I rolled out of bed this morning, clumsy as a cow. Usually, I hurt only where the pleurisy is, but now I ache all over, like someone has beaten me with a board.

            This is all Susie’s fault. After she told me how much money I could make at the flea market, I walked the floor all night and fell into a fitful sleep around four, only to awaken two hours later to shut off the alarm.

            Lucky sleeps in the bedroom across the hall, but I shake him awake every morning because alarms don’t faze him. Once he’s  awake, though, he’s awake completely, and the first words out of his mouth are, “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” 

I’ve never found a suitable reply.

            I haven’t awakened Lilyanne since her ninth- grade year because she’s already in the shower. She takes another when she gets home from school. My grandmother used to say that too many showers washed your strength away.      

Next, I go into the kitchen and fix Lucky’s breakfast. Lilyanne doesn’t eat what I cook and has a twig-and-bark cereal in the morning covered with skim milk. Once every two or three days, I see her eat a piece of toast. I don’t know if she eats at school, but it’s impossible to get her to eat anything at supper. She likes cheese, so I buy a round of sharp chedder and cube four squares every night.

            I don’t know why Susie’s words threw me into such a tizzy, except I knew she was telling the truth. Susie has been making money all her life –she started working at The Virginian Theater collecting tickets when she was sixteen; plus, Jim’s always encouraged her to pursue her natural abilities. I don’t envy Susie. My sister-in-law has been good to me to indulge in base feelings.  Besides, her brother was my choice. The wrong choice, but like my mother always said, “You made your bed, now lie in it.” But if I could have had one tenth of the freedom Nonna takes for granted, I wouldn’t keep hanging onto grudges, dreaming worn-out dreams, or subscribing to Contempo. I have always loved contemporary, the clean lines. Lucky insisted we take all of his mother’s furniture when she died, so I’m surrounded by dark wood and clutter. 

You’d think being out here at the end of Kill Creek, with a half-time husband, and a daughter who’s nearly grown, I wouldn’t have much to do, but the truth is, I’m  always in a rush. I imagine facing the Lord on Judgment Day, and His first words to me will be: Nonna Gaylene, where did you think you were going in such a hurry?

            This morning, I hurried fixing Lucky’s eggs. He likes them over easy so he can dip his toast, but I wasn’t thinking and let the first one fry too long. Then I flipped the second one over so fast that my elbow bumped my ribs, and I felt a jolt of pain that caused me to drop the spatula and grease spattered everywhere. Now, my morning is shot. I’ll be wiping and scrubbing. But all the while my body is on auto , my mind will be scheming a way to reconcile what I want to do, and what might happen if I do it.

            The pleurisy doesn’t worry me. I’ve had lung trouble all my life, and Dr. Veach has my records. He’s now in his eighties but tries to run the clinic the same as when he was young. He once closed the clinic for three months after his wife died, and during that time people in Harshbarger Mills were lost. Everyone around here called his wife Henri, that’s what she preferred. She sent flowers and cards to encourage his worst cases but if any of those people called her Mrs.Veach or Henrietta, they were corrected on the spot. Henri — she was just Henri, just as I am now Nonna and not Nonna Gaylene. Momma wouldn’t have liked that. She said the first time she said my name, she heard music. 

I bear down on a grease spot and feel a stab of pain. 

            After my examination, Dr. Veach told me I had a pocket of pleurisy, had probably had pneumonia, and still had a deep chest cold. I should have come to him before now, but still, he knew how the sickness started. 

“You do?” I felt as though I’d told a secret, but I wasn’t sure how.

“Yes, Miss Nonna, I do. You’ve been feeding Lucky’s hounds all winter, plus that monster dog he had shipped in from out of state and–”

            “It’s a Fila Brasileiro,” I interrupted. Pace wasn’t a monster.

            “Feel-uh whatever, you’ve been running outside in the mornings without a jacket. The result is that you have ended up with a deep cold and pleurisy, too.”

            I looked at my feet again.

            “Humph. I knew I was right. Lucky feeds them in the evenings, but that’s not enough, is it?” 

I agreed, though he was only half right.

“Okay.” He resettled his glasses, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll have Judy fix you up with antibiotics. Now,I have another question. When are you going to do something about that eye tooth?”

            “My missing tooth?”

            “I don’t see anything wrong with the other.”

            “I lost it crunching down on an ice cube.”

            A slow blush began at my navel and moved upwards. I knew I was on the straight path to hell for not telling the whole truth.  This is the truth: I didn’t lose my eye tooth crunching down on a piece of ice, though that might have led to it. My gums had been sore and bleeding for months. I bought a soft bristled toothbrush because I tend to brush my teeth the same way I scrub the floors and toilets. The bleeding stopped, but my eye tooth became wobbly. Sensitive to hot and cold, too. I did bite down on an ice cube but the tooth didn’t come out then; it fell out one morning while I was brushing my teeth, gentle as could be; it bounced off the enamel in the sink and lodged on the screen over the drain. I picked it out with a pair of tweezers and stared like a kid who expects a bad thing to mend itself. 

            “I didn’t asked how you lost it. I asked when you were going to do something about it. Whether you realize it or not, an exposed gum is not something to ignore. I’m not claiming to be a dentist, but a virus could set in which could travel to your brain.”  He sighed. “Good heavens, Nonna, you’re still in your thirties. Do you want false teeth in a few years?”

            “No, I don’t.”

            “Are you going to do something about it?”

            “Yes, I am.”

            “You’ll do this yourself?” Dr. Veach was nothing if not persistent. “Or do you want me to have Sharon ring up Dr. Curry?”

            “No, I’ll do it,” I replied and meant every word. I despise the sound of drills, but just being around Dr.Veach gave me courage. He is such a good and sensitive man. If my missing eye tooth were something I couldn’t do anything about, he never would have mentioned it.

            “Good, it’s settled. Now, I’m prescribing you an antibiotic, and I want to see you again in six weeks. I expect to see that tooth fixed.”

            I was happy he didn’t mention the dogs again, because I hadn’t been telling him the whole truth about that, either.

            I haven’t been feeding Lucky’s hounds. I hate them. I was, and still am, feeding Pace, the monster dog Lucky had shipped from Texas on a plane.

To be con’t. 

© Joan Heck Spilman, 2023.