Erin Meier 
Creative Writing 
Final
December 19, 2003 
Falls
 Frank, you son of a bitch.  Look at the mess you made. 
 She rocks back and forth, the curved base of the rocking chair worn down from countless days of back and forth, back and forth, clutching onto a small, carved wooden box.  She looks at the stacks of dirty dishes on the kitchen counter.  She brought out her best china; the ones with the green ivy encircling the outer rims.  He never did like them because they looked too cheap for him.  He liked an ivory, gold rimmed set he saw at a Woolworth’s some time ago. Frank said, “Mary, these are the kind of china we need.  It looks more sophisticated, not something you got from the thrift shop.” 
 Gripping onto the arms of the chair, Mary rises.  She steadies herself with a black cane with a tarnished brass handle in the shape of a clawed paw, holding the box in her other hand.  Step by step, she makes her way towards the kitchen as she glances around the living room.  An hour or two has gone by since her visitors had been in their house.  
 She looks over at Frank’s chair, an overstuffed recliner imprinted with Frank’s form, a ghost of his former self.  Just a week before he would have been sitting in that chair, his feet up on the foot rest, gulping down a six pack of Budweiser and a bag of chips.  The chair reeked of beer and stale Liggetts. Mary had placed her homemade, cream colored doilies on the coffee table to cover up the black holes from cigarette burns before her guests had arrived. 
* * *
 Frank used to treat her to a nice dinner at least once a week.  Frank would drive them thirty miles to their favorite restaurant, Bellini’s.   He usually ordered Cold Cream of Celery soup, she ordered Fettuccini Florentine, both of their favorite dishes.  After a couple of years, their outings diminished.  The last time they went was on their nineteenth anniversary.  Frank, slurping his soup, told her “I’m sick of this place, they don’t have anything different.  Let’s find someplace else.”  He put his cigar in the ashtray, smoldering and leaving a delicate trail of smoke. 
 We never found someplace different, did we Frank? 
* * *
 It had been almost twenty years since that anniversary. She sets the box on the burned coffee table.
 “Bastard, what happened to you?”
 She sighs, looking at the box in her hand. 
 “You used to care about what I needed. Never listen to me anymore. I don’t give a shit. After all, you’re dead now. You don’t need me. You never needed me like I needed you. I wanted to start a ‘we.’ But not after that day happened. Mary again looks at the dishes with disgust. 
 Those can wait 'til later.
 She wanders into their old bedroom. The wood paneled walls seem to suck all the color and light that might have been in the room. For the past few years they haven’t shared the same bed. Frank used the room before he died. Mary slept in the spare bedroom, a pale yellow room with a large bay window. 
* * *
 Fresh yellow paint drips down the roller. Frank catches it with his hand, rubbing the paint off on his flannel shirt. The fresh air from the open bay window refreshes his lungs.
 “This color is perfect for the room, Mary.”
 Mary walks in, glancing around the half finished room. 
 “It’s certainly going to be cheerful, isn’t it?
 Frank grins. “That’s the whole point of it.”
 She looks closer at the walls. She squints at the wet, yellow paint. It looks darker then what she had imagined. Mary opens her mouth to say something, but her eye catches the first wall Frank painted. The paint on the wall is a bright, pale yellow, just the color she was hoping.
 “It’s just perfect!”
 She rubs her swelling belly. Frank stops painting, looking to Mary.
 “Hurry on out of here! It’s not good for you two!”
* * *
 The room was finished, but it lost its cheer. She couldn’t think of a room she hated worse. The room they had so lovingly created would never be seen by the one person whom Mary desperately wanted to see it the most. Mary grips her cane and heads back out to the kitchen.
* * *
 Mary’s visitors were few in numbers; most of them were Frank’s old coworkers from the lumberyard.  One of them, Slim, a tall, lanky, dark-eyed man said Frank was a decent, hard working man.  His bloodshot eyes offered little sympathy.  Slim pulled out an old cigar box and handed it to Mary.  
 “I found it while cleaning out his locker.  He carried it around with him all the time.  Never said what was in that box.  He said it was very precious to him and was only for him to share.” 
 “Thank you,” Mary said in a whisper, her eyes widened with shock at the sight of the box.  With that, the man tipped his hat and turned for the door.  
 Mary recognized the box at once.  She had given him the wooden box on his birthday a couple years ago. In the box she had placed a photo of her and Frank at the county fair from many years ago when they were first going out.  They stood in front of a painted backdrop of Niagara Falls, his arm around her waist, both grinning from ear to ear.  
 Mary looked at the couple’s dark brown hair and smooth, fresh faces.  Their smiles were jumping out at Mary from the photograph.  She couldn’t help but smile back at the couple so now so distant.  
 Frank’s slim frame stood tall.  Even though the photograph was fading and turning yellow with age, she could still see blue eyes that could slice a person down the middle and could make her weak in the knees.  
 My Frank, he was so handsome back then. 
 She remembered that day so fondly.  Frank had picked Mary up from her parent’s house in his truck.  He bought a couple of tickets to go on the Ferris wheel.  She remembered they stopped at the top of the wheel and they could see all the lights shining from houses, the streetlights, the fairgrounds, and the bustling people below them, hand in hand with their children and husbands and wives.  And Frank, leaning in toward her face, kissing her softly, and in a whisper, saying “I love you, Mary.” 
 She traced the edges of the box with her finger, smiling softly.  
 He actually kept this old thing...just like my old Frank would have… 
 Mary lifted the lid, peering inside.  Her face went white, blank, the soft smile vanished from her thin lips.  Inside was not their picture, but a mini bottle of liquor. She then sat in her rocking chair, rocking back and forth, back and forth, and thinking of the rotting corpse Frank.  
* * *
 Now in the kitchen, her eyes stare out at nothing, not wanting to take in the vision of the house.  It was dark and dreary.  The shades were drawn shut, just like Frank always needed them to be.  She glances at the dirty dishes once again. They can wait till later. 
 Mary heads out toward the front door.  The cane pounds on the wooden floor with each step she takes.  With coat in had, she opens the door.  She sets the cigar box on the lamp table.  The brisk, cold November air stings her face.  Relaxing her grip on the cane, she steps out the door.  The sun shines bright, warming her face.  She smiles, embracing the cold air.