Crisis averted

The sound of rustling sheets drew her attention. She lifted the covers and caught the dog, snuggling deeper into her bed.


“What are you doing on my bed?” she said, her voice at least an octave higher than normal. It startled the dog enough he quickly slinked out of his warm nest and off the bed. Pulling the covers up with a tug she grumbled, “Why doesn’t anyone care about me?”

She had been greeted with a pile of dirty dishes in the sink that morning when she woke up. That, the ceiling fan circulating as if it were ready to take off, and dead flowers in the vase on the window sill completed the trifecta of joy she experienced. She flicked off the fan, loaded the last few dishes from her husband’s late night snack into the dishwasher and pushed the “on” button.

“Is it so hard to do that?” she queried him a few minutes later when he breezed through the kitchen on his way to work, conveniently by-passing the bag of trash she’d left by the door after she dumped the flowers. He didn’t stop to kiss her goodbye like he would’ve done twenty years ago, but unlocked the door, stepped back, and took a flying leap over the bags.

Her subtle reminder hadn’t worked. Neither had leaving the dishwasher door open with soap already in it the night before. Maybe, she thought, standing in the kitchen wringing her hands, Maybe this whole marriage thing isn’t going to work. Maybe I should just cut my losses and run. I should just pack my bags, call an attorney, and find an apartment that takes dogs.  

And then, she found the dog – her trusted companion – asleep in her bed.

“Damn it!” she said as she finished making the bed. She sat on the edge of the bed and began to cry. “Why doesn’t anyone care about ME?”

The kitchen door alarm chimed as her husband walked back inside. When she found him, he was filling up the vase with water and putting in a rose he’d picked from the bush out front.

“I saw this on my way out this morning; it was too pretty not to bring home. It reminded me of you.”

Crisis averted.

And then she died.

And then she died.


What was strange for me was that no one seemed to care. No one called to ask for her, to ask how she was doing. No one saw the obituary in the paper, or if they did, bothered to send flowers. No one signed the guest list online. No one showed up at the funeral home. No one sat in the pews at her service. No one, that is, but me.

How can someone live on this earth and be totally alone? Who is responsible for this mess? Isn’t there a giant list maker in the sky making sure we each have a friend, a spouse, or a relative? Don’t we deserve that, at least? Someone for each of us? How can a person live here – alone?

And yet, she did it.

I came to see her once a week, with my buckets and mops in hand. I’d run the vacuum over the wall-to-wall carpeting, making sure to get the corners, too. She hated it when I missed the corners. I’d wipe the crumbs off of the counter-tops in her tiny kitchen, making sure the food in the cupboards was being eaten while I was at it. At least she was getting out every day to the grocery store, and to the library. I knew she went to the library

“Mary, have you read the new book by Jonathan Franzen?” she asked me last week. “It’s hysterical!” she laughed, pleased with herself for making this rather odd joke. I knew, only because she told me, that Franzen wrote hysterical realism. I hadn’t read him for myself, yet.

“His picture is on the cover of the Times, too. Did you see that?” I hadn’t, of course. Don’t have much time to read books or magazines these days. Always too busy with work, and the kids, and church activities.

“Who has time to read?” I asked her, but she just smiled. She did. She had all of the time in the world.