Bud was a thoughtful person. He was aware that he was dying. The doctors told him that he should take the opportunity to settle his affairs before his cancer progressed to the point that he could not. He did many things to this end. One of them was to stand in his walk-in closet with a brown leather pouch he normally used to deposit cash from his car detailing business. He waited with his hand over the full pouch and stared at his clothing. He knew it would be sent to charity when he died and wanted most of the clothing to go before he did. His hands were dry when he went into the closet to look at his clothes. He didn't notice as they began to leave imprints on the pouch from sweat and couldn't decide what to do next.
The idea came to him quietly, like cancer did. He followed it as if he had no choice. He tucked five dollar and ten dollar and even hundred dollar bills into the pockets of his blue jeans and shirts and after an hour or so he had finished. He was very tired. He laid down on his bed that his wife had made up for him every day since they were married forty three years before and he settled into sleep. His heart failed him and he died.
Weeks later, his wife Lorna gathered his clothing and folded each piece into plastic bins. She gathered the bins into the garage and stacked them and they looked to her for a moment like the Tetris blocks from the video gadget her son used to carry around with him over twenty, maybe even thirty years ago. She shut out the light to the garage and went to sleep.
That night, Lorna slept on her husband's side of the bed. Her house was still and quiet. She wished she could have one more chance to tell him that she loved him. She wished that she could tell him to roll over and stop snoring. She thought of the dozens of meals she prepared for him over the years that may have contributed to his developing cancer but that he loved. She felt she would never eat steak or ribs or barbequed chicken with potatoes covered in butter and cheese ever again. Rather than keep her awake, these thoughts lulled her to sleep.
In the morning, she took the baby seats out of the minivan she drove when she babysat her grandchildren. She folded down the seats and packed the minivan full of the plastic boxes. She took the boxes to the local United Way. Driving from the facility, she stopped and watched the workers gather her husband's belongings and sort them. She felt like she was waving from the shore as an ocean liner departed for an unknown destination. Her hands left prints of perspiration on the steering wheel so she turned up the air conditioner and drove off.
When she arrived home, she saw the mail carriers little truck up the street. She walked to her mailbox and it felt to her like the walk was longer than it had been before or that she hadn't thought about how long the walk was to the mailbox once in all of the years she lived in her home with Bud until that moment. She tried to think of how many times she may have gone to the mailbox before and how it was never an activity that caused her to reflect on it in any way but how it now was one of the many generic activities in her life that felt odd and slightly more difficult. The box was full of the usual fliers and bills and announcements. She went inside and opened them at her kitchen table. One piece of mail was in a Hallmark envelope.
"Another sympathy card," she told herself and walked away from the table and to her bedroom where she laid down and took a nap on her side of the bed.
At the United Way, Casey Perkins, a young girl of maybe seventeen stared at Bud's clothes. They were separated from the bins that they arrived in and the bins were stacked on the floor beside them with the lids stacked next to those. It was Casey's first day working for the United Way. Her training hadn't officially begun. Her boss, Ella, a woman of considerable age in Casey's eyes told her to go through the pockets and then fold all of the clothes into stacks on the green laminate table to her left. Casey put her hand into the first pocket and found a five dollar bill. She smiled. She looked up and saw that nobody was watching her. She put the bill into the side pocket of her denim skirt.
Bud stirred. He was dead, he knew that. He tried to make a sound but could not. He tried to look at his hands but they were not there. Still, he was able to see the girl in her denim skirt and the smile on her face. He watched.
Casey left work that day with $872.00 from the clothing that Bud owned when he was alive. Her pockets were fat. She was in a very good mood.
Lorna woke from her nap with a feeling that Bud was there. She walked to the closet and saw that his side was empty. She wondered why the closet never seemed large to her before or why she never told him that she loved their house and that she was grateful that he worked so hard to give them everything they needed. She thought of the many times she told him that they wouldn't have their house if not for the money she earned before they married and that she saved for the down payment and he didn't and so it was every bit as much hers as his. She thought of how he always turned his head like a puppy when she talked this way and how he seemed to laugh off her indignant refusal to think of him as the financial provider of the family.
"I am here. Look at the nightstand," Bud thought. He didn't hear a sound. He remembered that he left a letter for her on the nightstand next to the last novel that Lorna was reading before he passed. Lorna didn't see. He couldn't reach her and she didn't see that he was there.
Early the next morning, Casey walked to church. She knelt in the pew before the statue of the Blessed Virgin. She lit a candle. She folded one of Bud's dollars into the bronze collection box. She thought that in years past, perhaps nuns used to shine the metal in the church. There were no nuns left in her parish. She felt like one was kneeling beside her.
Sister Frances Mary, who was born Katherine Gallagher felt herself present before Casey. She laid her nonexistent hands on Casey's.
Casey began to pray and asked God if the money was for the abortion she had considered or if it was to keep the baby no one but her yet knew was with her. She asked God to help guide her. She asked for peace and comfort in making her decision.
Bud stirred and saw Casey. He knelt beside her and if he could have cried, he would have had tears on his cheek. He remembered tears. He saw Casey's tears and remembered verses from his Catholic upbringing that told him God saved every one of our tears. He tried to communicate this to Casey.
Casey walked out of the church feeling less pleased than she did when she was at work. The money she took from the pockets of the clothing might not have been intended for her. She might have been more honest about finding it the way she did. She couldn't decide whether she should tell her boss about it now or stay quiet. Her legs felt heavy and every thought hurt her head except thoughts of going home to rest and to make her decision later.
Lorna woke that morning from a dream that there was a child who needed her and whom she had agreed to care for but didn't. She dreamt that she was walking in a field and there were fireflies all around and she was young and her hair was blonde again and long. She could feel it on her shoulders. The baby was in a tent nearby and waiting for her. She was listening to music near a band shell like the one called Petrillo Band Shell that her father used to bring her to when they had family picnics before she knew Bud and before she was old enough to stop enjoying family picnics in the park. The baby was there and she could see her. She had beautiful dark eyes and dark hair. Her babies were much lighter. In the dream, she knew this. When she returned to the tent, the baby had passed but was able to put the thought in her head that everything was okay. It wasn't her time. She was not in pain. She was at peace.
Lorna remembered that she hadn't taken her anti-depressant that day. She walked to the bathroom feeling each footstep was heavy and looked at the plastic container with each day of the week's pills separated into little boxes. She took her medication with a sip of water she collected in her hand under the bathroom sink. She knew that if she didn't eat food with her medication that it would not dissolve in her stomach and she would see it floating in the toilet later. She didn't have the energy to cook.
She went to the garage and saw both vehicles. She decided to drive Bud's car to the corner diner and order some eggs. Nothing seemed appetizing to her. The bouncy waitress and the modern music and plastic chairs almost annoyed her. She felt her stomach contents churn.
Casey walked past the diner on her way from church to her home. Lorna saw her and Bud tried to tell her that Casey needed her, but Lorna couldn't hear. Lorna ate her eggs in silence. For the first time in many years, she considered going to mass and lighting a candle.
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