Chapter 19
On my closet shelf, on the right-hand side, is a green canvas gift box of three small albums labeled Dreams, Journeys, and Travel that I never did put any pictures or anything else in.
It’s just all tied up and waiting like the day I got it at some thrift store, and do you know the person who had it before me left it empty, too.
When I bought it I thought, I’m going to fill those albums up, but then it seemed like I wanted to imagine things that might be put in there more than doing them.
It’s like when you have a dream and it’s like a sparkly floating evening gown but then you write it down and it becomes a faded housedress on a wire hanger.
So I would look at the album labeled Dreams and I’d sure enough feel dreamy unto magical.
I would look at Journeys and think about how a person gets from here to there, like a friend of mine who was scared of even going to the Piggly Wiggly and then she up and moved to Positano, Italy.
She used to talk about Positano, Italy, she used to say that if she could ever work up the courage to travel she would go there.
She had pictures of it that she looked at over and over.
It looked like a place you’d make up but it was sure enough real.
But she moved there! By herself! She sent me a postcard saying I DID IT and that was the last I heard from her.
Whenever I thought of her, I was filled with wonder and a fair amount of envy.
Fact, one time Terrence came out and I was sitting on the back porch with my apron on, my hands folded in my lap.
He asked what I was doing and I said, “Nothing, but I was wondering what makes for the way your life goes.” It was too big a question to ask Terrence, we were fixing to eat dinner in a few minutes, I remember I had made chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes and green beans right out of the garden.
And I thought maybe I’d talk to Terrence later about my big question but it faded away.
We both liked chicken-fried steak so much we were content to eat it in silence and then watch Ed Sullivan.
My question didn’t matter anymore, it slipped right through the colander.
Now, in my bottom dresser drawer, next to your letters all bundled up, you will find something embarrassing.
It is an empty Mrs. Butterworth and an empty honey container in the shape of a bear.
Terrence and I were having breakfast one day and the honey and the syrup were on the table, and I started talking like I was Mrs. Butterworth and Terrence started talking like he was Mr. Bear.
And do you know we said things that we never would have said otherwise, fanciful things, funny things, things I’d just flat out call dear.
And seemed like we needed those props to say those things, so I washed out the containers and whenever I needed a special talk with Terrence, why, I’d haul them out.
I’d put on my Mrs. Butterworth voice and say, “Dear?” And here would come his gruff bear voice saying, “What is it, my little plumpling?” It was just silly stuff, Ruthie, the kind of thing that we’d never want to admit we did, but we relished our play time, seems like people might never outgrow that need for play to lift them up and away for a bit.
After Terrence died, I came home to an empty house that was changed forevermore, the air so heavy around me it was like a coat.
And I took off my black hat and my black shoes and I started to take off my black dress but then I kept it on.
I went to the dresser drawer and knelt before it, and I pulled out Mrs. Butterworth and Mr. Bear.
And then I asked Mr. Bear where he was and there was a long silence, of course.
But just when I was going to put the things away, there came a touch to my cheek, I believe it was real, Ruthie, a touch to my cheek, and I felt the promise in it that I would be with him again.
And when I took off my black dress and put it on the hanger, it slid off and onto the floor. Terrence never did like me in black.
Oh, here’s something that might surprise you, Ruthie.
I got brass knuckles in my nightstand. I got them after I started living alone.
I figured the bad man would break in and I would hold them up and say, Don’t make me use these.
And he would bust out laughing so hard he would lose his menace and maybe I’d fix him some coffee and tell him to mend his ways. And maybe he would.
There’s a footprint in concrete round back by the cellar door that I want to call your attention to.
Terrence stepped in wet concrete by mistake and didn’t he have a fit, seeing as how he messed up the job someone had just finished.
Finished and warned us not to step in. But here came Terrence out to inspect the man’s work right after he left.
A man may not know a single thing about how to do something, but when a skilled workman does it for him, why, here he will come to inspect it afterward.
Well, Terrence was bending over to have a good look and he slipped on wet grass and there was his footprint smack dab in the slab.
We thought about calling the man back to fix it, but it would have cost too much so I said let’s just call it a happy accident, there you will be long after you’re gone.
Those were the days neither of us believed we would ever be gone, not really.
But there’s that Terrence footprint. After he died, I would sometimes lay flowers in it.
And I would see him all over again with his foot slid in the concrete, flustered and angry but laughing, too.
His hands on his hips, staring over at me in his “Dang it!” way.
Let’s see what else. On a table in my living room is a pretty blue bowl and in it are little rocks that you presented me with one day saying they were magic beans.
Go ahead and wish on them, you said, and I did.
Not only then, but most every day, it made me feel good.
On the same table, there’s a note in a frame where the print has faded so you can hardly read it but it says, “Roses are red, violets aren’t green, being with you is like living a dream.
” That was from Terrence on our first Valentine’s Day together as a married couple and I just felt like it ought to be framed.