Routine
Wendy Marcus
The florist settles roses into the storefront display. The waitress wipes down a table at which the threesome will sit. The old man eases out of bed to avoid waking his wife. The cemetery groundskeeper notes the position of the rising sun. The funeral home director leans over his fence, remarking to his neighbor and fellow congregant, “Albert takes them out there every Sunday morning.”
The florist sets colored ribbons on the counter. The little boy always chooses green. The little girl, with a regal point of her finger, will pick magenta. A South American princess, that one. The waitress pulls a pocket-sized Spanish-English dictionary from her apron. Chiquilines, kiddies, she practices. “Rosie,” the old man whispers, brushing dark hair off the little girl’s sweaty forehead. “Let’s get French toast.” The sunny weather will ensure many visitors, thinks Luis, the cemetery groundskeeper. “They remodeled their house,” the funeral home director tells his neighbor. “Made it airy, painted it white, got special little beds for the kids. It feels so full of life.”
The florist tries to remember the siblings’ country of origin. Guatemala? Peru? The old man, Albert, has told her several times. The waitress makes small talk with a red-eyed, yeast-smelling quartet coming off their shift from the nearby bakery. Albert helps Rosie out of bed before cooing, “Sammeeeee.” Sam stops outlining the wallpaper trains with his finger. “Nan’s day,” he sings softly. Albert is mad about this boy. “Yes, let’s get you dressed.”
From the caretaker’s house he shares with his wife, Milagros, Luis sees the odd trio drive into the children’s section of Hills of Eternity. So far, he has been unsuccessful in accidentally-on-purpose engaging them. He strolls towards their parked car. His gray tabby comes bounding out of nowhere, a dead humming bird in its mouth. Yesterday it was a mouse, the day before a baby hare. The tabby vamps over to Rosie, then tears away, the girl in pursuit. The old man straightens up, concerned. Luis jogs a few rows over to squat where the girl hunkers over, stroking.
“This is my kitty, Secreto. Hablas espagnol?”
“No!” Rosie vigorously scratches the feline.
“I see you every week. Who is this girl you come to visit?”
Rosie shrinks from Luis and runs back to the old man. The tabby scampers in the opposite direction, flicking his tail. Something else to stalk.
After the children and old man leave, Luis walks down to the rose-strewn stone for another look. Nan Goodman, 1992-2004, beloved daughter of Phyllis and Albert Goodman.
Maxine, the florist, still wishes she could take back her question. Albert’s answer so pained her she wanted to shrivel up and hide in the deepest folds of the roses she was holding. The waitress, Denise, feels a sticky spot on her apron front. Darn kids got syrup everywhere and the old man just sat there smiling. The funeral home director, Stuart, remembers to tell his neighbor, Ross, what he had forgotten to say earlier. “The worst was at their house after the funeral, all the photos of Nan and her friends, notices for upcoming school events on the fridge.”
Back home, Albert opens the station wagon’s door. Unbuckled, Sam and Rosie dash to the swings. Albert silently greets the framed entryway photo of Nan, a massive lei of maroon flowers bubbling around her neck. Her hair is sprayed orange by a Hawaiian sunset. Some of her ashes were dropped into the turquoise water at Waimanalo, her favorite beach. Nan’s voice had nuzzled his ear that somber day. “Dad, I’m okay. Don’t be sad any more. Sam and Rosie are coming.” The shivery palm branches had not made up such words. The curling wavelets shrugged off any knowledge. The exquisite sweep of sand was empty save for Albert and Phyllis, to whom he’d made a hesitant suggestion.
A year later, the adoption agency contacted them about siblings from Quito, Ecuador. He and Phyllis could not stop sobbing at the airport. Such little things, Phyllis had moaned. Hola Samuel, Hola Rosalie.
On Wednesday, Maxine places rose orders. Denise sleeps in on her day off. Secreto vanishes, scared off by lumbering cemetery lawnmowers. Albert opens mail after work, saving for last an envelope from Northwest Hospital. Bills, still? No, a flyer announcing a meeting for parents of adolescents: The Hush of Suicide. Albert fumes at having been left on some intrusive roster and makes a mental note to call the hospital. He recycles the flyer before Phyllis and the kids get home.
Thursday Luis clears the limp roses off Nan’s grave. “How do you think that girl died?” he asks Milagros at the dinner table.
“So young? Probably cancer.”
“Maybe she only needed twelve years to accomplish her purpose.”
“Ay, leave be these dead souls. It’s enough to live your own life, let alone someone else’s.”
Startling them, the tabby jumps against the kitchen window, gold eyes reproachful. His teeth hold something small and furry. Milagros rises to let the cat in. “Claro. Always shows up the minute we sit down.”
Maxine, having indulged in an evening joint, imagines ridding the world’s well-to-do, white children of melancholia with lollipop-flavored roses. Denise hangs up her freshly ironed uniform. Stuart gets a late-night call to pick up a body. Rhythmic breathing comes from Sam and Rosie’s bedrooms. Albert reaches for a worn journal on his bed stand. The grief counselor had told him to write down whatever was on his mind, no self-censorship. He reads an old entry: “Even the safest routine can be shaken by an act so devastating as to alter everything to come.” Sam surprised him today by choosing orange ribbon. Rosie opted for pancakes instead of French toast. And why had the cemetery worker shown up and spoken to her? Small changes to be sure, but enough to give Albert pause. He flicks off the reading light and entreats the darkness: let the changes be imperceptible, no cataclysmic shifts. Let tomorrow be as the day before.
Author’s Note
Wendy Marcus’ debut short story collection, Polyglot: Stories of the West’s wet edge, won the 2009 Serena McDonald Kennedy Award from Georgia’s Snake Nation Press. A former reporter with the Seattle Times and Vancouver Columbian, Marcus co-founded, with Rabbi James Mirel, the Northwest’s pioneering Klezmer band, the beloved Mazeltones, in 1983. Marcus has performed and taught for the past 25 years at Temple Beth Am in Seattle’s North End, where she serves as music director and editor of Drash: Northwest Mosaic, a literary journal.
