Continued, Life A Love Story
“Well, Teresa, I just loved meeting your Jim,” Flo says. “And you are absolutely right, he is a very nice man. A wonderful man! I know you can see that plainly. And what I can see plainly is that he is in love with you.”
“I don’t know about that,” Teresa says.
“Yes you do.”
“I think he was quite taken with you, that blue streak in your hair and your very cool nails!”
Flo grimaces. “Is it too much?”
“It’s wonderful! It’s fun!”
Flo crosses her arms and moves the rocker back and forth. The temperature has dropped and she’s cold, but she doesn’t want to go in yet. “Fetch me that afghan off the sofa inside, would you please, Teresa?”
“Of course.”
When Teresa goes into the house, Flo reaches down to her stomach to give it a little rub. Some discomfort there, but not bad. She is too thrilled with what has happened to think about much else.
When Teresa came to see her tonight, she asked Flo if it would be okay if she invited her beau over for just a few minutes, to meet her. Flo just gave her a look, and so Teresa called him to come over.
Jim is a big teddy bear of a man with shaggy gray hair and big blue eyes and the sweetest expression on his face, the kind of man you see on the street and just know he’s kind.
He told Flo about first seeing Teresa, how he just liked her so much right away but felt he had to not give himself away too much, didn’t want to scare her.
When he said that, he’d taken Teresa’s hand and squeezed it, and Flo saw that Teresa squeezed back.
New love. People could be 110 years old and it would still be thrilling, both for the couple and for everyone who witnessed their joy.
She had a friend who used to say that love was just so that people would procreate, but it’s not true. Love is so that people have a reason.
Jim stayed for about fifteen minutes, just enough time for Flo to look him over good. And he sure enough passed the test.
When Teresa comes out with the afghan, she arranges it over Flo’s lap. “How are you doing, Flo?” she asks.
Flo doesn’t answer right away, but then she says, “Last night I was lying right smack in the center of my bed, which I’ve been doing ever since I had to admit that Terrence wasn’t coming back, not even as a ghost, though I had longed for that, if only he could come back and let me hold his ghostly hand and somehow still feel his warmth.
” She looks over at Teresa and smiles. “We used to hold hands in bed from the beginning of us until his end, and oftentimes I would wake up at some ungodly hour of intense dark and quiet and I would squeeze his hand a little and he would always squeeze back. Always. I don’t even know if he was awake when he did that, but he did it and I would fall back asleep, content.
In the early days after he died, I swear I used to feel a downward depression on the mattress like he was sitting there to quietly regard me, and it was a comfort.
But that stopped after a while and I decided to move to the center of the bed.
It is an odd place to sleep if you’re used to sleeping on your own side for so long; you feel like you’re sneaking into someone’s tomato garden.
But there I was in the middle of the bed, and I was praying to all the saints in heaven that I would be strong and alone when the time came for me to pass over.
I wanted to be alone. That’s what I prayed for.
I thought it would be better that way, no one upset as you left this world behind. Do you think that’s strange?”
“No,” Teresa says. “I don’t think it’s strange at all. I’m sure you know stories about some people who seem to wait for the room to be empty before they die.”
“Other people, they like to have their family all around them.”
“Yes,” Teresa says.
“I don’t have any family,” Flo says. “But even if I did, I just feel I would like to be alone.”
Teresa sighs.
“What?” Flo asks.
“I’ll miss you. I wish I could ask you to stay longer.”
“You can ask me anything.”
“Would you stay longer? Would you stay as long as you can?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Flo says. “In the meantime, can I ask you to do something?”
“Of course.”
“You take that love from Jim. Even if it doesn’t last. You take it while it’s there.
It’s worth the risk. It’s always worth the risk.
People don’t always believe that. When I was a girl about twelve years old, I had my first boyfriend.
He sure was cute. His name was David. Well, we lasted about three weeks, and I nigh about died when he told me he didn’t like me anymore.
I was crying and crying in my bedroom and my father came in and said, ‘What’s all this?
’ I said, ‘David doesn’t like me anymore, and now I’ll never find another boyfriend! ’
“My father came and sat by me on the bed. I was just snuffling away, my face all swollen up red, me squeezing my big stuffed bear up close and tight, and my father said, ‘Yes you will.’ I did not believe him. But of course he was right. I suffered a few more heartbreaks, but then I met Terrence.”
“And if you hadn’t?”
Flo shrugs. “Well, then I wouldn’t have. Most likely I would have met someone else. But luckily I did meet Terrence. And now you’ve met Jim. And I just want you to stick your neck out.”
“Looky here,” Teresa said, and when Flo turned to her, there was her neck plum stuck out as far as it would go.
I’ll sleep tonight, Flo thinks.