Then I blew my nose and the nurse said, “What is this? An epidemic?”
• • •
After two more weeks, the doctor reluctantly released me. I promised to take care and Rica guaranteed it. “Nothing strenuous,” she emphasized.
My hair had mostly covered the scars on my head, but a dimple still appeared in my forehead. I walked with a cane into our home that now rivaled Heaven.
Everyone was at my beck and call and at last, I was master of my domain. Rica and I had time for each other for long talks, cuddling in front of the fireplace when the kids were in school, and planning our future. But first our honeymoon.
A big plate of cookies one evening set the scene. The fireplace was a rosy glow.
Rica called, “Kids, it’s a party—cookies and ice cream.”
She didn’t need to call the girls twice and by the time Billy pried himself from his auto mechanic magazine, inroads had been made on the cookie plate.
Rica laid the maps and the travel folder on the coffee table, smoothed the wrinkles and gave the kids the news.
“We’re all going on a three-month cruise.”
“When are we leaving?” asked Billy.
“Maybe they’ll have a good-looking lifeguard for the pool.”
“Yeah,” said Billy, “and I hope it’s female.”
“Now can I have a bikini?”
“Will we have a room with a view?”
The questions were endless, coming thick and fast.
Rica was as excited as the kids and I felt a very strong desire to cry. I asked myself why we’d never done this before.
Finally, it was bedtime. Apparently, though, it was not sleep time—we heard the muffled sounds of conversation and laughter from the girls.
Billy’s muted voice on the phone could be heard—a voice that had started to change so long ago, and now sounded so…so adult. How quickly he had grown up.
The cane leaned beside the bed and watched without surprise as I kissed my wife goodnight. I didn’t hear when she said, “nothing strenuous.” I’m half deaf, you know.
Credit: Courtesy of Kathie Renfro
Dolores Durando, born in 1921, is the author of And Yesterday Is Gone, Beyond the Bougainvillea, and Out of the Darkness. She served on mental health advisory boards, both in California and Oregon, retiring at age seventy to write, paint watercolors, and sculpt. She lives independently in a cottage on the doorstep of Grayback Mountain in Williams, Oregon, with her corgi and two cats.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
© 2015 by Dolores Durando
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ISBN 978-1-59309-666-3
ISBN 978-1-5011-1818-0 (ebook)
LCCN 2015934976
First Infinite Words trade paperback edition October 2015
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Cover photography: © Keith Saunders / Keith Saunders Photos
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And Yesterday Is Gone Page 33