Flo tucks the paper into her purse. At the right time, she’ll give it to Teresa. She’ll say even the librarian does computer dating. She’ll leave out the “meh” part.
One time early in our marriage, I took the train to see my mother. Terrence and I could hardly stand to be separated in those days, not like in later years when he would disappear into his workroom or I would take much too long looking at jam at the grocery store. I wonder do you remember, Ruthie, when you brought your fiancé to meet me, both of you pleased as punch that you had found your true love that was going to last forever and YOU two wouldn’t EVER fuss at each other? Well, fussing is part of a marriage, just like hard times are part of a life. They help form it. You may not like it when it’s happening, but you get through it and then you look back and say well fine then. Now I know something.
Speaking of fussing, listen to this one. One time Terrence and I had a fierce disagreement before bed. It was about the thing I’ll tell you about later. I thought he and I had discussed it and put it to rest. But you know sometimes when you think you’re all done with something, it rears up again. They say you shouldn’t go to bed angry, but we were sure enough headed that way. I was muttering into my mirror while I took cold cream off my face. I thought, Tell you one thing, I am not sleeping with that man tonight. And off I went to the guest room, and I lay down in that narrow bed and I felt smug pleased with myself. So there! I was thinking, as I fell asleep. But I woke up some hours later and I reached my hand overand there was nothing. And I remembered where I was and I thought, For heaven’s sake, go to your own bed and lie beside your husband. Well, I went to my bed and lo and behold it wasn’t even turned down. I crept downstairs and there I found Terrence asleep on the sofa halfway falling off it, and the afghan pulled up tight in his fists. Terrence, I said, and his eyes popped open and he looked scared. Come to bed, I said, and I was speaking gentle, I could see he’d been startled hard. He sat up and blinked and then he said, Oh. I thought you were an angel. I am, I said, and I held out my hand and he took it and we ascended the staircase together.
But for heaven’s sake I still haven’t said about the hard-boiled eggs. My mind does wander.
So as I said, I once took the train to see my mother and before I left Terrence said, How about I make you some hard-boiled eggs to take on the train. I said that would be wonderful and I meant it because every time I see someone eat a hard-boiled egg on public transportation, I think, Well, weren’t they smart.
Terrence saw me off at the station and come about lunch time I opened my paper sack. On the shell he had drawn a heart with an arrow through it and our initials inside, like you see carved into a tree. That made me have a private smile. But also he had taken a tiny little jar and put holes in the lid and there I had my own personal salt shaker. When someone thinks of things like this, you just feel so well cared for. Look what I got, I felt like saying to everyone, but naturally I kept it to just me. Which was enough. That little salt shaker is in the cupboard next to the bowls. It can still come in right handy.
It’s only six o’clock, Ruthie, but I’ll go to bed after dinner, you know there is a kind of luxury in going to bed early. I’ll look at my ladies’ magazine and then drift off. I do have some more things to tell you about. Seems like there’s nothing like a reminder that your time is nigh to make you awfully talkative. I hope you’ll be patient withme.
Flo wakes in deepest darkness. No moon. And she feels afraid.
She sits up and turns on the bedside light, pushes a pillow behind her, and begins rocking quickly back and forth, back and forth, something she hasn’t done for the longest time. Arms crossed and holding on to each other, her eyes squeezed shut. She can feel her heart racing and it occurs to her to call her doctor. But that wouldn’t be fair. It’s the middle of the night and he wouldn’t be able to do anything; it was only a bad dream. A terrible, terrible dream about the devil. She had gone to hell and here came the devil striding up to her, and he was red, with horns and cloven hoofs and a tail just like in the pictures, and he was walking all bow-legged up to her. He had a thin-lipped grin on his face that was terrifying, and behind him were high fires burning and black smoke rising and the poor souls crying out.
“Florence Greene?” he said, in a mocking voice that chilled her bones, and her throat wouldn’t work to answer. She tried, but she felt paralyzed, and here he came closer and closer.
Now she is awake, breathing fast, and her frilly nightside lamp isn’t doing much to help. She starts to sing her favorite hymn, “Do Not Be Afraid,” but stops. It’s no good, her trembly old voice against the shadows in the corners of the room. She thinks of Terrence and how he never did believe in hellorheaven. He always said that it was plain conceited for people to think they went on after they died. Flowould bristle every time, because shewantedthere to be a heaven.
“What would we evendothere?” Terrence asked her once. And Flo said, “What do youmean? We would be inheaven!” “Yes,” he said, “but what would wedo?” Flo said she guessed that for one thing they would visit with everyone up there, all the people they’d been missing so hard—there they would be. And maybe they would look down on Earth, too. They could watch what was happening there. Anywhere they wanted to watch, they could. She did not add that she imagined them sitting on the edge of a turquoise and pink cloud, holding hands and swinging their legs.
“Would we eat in heaven?” Terrence asked.
“Well, I spect so,” Flo said.
“What would we eat?” he asked, and Flo knew he was kind of funning with her, but she went right along and said they would eat whatever they wanted. “Hm,” said Terrence. “So we snap our fingers and here comes some fried chicken with buttermilk biscuits floating right over to us?”
Flo got impatient with him then and said, “You can make fun of me all you want, Terrence, but I got to believe in heaven.”
“Why?”he asked. And Flo said, “Because it’s our reward. Don’t we suffer in this world? Don’t some of us suffer so bad? It’s our reward! And I also have to believe because if I lose you, why, in heaven I’ll see you again.”
He’d had a toothpick in his mouth that day, Flo remembers; they were sitting out on the porch on a lovely summer evening after a real good dinner of barbecued ribs, and he had a toothpick in his mouth, and he took it out to sayserious to her, “All right, Flo, if you believe in heaven, that’s okay with me. I won’t make fun of it ever again. Do you believe in hell, too?”
She told him, “Yes I surely do and I hope I don’t go there. You never know. You might think you’re a good person and then on Judgment Day you find out something different. I’m sore afraid of the devil. I am afraid of even thinking of him.”
“Put him in diapers,” Terrence said.
Flo said, “What?”
Terrence said, “Whenever you think of the devil, imagine him in diapers.”
Flo did that right on the spot; she conjured an image of the devil, and wasn’t he wearing an old cotton diaper with great big safety pins on either side, and if you thought about it, those safety pins would be right hot. But Satan looked ridiculous, all his fury and hatred reduced by a saggy diaper.
And so that’s what Flo does now: she thinks of the devil in his diaper, and she starts to laugh and she isn’t afraid anymore and she whispers, “Terrence,” and reaches out to his side and caresses his pillow. And all inside her it goes calm and quiet.
Then she remembers something. She turns on the bedside lamp and gets up and goes downstairs to find her little sewing basket that she keeps under the side table—Ruthie used to like to play with that basket; she lined up spools of thread and called them her soldiers. Flo finds the big safety pin in there so that if ever she fears the devil again, it will remind her of what to do. When she starts to come back upstairs, something peculiar happens. She can’t move her legs to climb. But finally she makes her way up and is gladno one sees her practically crawling up the stairs. Why, she is embarrassed in front of her own self.
But the safety pin is now in her nightstand drawer. She’ll have to tell Ruthie about it, what it means, how it changes terror into laughter, and if that isn’t a good magic trick, Flo doesn’t know whatis.
She turns off the light and lies down again. She thinks about how she loved Terrence on the day she met him, and she knew right away she would love him all her life. Right away! She never would have predicted that he would be taking care of her long after he was gone. Yet he is. And she doesn’t want to believe in the devil, but she sure does want to believe in heaven, and that she’ll see Terrence again there. When it comes to Terrence, a lifetime was not enough. Forever won’t be, either.
Do you remember how I used to tell you our stories, Ruthie? I just made things up and you listened to me like I was the pope on the Vatican balcony. One summer day just after you’d turned five you rang my doorbell and said, Flo, can you come out on the porch and tell me a story? Sure enough, I said, and we settled ourselves into the wicker chairs and I said what would you like a story about? Pizza, you said. Pizza! said I. You nodded all serious so I got serious too and I said all right, here is a story called The Lonely Little Pizza.
I started telling it out and then your face changed and you said, I have to go home and poop but after I poop can I come back and you tell me the rest of the story? Of course, I said, and I watched you climb down real careful off that chair which was too big for you and you had bandaids on your knees crisscross from a recent mishap. But you climbed down careful and then you ran hell bent for leather over to your house and you slammed open the screen door and yelled real loud, MOM I GOT TO POOP AND THEN FLO IS GOING TO TELL ME THE REST OF HER STORY ABOUT THE LONELY LITTLE PIZZA. Well, who wouldn’t love you, Ruthie?
In a box marked “Ruthie” up in the attic you will find drawings from before you could write. One of those drawings was you as a bride. And oh I just remembered one letter that you sent when you were in college. You said all the girls on your dorm floor ever talked about was how not to getpregnant. You said you had no interest in that since you were certainly not going to give it away. But then you changed your mind right quick and when you came home at Christmas break you and I took a walk around the block and you confessed to me that you had had sex and did I think that was bad, sex before marriage. I said I didn’t think so, so long as you were both careful with each other, and that was a big relief to you.
