She woke him that morning with
a kiss, the way she had nearly every morning for twenty-five years, and
the perfect undiminished magic of being woken up that way filled him as
always with awe and love of her. She was a woman who understood transitions.
She touched his face as he opened his eyes, as
was her custom, and her big browns poured warmth and love and hello good
morning into his baby blues as he collected his thoughts and eased his mind
out of the stilted half-logic of his dreams.
Her face was no longer that of the ingenue he had
fallen for all those years ago, but they had married young and were still
far from old. Twenty five years of weather and familiarity had removed very
little of her charm and only a trace of her mystery.
"It's your turn to make breakfast, dear," she murmured
after a long moment.
He stretched. "Hmmmmm. I was sort of thinking we
should. . . have breakfast in bed today. Dear."
Her eyes crinkled, and her mouth turned sweetly
up at the corners, and she laughed that silent laugh that had fascinated
him so much when he was twenty.
"Well, I guess it is sort of a special occasion,"
she said at last, and then she was kissing him again, and it was good.
He got to work ten minutes late on an empty stomach.
What the hell, he thought to himself and grinned. What are they going to
do, fire me on the last day of the school year? He savored the crisp June
morning for a few heartbeats before stepping into the main building. I can't
wait to see their faces when I announce my retirement, he mused.
Everything seemed new to him as he walked down the
deserted hallway toward his classroom. Eighteen years of teaching English,
eighteen years of headaches and laughter and crises and late nights grading
papers full of horrible, awful, mangled high school writing. Writing that
lay there on the page, clunked and thudded dully on his inner ear as he
writhed in paroxysms of amused agony. Eighteen years, time enough for an
infant to become an adult, and it suddenly seemed like no time at all.
He took a deep breath at the classroom door and
shook himself out of his reverie. This is it, he thought, smoothing his
hair down with one hand and reaching for the doorknob with the other.
The room was dark, and it startled him. Where were
they? He glanced quickly at the outside of the door, looking for a memo,
a note, something to explain the dark empty classroom, but there was nothing.
Guess I'd better call the office and find out what the hell is going on,
he thought. He felt along the the wall for the switch, flicked it on and
stepped inside as the fluorescents hummed and sputtered into life.
"SCHOOL'S OUT," screamed thirty seven teenagers
and a vice principal, and he very nearly wet himself. They were all crowded
into the back of the room, waiting for him with balloons and noisemakers
and a potluck feast and a big banner that said HAPPY RETIREMENT MR. O'SULLIVAN.
They laughed at him as he collected his scattered wits.
"W-what. . ." he stuttered. "Who. . . how did you
know I was retiring today?"
The students laughed again, and vice principal Patterson
stepped forward and shook his hand vigorously.
"Lana called and tipped us off last week, Vic. Congratulations,
big guy. We're gonna miss you."
"Thanks, Joe. So my wife set me up, did she?" He
shook his head and smiled ruefully. "Well, she usually knows best. Hey,
what's to eat? I'm starving."
And then they were all around him with hugs and
handshakes and a thousand, million, billion questions and jokes and bits
of banter shouted out all at once, and it was wonderful.
He was young for retirement,
and he did enjoy his work very much, but he wanted to quit working and
savor a bit of the good life while he was still in his prime. His retirement
package wasn't spectacular, but it was decent, and the investments he
had made over the years had turned out to be remarkably profitable. The
mortgage was paid, their credit was good, and he suspected that Lana had
socked away a fairly large lump of cash just in case. She was that kind
of woman.
His only regret was that they had never had a
child, but it wasn't too late to adopt, and that would be just as good.
He turned the idea over in his head on the way home and decided to bring
the subject up over dinner.
As he pulled into the driveway and killed the
engine, a sense of finality settled over him. Not the gloomy post-desperation
sort of finality that comes with lost opportunities and the inevitable
mid-life crisis; this was the feeling of peace and reward well earned
that closes one chapter of life and opens another. He lingered momentarily
behind the wheel, a high school English teacher coming home from work,
and when the moment felt right he stepped out of the car and let it all
go. He was a free agent now, a young butterfly emerging from the chrysalis
of his automobile and leaving all that caterpillar nonsense behind.
There was mail in the box. A bank statement, the
electric bill, some advertising circulars, a rejection slip from the last
publisher he had sent his novel to. He tossed the circulars in the trash
without looking at them and put the bill and the statement unopened on
the desk Lana used to handle that sort of thing. She had a much better
head for money than he did, so what was once a shared responsibility had
slowly become her domain over the years.
He opened the letter from the publisher without
curiousity. He knew that his novel wasn't bad at all, was quite marketable
actually, but he also knew how difficult it was to get the first one published,
and he had long since given up on ever seeing it in print. One of the
drawers in the bathroom was full of pink rejection notices which he intended
to use as wallpaper someday. It annoyed him slightly to see that this
one was not printed on the customary pink paper. Maybe I'll get more like
this, he thought, and I can use them to make a pattern instead of just
a solid pink wall.
It wasn't until he was actually in the bathroom
and tossing the damned thing into the drawer that he really looked at
it.
It wasn't a rejection slip at all. Someone was
actually interested in his manuscript. He laughed out loud and shook his
head wonderingly at the bounty this perfect day had brought him.
He was affixing the publisher's letter to the
refrigerator with a magnet when he saw the note she had left.
"Victor - breakfast was scrumptious, but not very
nutritious. Hope you enjoyed your party. I'm out shopping, back soon.
I'll cook dinner tonight, don't spoil your appetite. P.S. I love you.
Lana."
Across the bottom of the note was a long row of
x's and o's, kisses and hugs for the eye, just like the ones she used
to put on her letters to him when he was away at college. He left the
note where it was and put the letter beside it for her to see.
There was beer in the fridge, good microbrewery
beer from Seattle. He popped one open and toasted himself silently before
tippling back the bottle and taking a long, cold drink.
He was reading a book in his
favorite chair when Lana came home. He marked his place and went out to
help her carry in the groceries. She gave him a curious sidelong glance
as he came down the driveway, looking to see perhaps if the day had chaged
him and just exactly how much. He gave her one of his big goofy grins
and kissed her enthusiastically.
"Not in the driveway, dear," she giggled between
kisses. Her smile turned suddenly sour. "Mmmm, beer, yum. Go brush your
teeth, you commoner."
"Yes, Ice Princess," he whined in his best milquetoast
voice.
They carried the groceries into the kitchen and
he headed for the bathroom to brush his teeth. He was just finishing up
when he eard the little shriek of delight that meant she had found the
publisher's letter.
"My husband, the author. Oh, Victor, I'm so happy
for you."
He put his arms around her and nuzzled her neck.
"I'm happy for us, and I love you very, very much, and say, what's for
dinner, anyway?"
She laughed her silent laugh and pushed him away
mockingly.
"Certainly not breakfast. We'd end up starving
to death."
"Hmmmm. Well, what's for dessert, then?"
She kissed the tip of her finger and touched it
to the end of his nose. "Breakfast. Now get out of here so I can cook
dinner."
"Yes, Ice Princess."
He sat back down in his favorite chair and picked
up the book he had been reading. He read a couple of chapters, but the
beer had made him sleepy and soon he found himself reading the same paragraph
over and over again. His head drooped and his eyes closed, and the book
fell from his nerveless hands and slipped off his lap to the floor. He
was snoring softly, at peace with himself and the world, when a congenitally
weak spot in a small blood vessel in his brain gave way at last. The aneurysm
killed him quickly and painlessly, and he slipped quietly off into a gentle
good night.
