But then I realize, as I hand you a clean wet salad plate, the number would be a little off because you didn’t start helping me until Bruce and Janie were old enough to sit in the den unsupervised. I remember how you wandered in one night while I was in the middle of washing dishes and began telling me some anecdote, how you relished both the story and its telling of it so much you barely noticed when I handed you a towel and started passing you plates.

After that, cleaning up together became our routine. Some days, it seemed that the only time we could talk uninterrupted was when Bruce and Janie were planted in front of the television. Just about every serious discussion we’ve had in the last fifty years has taken place in our kitchen. Maybe not having enough space for a dishwasher has been the key to our marriage lasting all these years.

“So,” I say as I start on the big dinner plates, “we really need to make a decision about that assisted living unit at Five Star. Mrs. Miller said they could only hold the place until Friday. She said it could be months or even years before another one becomes available.”

I try not to let impatience creep into my voice. I know how big this decision is. If we decide to take the apartment, it will mean leaving our home of fifty-five years to move into what these days is called “continuous care,” but is basically an old age home. The last time we seriously considered it a few years ago, you said it would be like moving into death’s waiting room. It’s true we’d have to pare down our possessions, and I know the kids won’t want any of the discards. We’d probably end up having to donate whatever we can’t take with us. We might even have to put the excess, things we’ve collected over a lifetime, things I still love, in the trash.

But maybe moving will be a chance to re-invigorate our lives. Hopefully, we’d make some new friends; most of our old ones are gone. And we could take advantage of some of the things Five Star offers, like the monthly bus trips to Manhattan to see shows and go to museums. It would be nice to be able to do things like that again. We haven’t gone anywhere in the two years since Bruce convinced you to stop driving.

I hand you a dripping plate and wait until I see you have a firm grasp on it before letting go. I still love this old set of dishes with the delicate roses against a cream background. I remember picking them out at Fortunoff’s when we were registering for our wedding. A lot of men wouldn’t have cared about china patterns, but you always had strong opinions about, well, everything. You thought service for six was enough; you said we’d be lucky if we could afford an apartment with a dining room at all, never mind one large enough to seat more than six people. I said service for twelve would be better. We might not be able to seat that many people now, but, hopefully, we would down the road. We agreed on service for eight. It’s like I’ve always told the kids. It may seem like you rule the roost. But when a question involves something I really care about, we always make the decision together.

You still haven’t answered my question about the assisted living unit. You seem to be completely focused on drying the plate in your hands.

“If we want the apartment,” I say, “we need to let them know by Friday.”

“What day is today?”

  “It’s Thursday.” I don’t blame you for asking. When you’ve been retired as long as we have and aren’t involved in any activities, it’s easy to lose track. If I didn’t play bridge on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, I would forget what day it was too. I wash the other dinner plate and hand it to you.

“If Mrs. Miller doesn’t hear from us, she’ll contact the next name on the list,” I say.

You pause, hold the plate with the dish towel pressed against your face. Your brows furrow above worried eyes, your glasses magnifying the fear in them, your mouth turned down. You look uncertain but also confused, as if you are unsure how big a problem your uncertainty is. I try to think of something to say to make it easier.

“Is it that you’re not sure about this particular apartment, or that you’re not sure about moving at all?” I turn off the spigot and dry my hands with my apron.

You shake your head. “I just don’t know if I can be ready. I haven’t even started packing yet. I don’t think I can be packed by Friday.”

“You don’t have to be packed by Friday. We just need to decide by Friday.”

You swallow, look down, and start toweling the plate in your hands, as if  trying to polish it. “I just don’t know,” you say.

“OK,” I say. “We can talk about it a little later. Meanwhile, I’ll put the rest of the dishes away. Why don’t you go ahead and see if there’s anything on television.”

You walk out of the kitchen and down the hall toward the den. Your balance has gotten worse in the last couple of months, and every few steps one of your feet hovers above the ground for a second while you try to regain your forward momentum. You’ve lost weight as well, forcing you to belt your pants even higher. You were always such a good dresser, always took such pride in your appearance, almost to the point of preening while the kids and I plied you with the compliments we knew you wanted and expected. But you don’t seem to care how you look anymore, and I know better than to say anything. You’ve never taken criticism well, and you’ve only gotten more thin-skinned in recent months. You interpret even the most innocent comments as intentional insults.

I wonder what you think about how I look. Much of the time, it seems as if you don’t see me at all. Throughout our marriage, the appreciative expression in your eyes showed me in a way nothing else could that I was still attractive. Now, when I look in the mirror and see my silver-blond hair, my coral lipstick, and the eyebrows I’ve carefully drawn on with as steady a hand as I can manage, I find myself unable to judge.

When you reach the doorway of the den and turn in, I start putting away the plates and glasses. I keep thinking about how you said you couldn’t be ready to move by Friday. I do worry about how confused you sometimes get—like last week when you got lost on your way back from the post office, and the week before when you forgot to turn the stove off and burned the bottom of the teapot.

Then again, I’ve left burners on by mistake a couple of times, though, luckily, there was no pot on the stove either time. And there was that day when, for a minute or so, I couldn’t remember whether we live on Everidge Road or Everidge Lane. I remind myself that you take a lot of medication for your back pain, which makes it easy to get dehydrated. Dehydration can cause confusion.

I finish up in the kitchen and go into the den. You’re sitting in your usual place on the black leather recliner, reading a newspaper. I take my usual seat on the sofa catty-corner from you. The worn oatmeal fabric has gotten as soft and cozy as a mitten. I pick up the book I began the night before.

“Look at this,” you say, angling the open newspaper in my direction. “They’re bringing West Side Story back to Broadway. Remember that production we co-directed at Cardozo High School?”

“How could I forget?”

You looked so handsome on opening night, standing in the orchestra pit, wearing your gray suit and a black turtleneck, your thick shaggy gray hair curling around your neck. That new young music teacher was assisting you, and I didn’t like the way the two of you acted around each other. I wonder if you remember that you and I got into a huge argument about it after the show was over. I can’t decide whether I hope you do remember or hope you don’t.

“West Side Story has a tricky score,” you say. “But the kids did a great job with it.”

“You did a great job with it.”

You smile and I smile back, and I feel my shoulders ease. You go back to reading the paper, and I pick up my book. But, instead of reading, I think about whether this is a good moment to bring up the subject of the move again while you seem so much like yourself. Before I can say anything, you look up from your paper, your eyes lively, alert, and focused, and you begin to smile.

“You know what?” you say. “We should go.”

“Go?”

You point to the paper. “To see West Side Story. Maybe drive in a little early, have dinner before the show. Maybe even get drinks afterwards like in the old days.”

I hesitate. “But we don’t have a car. Remember? Bruce sold it for us when you stopped driving.”

Your smile vanishes. “Bruce sold our car?” Your voice gets louder. “What the hell gave him the right to sell our car?”

“Bruce was helping us out. Don’t you remember?”

“Helping us out?” You smash the paper closed and, grasping it with one hand, push against the arms of the recliner with your fists and struggle to your feet.

I search for something, anything, that will calm you. When you get agitated, your balance gets even worse. If you keep moving you might fall. I don’t have the strength to lift you back up if that happens. Last time you fell, we had to call 911 just to get you back on your feet.      

You shake the newspaper in the air. My stomach clenches. I take quick, shallow breaths,

“Selling the car out from under us was helping us out?” you shout. “That kid probably didn’t even sell it. Probably just kept it for himself. I’m not going to let him get away with that.”

“No, no,” I say. “Don’t you remember? You weren’t driving anymore. We agreed it made sense to sell the car so we wouldn’t have to keep paying for insurance.”

You try to make sense of what I was saying.

“Remember?” I say again.

The anger drains from your face as your memory returns and my heart slows apace with your changing mood. You nod.

“Yes. I guess it slipped my mind for a minute.” You lower yourself back onto the recliner.

I monitor your movements. Only after you’re safely sitting and have reopened the newspaper do I relax my tensed muscles and resume breathing normally. I promise myself I will call the doctor in the morning and discuss your medications. But, at this moment, the need to decide about the apartment feels even more urgent.

“You know,” I say, “if we moved into that assisted living place, we could go to see shows again. Mrs. Miller said they have bus trips into the city twice a month.”

You continue reading the paper, so I push ahead.

“What do you think?” I say.

You look at me over the tops of your glasses. “What do I think?”

“Yes, what do you see as the pros and the cons?”

“The pros and cons?”

“Yes, you know, the pros and cons of moving.”

You shift your gaze away as if you’re thinking, then look back at me. “I’m not sure. What do you think?”

“Well, there are some nice activities for us to get involved in. And we’d be less isolated than we are now. Of course, we’d have to get used to a lot less space. Then again, there would be less to worry about cleaning. That might be nice. Do you think you could get used to less space?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, we have to decide. So, just tell me what you’re thinking.”

“What I’m thinking?”

“You must have some gut reaction. Just give me that.”

You are silent. The worried expression is back on your face.

I really need you to say something. I feel like the entire course of our lives depends on you giving me some kind of thumbs up or thumbs down on the move right this minute. I take a deep breath to steady myself.

“I’m not asking for a whole rationale,” I say. “Just a quick positive or negative reaction to the idea.”

You look down.

“Are you against it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So, you’re in favor?”

“When do we have to decide?”

“By Friday.”

“And what day is today?”

“It’s Thursday,” I say in a louder voice than I intended.

I realize I need to calm down. I stand up. I tell you I’m going into the kitchen for a minute to get something to drink. I ask if you want anything. You say you’d like a glass of soda.

I open the fridge and take out the bottle of Coca Cola. I feel shaky. So, when I take a glass from the cabinet, I set it on the counter and hold it in place in an attempt to steady myself. You’ve always had a bit of a temper. But, until now, I was never afraid you would do something violent.

I tell myself that I have to keep it together so we can get through this discussion. We have to make a decision about the apartment before it’s too late. And to do that, I need you: the person who helped me decide that we should go to South America on our honeymoon; the person who helped me choose this house, even though it needed work. The person who agreed we should stop trying to get pregnant after Janie, that we should stay up north instead of moving south, that we should get rid of the bathtub so we could have an extra-large shower. I need the person who helped me make a million other decisions I could have made, but never wanted to make, by myself.

My eyes fill with tears, but I widen them so nothing can fall. I pick up the glass with your Coke and start back towards the den. The phone begins to ring, and I debate whether to go back into the kitchen to answer it or continue to the den where the other extension is.

“Honey,” I call.  “Can you get that?  I’ll be there in a minute.”

The phone continues to ring as I walk down the hall. It is still ringing when I walk into the den. You look at me with the confused expression you wear more and more often.

“The phone isn’t working,” you say. “I tried to answer it, but it’s not working.”

You extend your arm toward me; you are holding the remote control.

I look away from your hand, away from you. I know that this is not just a senior moment and not due to too much medication or dehydration. My chest contracts and I force myself to focus on something else. I look at the picture of Bruce and Janie on the wall above the desk, the one in which she’s five and he’s eight and he’s giving her a piggyback ride and she’s smiling like crazy; and I see through a blur that the picture is a little crooked and needs to be shifted a bit to the left. I also notice that the in-tray on the desk is overflowing with bills you haven’t yet paid and the desk calendar is still turned to last month.

I sit on the sofa and take small, tight breaths: a little air in, a little air out. I try to swallow but there is a razor blade lodged in my throat. I wait another moment until I can speak in a way that will sound normal. And only then do I look at you again.

I take the remote control from your hand. “It’s OK,” I say.

“I think we need a new phone,” you say.

“It’s OK. I’ll take care of it.”

You nod and turn back to your newspaper. I open my book, but it’s no use. I can’t make sense of what is in front of my eyes. Instead of words, all I see are black marks on the page, shapes without meaning that become ever more blurry the longer I stare at them.
 

There’s a Reason Flowers Are Not Gray

Poems by Nanci Lee Woody

  THE BOOK WE NEEDED! A collection of poems focusing on the everyday thoughts and dreams of older women and the challenges we face: the death of a spouse or a dear friend; the mysteriously old people at our sixtieth high school reunion; middle of the night obsessing about events from half a century ago. Gratitude. Fear. Wisdom. Patience and Love. "Nanci Woody’s poems, like the knots in our hands, tell the truth, even as individual poems provide the reader with a bouquet of blossoms.”— Bob Stanley, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Sacramento; past President, Sacramento PoetryCenter; author of Language Barrier “Nanci Woody captures what it means to remember, to forgive, and to keep loving across the decades.” — Geri Spieler, past President, Peninsula Branch, California Writers Club; author of Housewife Assassin- The Woman Who Tried to Kill President Ford Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, or your favorite independent bookstore.

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