Timothy Kimmel and his perfect bride Bethany bound up the rubbled sidewalk hand-in-hand to the old house they promised to make thirty years of payments on. Just married, he was happy and hopeful for once, even more so a few months later when their promise of everlasting love survived its first true test as the newly paired do-it-yourselfers gutted and remodeled the kitchen together without either of them muttering the word annulment under their breath. Finally, life would be good.
His past wasn't so much. Being the youngest of five boys meant quadruple bullying growing up, made even more prolific because Mom had to slave her life away on minimum wage because Dad drank himself to death on Christmas Eve when he was seven. “And what did Santa Claus bring you?” he liked to ask acerbically whenever conversations with acquaintances turned to childhood reminiscences.
Now old, arthritic, and as bitter as the off-brand coffee he drank black, Tim slumped at the kitchen table of the long-ago paid-off place choking down another lonely breakfast of painful memories regarding his short-lived tryst with happiness and hope: Beth’s long and agonizing war with brain cancer that she lost at thirty-nine left him to raise their two young daughters alone, but that, too, was short-lived because Janey was struck and killed walking home from school at ten by an car driven by an 83-year old with dementia who thought she was on her way to church, and her little sister Constance went out the same way her mom did when she was only three. “And how did gawd bless you?” He liked to ask acerbically whenever conversations with acquaintances turned to family reminiscences.
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He stirred his joe and his memory bank and sighed—this morning’s pathos was triggered by the spoon in his hand that took him back to that first remodeling job and how it had taken him an hour and a half to find one with the kitchen all torn up. Tim closed his tired eyes and smiled, lost in thought about their half-assed renovation project that didn’t end in divorce.
Opening them after a minute of reverence, he saw that he was no longer holding the spoon, but a caulking gun of glue, then he turned to see Beth stretched out on that hideous peel-and-stick linoleum floor, her sweet butt smoking like the cigarette she held between her red- nailed fingers. Her job was propping up a sheet of decorative wallboard against the plaster wall with her hot long legs until it dried.
“By the time your cig is done, it should be stuck enough, then we can get on with the next piece,” he told her, shocked to hear his voice young and strong and not the droning monotone it had become over time. Tim was no longer in his robe and slippers, but was wearing the duds he had on that day—his first pair of gray Nikes and jeans several sizes smaller because it was before Beth’s steady diet of hearty home-cooked meals once the room was finished. He forgot all about the t-shirt he now wore–it was one of his favorites way back when. He blinked in wonder, his wrinkled arms steamed smooth by his youthful thoughts.
“Gotcha, honey,” his perfect bride replied.
He sat erect for the first time in ages, soaking in the memory that seemed as real as now, appreciating her inside and out, desiring to consummate their marriage again right here on the spot like they did the first time after the wallboard dried.
His lust was tantalized by the waft of baking turkey that was suddenly snuffed out by the stench of burning meat. Now his memory turned to that Thanksgiving Day, their first, and watched Beth in panic standing at the stove in the freshly-painted room, her hands clutching hot pads and the fire extinguisher. Now Janey and Constance joined ‘round the hexagon table, laughing and enjoying their Mom’s turkey that was cooked perfectly on that last Thanksgiving dinner together fifty-one years ago. Now Janey grabbed her coat and Dad, both anxious to go outside to see if the constellation Orion the Hunter was up and stalking across the sky. Him and daughter were underneath the starry canopy staring up in wonder until the furnace kicked on, thrusting Tim forward, back to his depressing existence called the present.
He wiped away tears with the sleeve of his robe and shuffled to the coffee maker for a bitter refill, bummed to be back, when he was startled by a baby babbling “Dada”. Looking down to the floor the two had re-tiled but later carpeted over, it was Constance toddling into the kitchen excitedly, calling his name for the first time! Now he had to rub his eyes to make sure they weren't playing tricks on him because just a second ago he was holding a mug that had somehow morphed into two Father’s Day cards scribbled in crayon. He smiled as wide as the starry canopy and bear-hugged both girls, savoring their brief shining moment of love and togetherness. Now Beth popped in with a kiss and the chocolate cake decorated with a plastic skeleton, little cardboard tombstones, and writhing with gummy worms. It was his 40th birthday—the best of all of them. It was his last happy birthday before it all was all blown to smithereens.
The waterfalls rolling down his cadaverous cheeks doused him back to reality. “We had some great times, us four, the Kimmel Patrol,” he lamented, his old voice quivering, his eyes bawled shut, wishing with all his might to let these memories persist. When he opened and wiped them dry after a minute of reverence, he and his perfect bride Bethany were bounding up the rubbled sidewalk hand-in-hand to the old house they promised to make thirty years of payments on. Just married, he was happy and hopeful for once, even more so a few months later when their promise of everlasting love survived its first true test as the newly paired do-it-yourselfers gutted and remodeled the kitchen together without either of them muttering the word annulment under their breath. Finally, life would be good.
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