over the sidewalk. I let my eyes adjust to the dusk before I walk to the car, so I don’t accidentally step on any cracks as I leave.
WHEN I WALK into our bedroom that night, after NewsHour and long before Jack gets home, the suitcase that awaits our overnight trip still sits on the floor near our dresser. Jack’s side is still empty. I resist the urge to pack it for him and crawl into bed, exhausted from the day.
three
O N SATURDAY MORNING, I can see my breath when I run out the front door to get the newspaper that was thrown haphazardly in the dewy grass. It’s as if winter decided it wasn’t quite done yet and elbowed the brief respite of spring out of the way. I shiver in my cotton pajama pants and long-sleeve T-shirt and hurry back inside, even though it’s not much warmer in our house of slightly cracked windows.
I snuggle into the couch, tugging a crocheted afghan I bought from a thrift store around my shoulders. I put my slipper-clad feet up on the coffee table, making the legs on the right side touch the ground. A significant hump runs the length of the floor in the den, causing the coffee table to act like a seesaw—if one side touches the ground, the other side hovers about half an inch above it. When we first looked at the house, Jack was concerned it was water damage that had warped the wood, but the inspector assured us it was just normal settling of the foundation on a house this old.
I pull the paper out of its plastic sheath and unfold the front page. Jack made fun of me when I called to order the Athens Banner-Herald delivery service shortly after we moved in. “You do know all of those stories are online, don’t you? For free?” I tried to explain that curling up on the sofa with my computer didn’t quite have the same soothingeffect. That I enjoyed the gray smudge of newsprint on my fingers. That the slightly acidic, slightly musty smell of the pages reminded me of weekends in my childhood spent tracing the comics with a pencil on notebook paper while Mom read Dave Barry and hooted. If it was a really funny one, she would cut it out with the good scissors and affix it to the fridge door with a magnet, where it would stay until the paper turned yellow and the edges curled. Jack didn’t understand any of this. He just shook his head at my purchase. “Only you.”
“T minus forty-five minutes to departure,” Jack announces from the doorway between the living room and the kitchen.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” I say without taking my eyes off the headlines I’ve been scanning. Benny jumps up onto the cushion beside me and I scratch his ears. For Jack, forty-five minutes doesn’t really mean forty-five minutes, so there’s no urgent need to budge from the indent I’ve settled into on our worn couch.
“Daisy,” Jack says.
This time I look up at him. And find that he’s naked. Holding a mug full of steaming coffee. I burst out laughing. He leans against the door frame, nonplussed, crossing his right ankle over his left.
“Happy Cancerversary,” he says with a clever grin. I jolt at the C-word. I was asleep when he got home last night, so when we woke up this morning, Jack immediately grilled me about the doctor visit and my tests, as if he could somehow glean the unknown results from every minute detail (“Did Dr. Saunders sound hopeful or worried?” “How did the technician look at you after the scan?”). Finally, when he was out of questions, we agreed we wouldn’t discuss my tests or the possible results for the entire weekend so as not to put a damper on our time together. But the irony that the purpose of the trip was to celebrate me being cancer free wasn’t lost on either of us. He pulls the cup to his lips with his left hand and takes a sip of the breakfast blend. The hot vapor fogs up his glasses.
“Jack, it’s freezing in here!”
With his empty hand, he casually scratches the back of his shaggy scalp and I notice he’s overdue for a haircut. He yawns. “That’s
WHEN I WALK into our bedroom that night, after NewsHour and long before Jack gets home, the suitcase that awaits our overnight trip still sits on the floor near our dresser. Jack’s side is still empty. I resist the urge to pack it for him and crawl into bed, exhausted from the day.
three
O N SATURDAY MORNING, I can see my breath when I run out the front door to get the newspaper that was thrown haphazardly in the dewy grass. It’s as if winter decided it wasn’t quite done yet and elbowed the brief respite of spring out of the way. I shiver in my cotton pajama pants and long-sleeve T-shirt and hurry back inside, even though it’s not much warmer in our house of slightly cracked windows.
I snuggle into the couch, tugging a crocheted afghan I bought from a thrift store around my shoulders. I put my slipper-clad feet up on the coffee table, making the legs on the right side touch the ground. A significant hump runs the length of the floor in the den, causing the coffee table to act like a seesaw—if one side touches the ground, the other side hovers about half an inch above it. When we first looked at the house, Jack was concerned it was water damage that had warped the wood, but the inspector assured us it was just normal settling of the foundation on a house this old.
I pull the paper out of its plastic sheath and unfold the front page. Jack made fun of me when I called to order the Athens Banner-Herald delivery service shortly after we moved in. “You do know all of those stories are online, don’t you? For free?” I tried to explain that curling up on the sofa with my computer didn’t quite have the same soothingeffect. That I enjoyed the gray smudge of newsprint on my fingers. That the slightly acidic, slightly musty smell of the pages reminded me of weekends in my childhood spent tracing the comics with a pencil on notebook paper while Mom read Dave Barry and hooted. If it was a really funny one, she would cut it out with the good scissors and affix it to the fridge door with a magnet, where it would stay until the paper turned yellow and the edges curled. Jack didn’t understand any of this. He just shook his head at my purchase. “Only you.”
“T minus forty-five minutes to departure,” Jack announces from the doorway between the living room and the kitchen.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” I say without taking my eyes off the headlines I’ve been scanning. Benny jumps up onto the cushion beside me and I scratch his ears. For Jack, forty-five minutes doesn’t really mean forty-five minutes, so there’s no urgent need to budge from the indent I’ve settled into on our worn couch.
“Daisy,” Jack says.
This time I look up at him. And find that he’s naked. Holding a mug full of steaming coffee. I burst out laughing. He leans against the door frame, nonplussed, crossing his right ankle over his left.
“Happy Cancerversary,” he says with a clever grin. I jolt at the C-word. I was asleep when he got home last night, so when we woke up this morning, Jack immediately grilled me about the doctor visit and my tests, as if he could somehow glean the unknown results from every minute detail (“Did Dr. Saunders sound hopeful or worried?” “How did the technician look at you after the scan?”). Finally, when he was out of questions, we agreed we wouldn’t discuss my tests or the possible results for the entire weekend so as not to put a damper on our time together. But the irony that the purpose of the trip was to celebrate me being cancer free wasn’t lost on either of us. He pulls the cup to his lips with his left hand and takes a sip of the breakfast blend. The hot vapor fogs up his glasses.
“Jack, it’s freezing in here!”
With his empty hand, he casually scratches the back of his shaggy scalp and I notice he’s overdue for a haircut. He yawns. “That’s
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