Likely Story
By Lisa Kurth
My family specializes in third marriages, though I, myself, have only gotten to number two—so far. My mom spent twenty-four stoic years with Dad. After that, boyfriends came and went until marriage number two to a guy we called “the jailbird.” Blonde and fit, he possessed one box of belongings and a silk screening machine which he set up in Mom’s apartment basement.
“You know where they teach silk screening?” hissed my sister. “Jail!”
That first Christmas, he cranked out tee shirts for all of us, snowy scenes with the words, MerryChristmas! slightly off-kilter. I doubted the enterprise could bring in much income.
I was right. Within a year, he and his tee shirt business were out on the curb.
For the next several years, Mom was parasite-free. But then we heard rumors that an aunt had set her up with someone she encountered through her occasional hobby of drunk driving. My aunt had met this man at one of their court-ordered AA meetings. He owned a house, supposedly. He owned his own business, supposedly.
In November, the guy visited Mom for two weeks, and at the end, presented her with one of those velvet roses that pop open to reveal a diamond ring, supposedly.
They rushed into a December wedding. I could not bring myself to attend. Mom sent pictures of herself in a wedding gown so lacy she looked like she was dressed in foam. Next to her stood a skinny, gray-faced man in a tux.
“He looks like a cadaver!” I told my sister.
“He just had a heart attack and a stroke.”
“Maybe he won’t last long,” I said cheerfully. “How was the wedding?”
“Very nice. He paid for the whole thing too. He really seems to love mom.”
Well, I thought, at least, Mom finally got the fancy wedding she always wanted.
When I visited them at the house he really did own, she and Reinie, short for Reinhold, showed me around, pointing out the gruesome traps they set for rabbits in the backyard, the quarts of pickles they canned together, the cookies they decorated together. They even sewed quilts together, Reinie whirring away at the sewing machine, while Mom cut and embroidered.
We all went out to the backyard gazebo, a new embellishment installed by Reinie where four empty beer cans hung from a board labeled “Polish wind chimes.”
Mom put her arm around Reinie’s shoulder and bragged, “We’ve never had an argument.”
“Never an argument,” he agreed.
We were always welcomed and offered a can of Red Dog beer or three or twelve. The house was filled with novelty objects, little toilets that sang, Halloween bowls with moving fingers inside. There were pretty new dresses for mom, bouquets on every occasion.
Ten years passed happily. Fifteen. Way more than we expected from a cadaver. They were together, all day and always enjoyed it. I’d been completely wrong.
Reinie’s strokes returned. He went to the hospital, then a skilled nursing facility, a short time later to the hospital again, then skilled nursing.
When he was well enough to be at home, I visited. During the day he had a special lounger in the living room, an oxygen tank beside it. Still he smoked, still he drank. Still his dark eyes looked out with kind helplessness through his bifocals. He talked less, and often mentioned pain in his eyelids, his stomach, his legs. Soon he was in a wheelchair.
One time I visited, sleeping on their couch at night, I heard tender murmurs from their little bedroom, Mom’s encouraging voice, the squeak of the wheelchair as she helped Reinie into it, pushed him down the hall, squeaking and maneuvering through the door to the laundry room where they had a commode. She shifted him onto it, then back onto the wheelchair, down the hall, and back into bed. One more trip to empty his potty in the toilet with a splash. At least two times, she got up to do this smelly, intimate work never with any irritation in her voice.
The next morning, I sat with them at the oilcloth-covered kitchen table under mom’s ruffled cafe curtains, and drank coffee while Reinie opened his giant pill organizer and took out a dozen or more pills. “They’re going to do another surgery on my eyelid,” he said. He couldn’t quite close them which caused great pain.
It was a beautiful autumn day. I suggested we all take a walk around the block. Mom pushed Reinie’s wheelchair out the door while I held it open and carefully down the multi-level aluminum ramp the VA had attached to their concrete front porch. She stopped at each turn to make sure Reinie was secure in his wheelchair. Out on the sidewalk, we walked and wheeled along, a tiny parade, admiring the red and yellow leaves, the squirrels stealing grapes, the puddles after a storm.
Back home, we drank Red Dog beer, ate cheese curds, and watched grey-haired people polka on TV. Mom and Reinie’s polka days were over.
Not long after, Reinie went into the hospital and into a nursing home for good. I don’t recall hearing the word hospice. For months, Mom visited him every day. “Here. I made you a cupcake.” They watched soap operas and Lifetime, discussed family, food, weather. Whether he was in great pain or in a haze, Mom stayed with him. After dinner, she lay beside him on his hospital bed for a while, kissed him, said, “I love you too,” and went home.
One winter day, when darkness filled the windows and she had gone back home alone, he did the one thing he had to do without her.
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About Lisa Kurth
Kurth is an MFA- Rainier Writers Workshop, has published in three genres, fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. “Are We Not Ladies,” was nominated by Watershed Review for Best of the Net, 2017 and “Fish Genesis” was nominated by Rabid Oak for Best of the Net, 2019. “This is the Way We Wash the Clothes,” (CNF) won the 2014 Diana Woods Memorial Award (Lunchticket). Her creative nonfiction “Pivot,” and short story, "Gardener's Delight" (Dragonfly Press DNA) were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She is co-founder of San Jose’s literary reading series, Flash Fiction Forum, now entering its tenth successful year.
A sampling of publications: The Millions, Atticus Review, Brain,Child, Main Street Rag, Microfiction Monday, Concis, Rappahannock Review.