So last night I was imagining that I had lived my whole life and now it was over. I was saying goodbye for the last time to everyone I cared about, and then dying and being reunited with the people who died before me: my mother, my grandmother, my little brother. It was an exercise out of my inner child workbook, guidance for living in the now. Sometimes I have trouble living in the now. Tears were running down my cheeks, wetting the pillow, when Len came into the bedroom and said, “Hey, Peaches, you awake?” in his Come and Get It voice.
Let me tell you about Len. He always calls honey “teddy bear juice,” because what else would you call the stuff that comes out when you turn a plastic teddy bear upside down and squeeze it? I laughed about it the first couple of times, but after fifteen years of marriage, now I just ignore him. I almost cheated on him once with a man I met at the library who made me feel witty and brave and free.
He’s getting a little bald, and a little pudgy, and I can’t ride in his car for long because the smell of the cheeseburgers he thinks I don’t know about makes me queasy. Whenever I need some help around the house — a lightbulb I can’t reach or a heavy table moved, taking the kids to the doctor or calling the plumber or yelling at the plumber or paying the plumber — Len is out somewhere running some pointless errand. He almost cheated on me once with a woman at work who made him feel witty and brave and free.
But he doesn’t gamble, and he has a decent job, and he shaves every morning, even on the weekend, because he knows his beard gives me a rash.
And the kids still shout “Daddy’s home!” and run to him with big grins and open arms when he rolls his smelly old fast food clunker up the drive.
And his smile is still the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen.
So last night he came into the bedroom and said, “Hey, Peaches, you awake?” in his Come and Get It voice, but when he saw me crying he wrapped his arms around me and held me without saying a word. I told him about dying, and he smoothed my hair and tucked the quilt around me, got into bed with me and just held me. Someday one of us will have to bury the other one.
In the morning, while I’m brushing my teeth and imagining I’m not getting older, Len grins at me in the mirror, winks and says, “You owe me one. I come to bed all horny and you pretend to be dead.”
In the mirror the laugh lines around my eyes get just a bit deeper. “Talk to the butt,” I say. I flip the bottom of my robe up at him, dart out of reach, and go downstairs to make his coffee and toast with teddy bear juice.
Elissa Matthews was born, raised, and began work many years ago at the phone company in New Jersey. At some point she got fed up, launched on a journey of discovery, and explored a bit of the world. One frigid day in November, at 5 in the morning, climbing into cold water scuba gear looking for a dead body, she realized that maybe a 9 – 5, climate-controlled job in an office somewhere (even New Jersey) wasn’t as bad as it sounded. She has published one novel, Where the River Bends, and short stories and poetry in several journals and anthologies, including Red Rock Literary Review, Lilith, and Art Times. She was previously Editor-in-Chief of Goldfinch, A Literary Magazine.
Lost Balloon 