4/18/11

Swing Back
By Gayle Francis Moffet



The porch swing squeaked, and she thought of Harold. Every fall, the morning after the first frost, he'd gone outside, opened the paint-spattered stepladder, and wrapped burlap sacks around the chains of the swing like Emilie covered the rosebushes in the yard.


"First of spring," he would always say, "and I'll oil up the chains, Thornbush."

"Thornbush," she murmured to herself. She smiled and felt the hollow place in her heart. Ten years a widow, and the memories were almost a pleasant ache through her body, until they reached her heart.


Harold. She missed him like no one else who had passed. 92 and still breathing, she thought. She pushed aside the list of people who had died before her and pressed her toes to the porch again. The swing squeaked.


He'd call her "Thornbush" like other people said "sweetheart." Soft. Warm. A smile at the edges of his mouth. It had irked her at first, early in their relationship, but the smile had worn her down, warmed her up. "It's a compliment," he had promised. "Roses are just the decoration for a good thorn bush."

The swing squeaked.

He'd died of nothing in particular. Emilie had woken up in the middle of the night, gotten a drink of water. When she went back to bed, she had touched his hand on top of the cover. It had been cool, and she had teased him, thinking he was sleeping, reminding him how he always complained of stiff fingers if his hands weren't properly covered in the night. She had turned away from him, never a cuddler, and fallen back to sleep. Early that morning, as she nudged him awake at a quarter to seven, his shoulder had been cold. She'd pressed her hand to it, not understanding that it wasn't the chill of the room, wasn't the chill of some sudden, overnight fever he'd broken in his sleep.



"Old age," the doctor had told her.



"He was 86." She had turned away before he could explain average life spans, genetics, and the simple truth that age sometimes won.



A year later, coming out—finally—from the shock of his death, she had found the coroner's record in the box of papers from the funeral home:



Harold Monahan
86
Death approximately midnight.


He'd been dead when she'd touched his hand, then. Gone for at least an hour. Her husband for fifty years, and she didn’t know his body temperature from death.


The swing squeaked.


Two boys walked down the street. Teenagers in jeans and T-shirts. Emilie heard them curse with the forced casualness of teenagers trying to sound tough. She whistled at them and waved. They waved in return. Those boys were barely out of diapers when Harold was alive. They had wandered over one day, torn at the rosebushes. Emilie had tried to scold them, but Harold had laughed. Two little boys dusted in rose petals. "Get the camera, Thornbush. I'm going to keep them still. Their mothers will love it."



She'd wanted to argue punishment for destruction of private property, the importance of instilling right and wrong. But Harold had already gotten on his arthritic knees, already explained to the boys that they had to sit still because the picture was very important. She had never been able to give him children. She gave him the camera to take the pictures.



The swing squeaked.


"Hi, Mrs. Monahan," one of the boys greeted her. It took her a moment to recall his name, meandering in her head as she was.



"Leon," she replied, and he grimaced. It was a hated, old-fashioned name to him, courtesy of the early passing of his maternal grandfather, but he wouldn't correct her to his middle name. Rosebush vandalism aside, he was a very polite young man.



"Your swing's squeaking, Mrs. Monahan," he said. "I could oil it for you."



She considered the offer, wondered if he was sent over by his mother to make sure she was still alive. It was a gesture of sweetness and neighborly concern no matter the circumstances, and Emilie smiled.



"Thank you," she said, "there's a stepladder in the hall closet."


- - -
Gayle Francis Moffet writes essays, short stories, plays, novels, and poetry. She is currently writing her second novel, which she thinks was supposed to be her first novel. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, Sean and is still getting used to the weather.