If you’d ever had a passion, Charlie, a job you were invested in, a career or interest that meant as much to you as mine does to me, you’d get it. You’d understand why nights like this are reason enough for a heart attack. “I’m tired. And I still have work to do on next week’s concert schedule.”
“Can we go through the drive-thru? I had my heart set on—”
“Sure.” One day, she’d stop saying sure when she meant no.
***
It was probably too much to expect the school board members to attend the students’ spring concert. Boycotted it, apparently. Lucy didn’t mind that Evelyn Schindler stayed away last night. She rarely showed. But some of the missing board members were parents or grandparents of students in Lucy’s band and chorus. Last concert of the year. They couldn’t all be under the weather.
Community support made up for their absence. Who does a standing ovation for a K-8 concert? Too bad the members of the school board hadn’t seen it.
It wouldn’t be wrong if Lucy sent a copy of the video to each of their in-boxes, would it? It would be informational, inclusive, and thoughtful of her.
With the new school day an hour away from starting, she let herself into the still quiet music room, settled into her office, opened her laptop and calendar, and made a note to send the file when the tech team had it ready. The afterglow of the concert lingered. She’d heard every note in her mind through the night, seen the faces of the young people lit from within as the music took hold in their souls. And that—budget-fussy people—is why you can never cut this program.
Her computer dinged. E-mail. From Ania.
Before she opened it, she keyed in another note to herself to have the music students write a group thank-you to the art students whose work lined the lobby for last night’s concert. Ania might be young, but she’d made great strides with her students her first year of teaching.
Lucy clicked the e-mail.
“Did you open your mail yet?”
The letters and catalogs sat on the edge of her desk. With so much accomplished electronically, her stack of mail rarely amounted to much anymore. She thumbed through it. One envelope wasn’t postmarked. Hand-addressed. A thank-you from one of the faculty members?
It had been sealed in one spot only—at the point of the V of the back flap. Who hadn’t wanted to waste saliva?
Lucy read the first five words before the sound of a distant chain saw stopped her.
***
The two-mile drive from the Willowcrest School to her house on Cottonwood had never felt like a commute until today. Innocent clouds seemed sinister. Her body registered every groove or divot in the pavement despite the layers of automotive steel, plastic, and upholstery separating her from them. She was fourth to arrive at all three of the four-way stops. Hollowness expanded like out-of-control yeast dough the farther she drew from the school.
May usually represents hope reborn in the Upper Midwest. Winter laid to rest. Spring-almost-summer putting down taproots. Vivid colors. Lilied and peonied air. Leaves so fresh, they look damp. A vibration of exuberant life that thrums like a baby robin’s heartbeat.
Despite the only partly cloudy sky, Lucy saw dull colors, faded, fogged over. She heard only muted tones. The smell of her car’s citrus air freshener choked her. While stopped at another stop sign, she ripped the freshener from its resting place and jammed it into the litterbag.
Was it just her, or did the street sign on Cottonwood look tilted? Not much. Just enough to notice. And the mailbox leaned the opposite way. Dr. Seussian.
She turned off the engine and stared at the front door of her house. What made her think she could pull off a turquoise door on a moss green house? Ania’s idea. Ania didn’t know everything. But who was Lucy to talk?
In a motion so automatic she didn’t have to think about it—which was good on a day like today—Lucy pocketed her keys, slid her purse and tote bag from the passenger seat, and exited the car in one nearly smooth motion. The glaringly bright turquoise door swung open as she reached for the knob.
“I found my passion!” Charlie’s graying eyebrows danced. Nothing else moved. A statue of a man with jive eyebrows.
“Happy for you. Is it okay if I get all the way into the house before you tell me the rest of your story?” Lucy nudged her husband with her shoulder as she scooted past his Ed Asner form. How much could a doorframe swell in mid-May’s premature humidity? Were the walls swollen too? The whole house felt smaller. Shrunken.
Charlie stayed on her heels as she deposited her 2014 Milner County Teacher of the Year tote bag and leather hobo purse on the repurposed vanity/hall table. “Charlie. Some space?”
“Don’t you want to know what it is?” Charlie’s head tilt reminded Lucy of a terrier pup they’d seen in the neighborhood. Cute, on a puppy. Mildly cute on the sometimes-annoying love of her life.
“Can I have a minute to acclimate?” She cupped his jaw and kissed the tip of his decades-familiar nose. “Not my best day, Charlie.”
“Mine,” he said, pulling her close, “got decidedly better when you walked through the door.”
“You read that line in a book, didn’t you.” Her heart warmed a degree or two in spite of the icy talons holding it in their grip.
He pulled back. “Am I that transparent?”
“Like a sixth-grader’s homework excuse.”
“I never claimed to be a romantic.”
She tugged at the silver curling in front of his ears. “Time for a haircut, young man.”
“My barber had a bad day, I hear. Not sure I trust her with scissors.” Charlie pressed his palms to the sides of his head. “I can’t afford a distracted stylist. Or shorter ears.” His grin would have seemed impish on an ordinary day.
“You could spring for a professional barber once in a while, you know. We can”—could, she silently corrected—“afford it.” She turned to the stack of mail on the table. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to say the words. “And they’re shears. We semiprofessionals don’t call them scissors. They’re shears.”
“You bought them at Walmart.”
“Touché.”
The fencing foil—lodged in her throat since eight hours earlier—slipped farther down. To the hilt.
She’d have to tell him.
So . . . after all these years, he’d found his life’s passion. On the day she lost hers.
***
“Worms, Lucy.”
She’d only managed to kick off one shoe before he spewed his news. Hers would have to wait. “You have worms?”
“Not yet. But I will.”
“You need
