Category: romance

George called Martha on the telephone.

“What is it, George?” she said. Martha was at work. She worked for a nonprofit in the city helping families who once had lost their homes to find stable housing. The federal government and the state government and the city governments all contributed money to help the company get the families settled into a new place to live. They were relieved. They had been living in shelters for a while.

“Are you busy, Martha?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Yes, I am,” she told him.

George knew that Martha was busy at work most days and he hesitated to call her. But sometimes he did anyway. Always with a good reason, though sometimes he just really wanted to hear her voice. To feel her closer to him.

George was a writer and worked at home. Sometimes that was lonely and sometimes writing alone in the quiet house was glorious.

Some evenings, Martha came to George’s house so that they could have time together. They got along well. Though they had differences in opinion about some things, neither could recall having an argument with each other. Differences in opinion, like differences in experiences were good, they agreed.

“Would you like to come over later? After work?” he asked.

When Martha got to George’s house, she found that he had made dinner for them.

“Oh, thank you, George, black beans and rice and corn bread is one of my favorite dinners.

George knew that.

George had bought a storage cabinet to hold brooms and his vacuum cleaner and other things he used to clean the house. He had carried the heavy package into the basement where he planned to put it together. It came neatly packed in a cardboard box with assembly instructions and a small few tools needed to put the pieces together.

The instructions had no words, just line drawings of the parts with arrows for how they should fit together. As and Bs and Cs, and so on for each letter for a different type of part, and numbers, 1s, 2s, 3s and so on, with lists of how many of each piece was needed. All of the parts of the cabinet were marked with a letter and a number

After dinner, when they went into the basement, Martha said, “George, we need to count all of the pieces so that we don’t get started and find that something we need is missing.”

“Why can’t we just get stared and follow the pictures and see how it goes?” Martha knew that George was both very trusting and also liked to just jump into a project without spending time doing all the planning and preparation that might make the job easier.

Before they started to read through the direction diagrams and start to assemble any of the pieces, Martha said, “George, could you do me favor?”

“Certainly, he said.

“Could you get me drink?” she said.

“A drink, Martha?” he said

“Yes.”

“What would you like to drink?” he asked. Martha rarely, if ever, had asked him for a drink.

“A nice tall glass of water,” she replied.

“Of course, Martha.”

And while George was getting her the tall glass of water upstairs in the kitchen, she began to lay out all of the pieces on the tiled floor in the basement and count all of the screws and bolts and nuts and washers and some odd shaped pieces that she had never seen before but knew were needed to hold parts together.

When she heard George open the door to the basement she said, “George, be careful coming down,” because she knew he would have poured a glass of water for himself as well, and could you please add ice to the water for me?”

And when Martha heard his footsteps down the stairs, she called to him. “Oh George, and could you add a slice of lemon to mine if you have one?”

George turned back up again, and she heard him open the refrigerator to look for a lemon.

“And maybe a chocolate chip cookie?”

When George finally arrived with the two glasses on a tray with a small plate of cookies and two napkins, Martha had had enough time to count all of the pieces and set them aside in neat clusters, separating the screws and nuts and washers, etc., by size and numbers and the large labeled parts leaning against the wall.

Thank you for the water she said. And he thanked her for organizing all of the different parts and they began to follow the lettered and numbered diagrams. Martha called out the parts they needed and screws that went with them and George found them and they worked together, one holding the pieces together the way they were to fit and the other one inserting and securing the fasteners.

When George dropped one of the thirty-three small sheet metal screws and the washer that went with it. “I am so clumsy,” he said.

Martha picked up the screw and washer and handed it to George.

“George,” she said, you’re not clumsy. “When we get older, we have to slow down and concentrate on what you are doing. It is harder now than when we were young.

Oh, Martha, you think I am old?

“No, George, but you are getting older, aren’t you? I am too. There’s nothing we can do about that, is there?”

“No. But I don’t like not being able to do things I used to do so easily. It makes me worry and feel bad.”

“Oh, George, I understand. I sometimes feel the same way. That’s why we help each other. You cooked dinner and I came to help you put the cabinet together. I can put the little screws and washers together and get them started in the openings and you get them tightened more securely than I can.’

They worked steadily together. There were eight pages of picture diagrams they were following.

“We simply have to adjust, don’t we?” she said. “We can’t keep looking backward at how we were or how things were, now, can we. We are who we are in the present. In the now. If we keep looking backwards, we will surely bump into something we’d rather not do.”

“Martha? Can we stop for the night? I think I’m getting tired. But, maybe you might want to stay awhile? I could make us some tea and we could watch the news.”

“No, George, I’m sorry, she said. “I have an early day tomorrow and I think you be better off having a cup of tea and reading before bed. The news can be so… so…

“… Depressing,” he said.

“Yes, I guess so, but George, do you remember how we would watch the news some nights? What good did that do us, besides getting you all riled up?”

“I do,” said George. “I will get your coat.”

With her coat on, Martha walked to the door. George followed along beside her.

At the door they wished one another a good night and, as she went out, Martha turned to George and said, “Don’t forget to take your pills before you fall asleep, George.”