorker that my sister would send from the magazine’s namesake.

With my eyes closed, I smile, thinking of Arthur and my children. I adjust my nightgown, pulling it from the tangle it has made with my leg. As I do, I brush the scar there. My bypass surgery had come two years after Arthur’s last. Most of our friends say that the surgery had killed Arthur. They’re wrong. Arthur had died because he’d been tired of living. At a certain age, the line between death and life becomes blurry. The only thing that keeps us on the right side is the desire to stay there. Last week, my friend Janet told me about her brother. They’d found him in his easy chair, dead, the same day the town’s minor league baseball team had played its last game of the season. He’d been sick, but who isn’t. He’d died because he’d had nothing left to live for.

I look back at the clock.

4:28.

In five and a half hours, I’ll close the taxi door. In five hours and 46 minutes, the receptionist will give me a key to the rooms I’ve picked out. In five hours, 46 minutes, and 15 seconds, he’ll ask if I’m excited about afternoon bridge club. I’ll tell a lie by nodding.

Even with my eyes open this time, I’m struggling. Gasping, even. I reach for the light and turn it on. I decide that I’m not getting to sleep anytime soon. I get up. Again, I reach for my cane. Slowly, carefully, I aim for the door. The other door. This time, I’m not going to the bathroom. I look over my shoulder at the clock, now pink in the light of the bedside lamp.

4:31.

I walk down the hall. Boxes partially block my path. One says, “Books”. Another, “China”. I can’t imagine how I’ll read any of those books again. And I’m sure the nursing home, or rather, the independent living community, has plenty of plates. I pass the dining room table, the site of so many Christmas dinners, and marvel at the dark spots on the wall. Pictures of my family used to hang in those spots, but now they’re in boxes at my feet. Labeled, logically, “Wall Stuff”.

I make my way into the kitchen. I pass the table where I’ve played gin with my children, bridge with my friends, and Scrabble with Arthur, even when he couldn’t remember how to keep score.

And then I move to my favorite part of the house. I’m still in the kitchen, but now I’m near the sink, the stove, and the refrigerator. This is where all the important decisions in the history of this house have been made. This is where Arthur stood, arms crossed, as I laid out for him why it was worthwhile for him to invest in Nina’s education at Boston College. This is where I broke the news to him that his mother had died. This is where we celebrated, every year, when we learned that we’d get to see our children again for the holidays. Because, especially near the end, Arthur had no reservations about calling them “his” children. I loved him for that.

Another clock waits for me here. It’s on the microwave. This one reads 4:29, but that’s because it’s correct. I like to be up before I need to, so I keep the clock in my room going five minutes fast.

On top of the microwave, I spy my pillbox. Upon seeing it, I can’t breathe again. I’m struck with the realization that, while all my possessions are boxed up for the move, I’ll probably never see most of them again. The pillbox, I will see again. I’m sure the pillbox and I will not be separated when I get to the old folks’ home.

I lean against the counter to support myself. I’m suddenly very tired. No, make that: Very, very tired. I’m always one-very tired; two verys is new to me.

I wish Arthur were here so I could tell him how tired I am. Or Jim. Or even Chester. I wish someone were here to comfort me because, as my granddaughter says, “This sucks!”

But I don’t have anyone to tell. I have a pillbox to stare at, a kitchen full of memories to think about, and a microwave clock to keep me company.

The breathlessness comes back, so much so that I feel compelled to sit down. I use my cane to help propel me to the first chair at the end of the kitchen table. As I pull it out, I realize that I’m crying. I haven’t cried in years; old age has a way of hardening a person. I think about getting up for a Kleenex, but think better of it. It would take too much energy.

I can’t catch my breath. I feel the cool linoleum of the kitchen against my feet and wonder if it might be easier to breathe if I lie down. I do so awkwardly, and reflect on how lucky I am that no one has seen me slump to the floor of my own kitchen. I press my face to the floor and close my eyes.

What comes to mind surprises me. I think of Rex’s birth, but not for the usual reasons – beauty, sentimentalism, or anything so precious. No, I think about the moment the doctor had told me to push. I hadn’t wanted to. I’d wanted to go home with Jim. We’d just bought a television set and, when my water had broken we were watching the Ed Sullivan show. Jim didn’t like Sullivan, but I did. And I was the one who was pregnant, so we’d watched.

My pregnancy with Rex hadn’t been particularly difficult. He was, of course, my second child, so I was ready for anything. But in that moment, when the doctor told me to push, I knew what was waiting for me. Pain, and lots of it. I immediately felt like a coward. This is your child, I thought. You’ve done this before. You can do it again.

But that was the problem. I didn’t want to do it again.

With my cheek on the linoleum, I think the same thing. I don’t want to keep going. I don’t want to take my pillbox to the “independent living community”. I don’t want to go to the “independent living community” at all. I want to be young. I want Chester to take me home and have his way with me. Hell, I want to be old, with Arthur lying on my back.

I’m crying again. My eyes are closed. I can’t breathe.

It occurs to me that I was wrong. I do have one choice left. It’s nothing so beautiful as a ray of light or an open door. It is simply this: I can stay.

Or I can go.

I open my eyes. I peek around the refrigerator that is blocking my view. I see the microwave.

4:35.

Next to it, the pillbox. I think about the other boxes, the ones in the living room. I think about the other people who have defined my life, and how none of them are here now. As much as I would like to say that I’ve been my own person, and as often as those around me have said – sometimes mistakenly – how strong I seem to be, my life has been about the people in it as much as it’s been about the person living it. My first love, Jim, disciplined and dedicated. Chester, my taste of the wild life. (Or what I thought to be the wild life.) And Arthur, my knight.

My daughter would be disappointed in me, thinking as I am only of the men. She’d say that I’m better than that, that I need not be defined by males. But it’s a purely theoretical argument. My daughter isn’t here now. If she were, I’d scold her. Tell her that those men helped to keep away the feeling I have now. It’s the same feeling I’ve had for the last three years. I’m all alone.

We all want someone to hold us, to tell us that everything is going to be okay. Sometimes the person holding us might not be exactly what we thought we wanted when we set out on a date to a Mexican restaurant in 1957. And sometimes the person holding us might be someone we met at a shoe store. The important thing is that they’re with us, at the right times.

And now, no one’s with me. I’ve worked my way through three men, and there won’t be another, Bingo night notwithstanding.

So I’m back to thinking about the other man in my life, Rex. I’m back to thinking about what awaits me at the nursing home. More of this, more waiting around. I feel the breathlessness again. This time, it’s worse than before. I recognize it for what it is. I feel hopeless.

Because that’s what the Something really is. The Something isn’t what we thought it might be, during those conversations among my friends over the forlorn potluck dinners we put together. It isn’t the line of someone’s nose, or the cut of his jaw. Nor is it the tenderness in his heart, or his ability to listen. The Something is only this: Hope.

Hope for the magic of someone’s touch. Hope for the ease of a conversation held with our faces two inches apart. Hope, even, for nothing more than someone to hear my sigh in the middle of the night and for that someone to tell me that everything will be okay.
I’ve stopped crying. The breathlessness is gone. I muster the energy to push myself back onto my elbow and look at the clock one more time.

4:41.

I close my eyes. I take a breath and make the last decision I’ll ever make.

I decide to go.