Lydia is on a mission, searching the dresser for her lost wedding ring. The contents of the first three drawers lie in a giant heap about her on the floor. Pantyhose and slips and nighties, T-shirts and sweatpants, a flashlight, an assortment of earrings and earring backs, cheap necklaces, half of them broken, a lint remover covered in lint, a set of keys to who knows what, several pencils with broken points. Her bras, Norman’s shorts. Various other bits and pieces of a life. Why on earth does Norman have to keep so many socks and underwear, and why in such a jumble? Lydia’s hip complains and her back aches, hunkered down like this, but she’s in a frenzy now, tearing at the underclothes, burrowing through the contents of the last drawer as though excavating a tunnel into the earth.
She’s about to give up when her fingers catch an edge. Something is caught in the drawer’s far corner, a tiny foil envelope which she retrieves with difficulty. Its slippery texture, its size, are familiar but she can’t say why, or what. Those raspberry candies she loved as a girl, maybe, hundreds of them individually wrapped in the bulk bin. One of those would be good right now. She can feel her mouth watering. She pulls at the partly open corner, squints as its contents drop to the floor. In the low light, she feels about on the flower-patterned rug until her fingers brush against something; it feels like a dried-up insect skin or beetle carcass or maybe an old scab. She recoils with a shiver, pulls her hand away, searches unsuccessfully for her glasses in the pocket of her bathrobe, in the items strewn about her, then reaches again, gingerly, bravely.
What is it, she wonders, holding the crispy wrinkled thing at arm’s length, squinting against the window’s glare. When she places it in her palm, its disintegrated insides all but fall away. She blows at the dust in her hand. Now she can see it. It’s—a ring. It’s her lost wedding ring. She is exultant. Norman, I’ve found it! Honey, don’t worry, I found my ring!
She turns to rest her elbows against the edge of the low chair beside her, uses them as leverage to push herself to standing, grunts with the exertion. She does what might pass for a little jig around the bedroom until her floppy pink slippers and her wheezing lungs trip her up, sending her back to the chair. Catching her breath, she slips the frayed brown-gold circumference onto the ring finger of her left hand, pushing it easily over swollen, arthritic knuckles. Gently she twirls the ring round and round, its rough edges catching on the loose skin of her finger. It doesn’t fit at all as she expected it to. It’s too large; it feels all wrong.
Suddenly she sees it for what it really is. Oh, for god’s sake, it’s a shrivelled old condom! What a stupid biddy you are, she says to herself. Where’s Norman? Probably still in his workshop. Thank goodness he hasn’t seen her mistake. Angry with herself, she throws the thing. It lands on the bed, falls into a crease in a pillow.
Things have been moved around and missing ever since Richard came by last week to check on her. Everything is topsy-turvy.
Norman is so smart, so capable, always busy with some project or another. When he isn’t working, he’s tinkering away, repairing a household item or inventing some new gadget for them to try out, like an electric potato peeler or a miniature spout that lets you drain the water from a tin of tuna before opening it. He’s tall and strong; he can lift her off her feet if he wants to, just for the fun of twirling her around him, but his fingers are slender and sensitive for such a large man, and able to do precise and delicate work.
Rising slowly from the chair and tightening her robe around her, Lydia catches a brief glimpse of her face in the dresser’s dull, mottled mirror. It’s a good face, a face that launched a thousand ships. Is that right? No, that isn’t her. Don’t be ridiculous. Who is it, then? Someone beautiful. Ah, yes, Helen of Troy, that’s who. Or Cleopatra. Lydia knows she herself has always been a looker. Didn’t what’s his name, their neighbour, tell her so often enough? Those very words—you’re a looker, he’d say. In front of everyone, his wife. Lydia thrives on the attention generated by her fine features and voluptuous figure. You’re a beautiful woman, Norman tells her. She smiles at him through the mirror and backs closer to where he stands watching her. Love me forever? she asks him. Of course, he replies. His voice arouses desire in her; she wants to slip her arms around him. She leans backwards into him and loses her balance, falls against the wall. Shoulder throbbing, she turns to face him, to where she thought she saw him standing. Her throat catches with sorrow; emptiness fills her body.
The phone rings, six times before she finds it, right there in the pocket of her robe. Hello? Hello? Who is it? Who? Oh, yes, Richard. Of course I recognize your voice. I’m fine. Yes, I’ve been taking care of myself. Yes, I’ve been turning out the lights. Whose business is it, anyway? I’m not about to let myself starve to death. I’m fine.
As she hangs up she hears him say, “Talk to you later, Mom.” Mom? He called her Mom. Oh, it was that Richard. Her son Richard. She can see him now, as though he’s right there in front of her. A little blond-haired boy of three or four, a toddler still, cute as can be. Their only child. Always getting into trouble, the little monkey, but a sweetheart. Little button of a nose. Honey, she says to Norman’s face in the flowered wallpaper. Honey, Richard called. Then she panics. What is Richard doing, calling her? Where is he? Didn’t she just tuck him into bed? Still holding the phone, she clutches at her robe, turning blindly around from where she is standing. Norman! Norman! She spots the clothes strewn about the bedroom, certain her little boy is in the midst of them. Her mood shifts; now she’s angry. What does Richard think he’s doing, throwing clothes and underwear around like that? Young man, she scolds him. This is very naughty of you, getting into Mommy’s and Daddy’s things and making a mess. You clean this up right now, do you understand? When I come back into this room I want it shipshape. With that, she heads to the kitchen, annoyance fuelling her step.
She’s had enough of this growing old, dammit. If she has to look at herself in the mirror one more time, she’ll poke her eyes out.
She places the phone in its charger, remembers her lost ring and bends to check for it beneath the oversized desk that serves as her home office. This is where she pays bills and answers email and does their yearly taxes. But now her laptop sits on it, unused. She can’t remember her password, can’t get the annoying thing to work. The way it’s tucked into the corner, the desk forms an inviting space—safe underneath, like a hideout. With effort she bends and crawls halfway in, the desktop a low roof above her. It’s nice in here. She likes it. Crawling out again, she slips her bathrobe off and drapes it over the open side to make a tent. Grunting, she manoeuvres back underneath.
It’s just like Girl Guide camp, like the summer she and her best friend, Samantha, spent an unwashed week swimming and hiking and learning to make fires. Samantha is here now, waiting for her, red pigtails sticking straight out from her head, a grin on her freckled face. The two girls lie on their backs in their secret hideaway, whispering and giggling. Lydia watches the stars until her eyelids become the night and she drifts off to sleep, her back pressing into the hard ground. When she wakes, she feels sore all over. The varicose veins in her legs ache as though someone is landing slow punches on them. Sam, quit it, she tells her friend. That hurts, smarten up. Quit it! I’m not playing anymore.
The pain continues and Lydia pushes her way up to sitting, knocking her head against the bottom of the desk. She swears loudly, moves onto her hands and knees and makes her way awkwardly past the draped robe out into the light of the kitchen. With the help of the desk she hoists herself to standing. The low-slanting sun is bright even through the dirty window; she blinks several times, reorienting herself. Naked, she shivers with cold. Where is her bathrobe? Finger to her mouth, she turns round and round on the worn linoleum, her forehead creasing with frustration. She put it on when she woke up this morning, didn’t she? What is happening to her memory? Ah, there it is, right there on the desk. What’s it doing there? Things have been moved around and missing ever since Richard came by last week to check on her. She hasn’t been able to find her pearls, or her small diamond earrings, or her wedding ring. Everything is topsy-turvy.
She goes back to the bedroom. Norman is there now, she’s sure of it. Lydia puts her hand through the gap between the buttons of his shirt. Her fingers stroke his belly and chest, dark hairs twisting softly around her fingertips. She nestles into him, can almost feel the warmth of his hands on the small of her back. She flushes, heat rising in her body. I like that, she says, softly. Don’t stop. She thinks of the striptease she performed for him, slowly taking off her sweater and then her blouse, her skirt and her pantyhose, until she was down to only her bra and panties. You like it, don’t you honey, she’d said, a bit shyly. He’d grinned and reached for her, finishing the rest himself.
Why won’t you hold me? she asks Norman now. She catches herself and shakes her head. For heaven’s sake, here she is, thinking about sex. Funny, when you were getting it, it could be all-consuming, but when you weren’t—well, she could hardly remember what it was like.
She indulged in a pedicure, a rare treat, several months after Norman died. When her feet turned soft and pliable from soaking in the hot footbath, the middle-aged esthetician scraped the calluses from her heels and pushed back the cuticles on her toenails. Then she massaged Lydia’s feet and calves. The woman’s hands were warm and strong, and she seemed so comfortable using them on a stranger. Lydia found herself weeping with the unexpected pleasure of it, the loss and yearning the contact awakened in her.
Now the mirror’s reflection reveals her standing alone. Norman? Fine, then. Lydia heads again for the kitchen, the ache in her loins pleasurable and frustrating. Her arousal has made her hungry. The fridge is empty but for a half-full carton of milk and a shrivelled head of cabbage. Slamming the door shut, she reaches for the cupboard instead, pulls out a jar of peanut butter and another of honey. At the counter she dips a finger into the peanut butter and licks it off. Mmmm, that’s nice, she says in a low voice. She dips her finger again and licks the tip of it slowly, gently. It tickles a little bit, feels good. She nibbles at it, scratching the tip ever so lightly with her teeth. Another dip into the jar, another languorous lick, this time sucking her finger to the first joint, pulling at it gently, her lips closing around it. Again. Now into the wide-mouthed honey jar—two fingers, three, all of them in her mouth at once, her fingers alive and throbbing, her tongue eager and strong. Hungry, lascivious, so many fingers, the taste delicious and sweet, the warm fullness of her mouth causing her to pant, a moan escaping her parted lips. She can no longer stand up and so she sinks into the chair beside the table. Enough; she is satisfied. She belches, she giggles. Pardon me, she says to the face in the wallpaper. She hasn’t felt this good since she can’t remember when.
The doorbell rings, startling her. No one ever comes to the door; no one visits her tiny apartment. Not that she can think of. She pulls her bathrobe into place and makes her way across the kitchen to the entry, a distance that feels, what with her gassy stomach, bad back and resentful hip, like plenty far enough, like too far. When she finally makes it to the door, stumbling twice and swearing, no one is there. I don’t want any, she hollers down the empty hallway.
She hopes Norman will come home soon. Summer evenings they walk together before bed, holding hands in comfortable silence, or talking about the day behind and plans for the next. She can see his profile from the corner of her eye. His nose is straight, his chin hidden by a short beard. She loves the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles or even when he frowns, which happens only rarely, when he is intent on a project and she irritates him with her interruptions.
Oh, she’s tired. She could fall asleep right here, one hand resting on the handle of the half-open door, her body leaning against the frame. She closes the door and considers making the couch her bed. No, that won’t do. She needs to brush her teeth. They are her pride and joy, straight, still all her own. In the harsh light of the bathroom she forces herself to pull out toothpaste and toothbrush. As she bends to spit, her bathrobe falls from her shoulders, cream-coloured fabric catching on her elbows and ample behind. Raising her head to the mirror, she sees her naked body reflected back at her. She can’t tell where the fabric ends and her skin begins. Dear god in heaven, who is that looking back at her? What is that? Thank god Norman isn’t here to see her. What does he, still so fit and handsome, see in her anyway?
She’s had enough of this growing old, dammit. If she has to look at herself in the mirror one more time, she’ll poke her eyes out with her knitting needles. That is, if she can remember where she put them. What would it be like, she wonders, to live in a world without mirrors, a cavewoman world, she supposes, where what you look like never even occurs to you?
Her hands are sticky from her feast; she runs them under the water, uses her special bar of lavender soap to take the honey from between her fingers. She barely recognizes her hands, all spotted and wrinkled. They look so bare. Where is her wedding ring? Oh, god, where is it? She panics, searches the countertop, knocking toothpaste and lotions to the floor. Where has she left it? She steps into the darkened bedroom, her heart beating furiously, close to tears. How can she have lost her ring? Norman, I can’t find it, she tells him. I’m sorry, honey, I’m sorry.
She lies down on the bed and pulls the rumpled comforter over herself. Sorrow pulls at her, wraps her in its arms. She floats on a vast wave of emptiness, uncertain what it is, exactly, that she has lost. Face buried in the pillow, she feels a touch against her cheek. A ring.
She holds its rough edges to her lips. She remembers. She forgets.
Rancher/therapist-turned-writer Patti Lott lives in the Alberta foothills. Her poetry is forthcoming in Prairie Fire and CV2.
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