The Return

After working in civil aviation engineering for so long, Sam Kenney wondered how he would adapt to having his feet on the ground and no particular place to go. Maybe that's when it started, the drifting apart, the discovery that he and Roxie actually had very little to talk about because there was suddenly so much space to be filled due to his continual presence. Except when it came to their son, grown now and living far afield. Mention of his name always sparked warm reminiscences and laughter. Like the time ten-year-old Mark — due to his dissatisfaction with some forgotten parental pronouncement — announced that he intended to walk to Canada, where he would be able to do whatever he wanted. Considering that they already lived in Maine, Sam had thought that his willful son's aim was doable. But Mark tuckered out within the first mile and, in the end, wandered home, and all was well.

But now? Well, Sam was very much alone. As he rummaged among his hand tools — good, American-built, Stanley tools; they had been his father's (or were they his grandfather’s?) — he realized that he had forgotten what he was looking for. Maybe nothing. But maybe the metallic rattling and clanking would jar him into remembering what it was. That was the problem with retirement. It didn't tax the mind, didn't give one anything to push against, didn’t make any demands on one’s time, so there was no momentum. Roxie had been gone for five years already. At first, she called weekly — Sam assumed it was to hedge her bets against regret — but he hadn't heard a word from her in the past two years. The thing was, it really didn't bother him. He felt no animosity toward her, didn't blame her for anything. He could honestly say that he wished her well, wherever she was.

And so, the days passed. Eventually, Sam did establish some semblance of routine. He put in a garden — well, tomatoes and peppers, at least, although he always forgot to water them — and decided he could paint the eaves on the porch roof because that wouldn't involve the risk of too high a climb on the ladder. He learned that there were maintenance issues on the car that he could manage without having to pay a mechanic. He discovered the joys of puttering: the squeaky hinge, the leaky faucet, the loose flagpole bracket over the front door. But he resisted any temptation to become obsessive about the lawn: he mowed whatever grew there, weeds and all. He had thought about getting a rider mower, but when he saw his neighbors mounted on such contraptions, hours on end, he decided that it was less a pleasure than a sickness. He stuck with his Tecumseh push mower.

In time, he grew accustomed to life as a single. He got up when he liked, ate modest meals which satisfied him, and went where he wanted to go when he wanted to go there. (My God, was he living Mark's juvenile dream?) Lonely? Not really. Television, which he had long been indifferent to, now provided a welcome, if surreal, comfort, something to look forward to in the evening. It wasn't so bad. He liked to watch Jeopardy, and he rejoiced when he beat a contestant to the punch. (This state capital is also the home of the Naval Academy. What is Annapolis!)

Summer was transitioning to fall in the familiar manner. The heat and humidity were abating, darkness descended earlier, the winds picked up, and warm rains fell. It was all preamble to the "clamping down" time of winter in Maine. Most of Sam's friends and acquaintances had become "snowbirds" — fleeing to Florida during the cold months. A few had abandoned Maine altogether; but it was a funny thing: soon after moving to Florida, or the Carolinas, or Arizona (what was this search for heat all about?), they dropped dead. In Sam's mind, this was testament to the therapeutic value of familiar landscapes and the bracing effect of the North. He concluded that a precipitous change of surroundings in one's so-called "golden years" was traumatic. There was a price to pay.

He heard a click. Faint, but definitely there. Between the clank of a pipe wrench and the thunk of a hammer as he dropped his tools into the wooden storage box, there was a decided click. Sam recognized it as the opening of the front door to the bungalow. Who would come in uninvited? A burglar? If so, Sam held the appropriate response firmly in his hand in the form of a pry bar. Cold steel. He walked from the garage into the kitchen, and there she was.

"Oh," she said, like a pin prick, as she withdrew the brightly colored silk scarf from her neck and hung it on the hook. "I didn’t know you were in the house. Didn’t you say you’d be working in the backyard?"

Sam looked on, his mouth agape, as she took off her coat and stepped out of her walking shoes. She cupped her hands and blew warm air through them. "I seem to feel the chill earlier every year. I wonder if it's a circulation problem. Do you think it’s a circulation problem, Sam?”

Still holding the pry bar, he continued to examine her. He watched as she began to rummage about the kitchen. "Oh, Sam," she said with a note of pity, "did you eat all that macaroni salad I made? There was enough to feed a small army. I was hoping for leftovers.”

"Roxie, what are you doing here?"

She regarded him and blinked several times. And then, "I swear, if I weren't around to restock you, you’d starve to death."

Sam's answer was immediate. "No, I wouldn't. I've been shifting for myself for five years now, and as you can see, I haven't wasted away."

She squinted. And then she giggled like a schoolgirl and waved him off. "I'm going to make you a nice omelet. A nice one. With spinach and feta.”

"Roxie..."

"Hush," she said as she opened the fridge and hunted down a couple of eggs. And then, a moment later, “There’s no feta in here. You’ll have to live with Velveeta.”

Sam stood there, gripping the pry bar, wondering if he was having some kind of episode. He blinked forcibly a few times, but she was still there, propelled about the kitchen by muscle memory. "Roxie..."

Her back was to him. "I said hush. Now sit and be patient. Talk to me."

Against his better instincts, Sam did as he was told. He sat, laid the pry bar on the table, and rubbed his chin as he continued to regard her. "Roxie..."

Still with her back to him, busy about the stove. "So, did your day get off to a good start? Oh, you know I hate to nag, but you've been so tight-lipped about sending the rug out to be cleaned that ... "

"Roxie, I was having a good day until five minutes ago."

She turned from the stove. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm retired."

She laughed, and he didn't like it. It was as if she were laughing at him. "Of course you are, Sam. Very good. "

Sam drew back. “What’s so good about it?" And then it hit him: yes, he had accommodated to retired life. It was good. But perhaps not very good.

She returned to the omelet. "Let's talk about the rug later. This is going to be a full day for me. I need to do some food shopping and go to the ATM in the supermarket."

Sam slowly shook his head. "You don't know the PIN."

She rattled the pan on the stove and turned to him. "Sam, you're unnerving me. Of course I know the PIN. It's 2142. Always has been."

"I changed it when you left."

"Left? Left where? It's 2142."

"And what's our address?"

"714 Monroe. Zip 04487. Phone 207-581-6142. My Social Security 007-64-3168. Yours is 007-56-1325. Passport number..."

"That's enough."

She stopped her recitation.

It was remarkable. Every numerical reference was spot on. What was this then? "Roxie, where have you been?"

She was holding out the pan with the omelet, like a mendicant. "Where have I been? Where have you been? Oh, I’m sorry, Sam..."

"Please put the omelet on a plate and give it to me."

"Well, at least there's something we can agree on." She slipped the omelet neatly from the non-stick pan onto a plate and set it down in front of him.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Sam dug into the food, making careful crosscuts with his fork, sectioning the omelet with the skill and precision of the engineer that he was. The question persisted: what was going on here? He considered the frightening possibility that this was the first inkling of his mind's adjournment as he aged. To reassure himself that this just couldn't be, he appropriated Roxie's strategy of reciting a list of numerical identifiers. Cell phone 944-7803, Mark's landline 571-2402, license plate CFX268. Or was it 267? Did one digit make a difference? And of course, Mark no longer had a landline. Did anybody?

"What are you mumbling about?"

"Nothing."

"Well, on that note, I'm going to do the shopping. Are you coming with me?"

Her request raised a critical question. "Roxie, how did you get here?"

"Where?"

"Here. Home." As soon as he said the word "home," it struck him as inappropriate. This was no longer her home. He didn't want to even suggest that it might be.

She waved him off again. Then she withdrew a set of keys from her pocket and jingled them, as if summoning a dog.

Sam was momentarily captivated by the jingling. Oh, this should be rich. “Okay. I’ll come with you.” He didn’t know what her keys belonged to, but it certainly wasn’t his car.

He deposited the plate in the sink and then put on his coat, the nice Woolrich with the cell phone pocket on the left upper chest. “Someday I’m going to buy you a new coat,” said Roxie once she was snapped into the driver’s seat of the Volvo, a presumptuous act that left Sam open-mouthed. Was she competent enough to drive? He instinctively checked his pocket for his own keys but came up empty. His mind jumped to her mention of the coat. “I don’t need a new coat,” he said as he slid into the passenger seat. He was uneasy riding shotgun. It disoriented him. He rested his hand on the emergency brake lever. Just in case.

“You’ve had this one for fifteen years.”

“I like it. Why should I discard something that’s perfectly serviceable?”

“Styles change.”

“Style means nothing to me. Comfort does. I like this coat.”

They bickered their way to the Shop ‘n Save, debating trivia, picking at minutia. Sam ventured a smile. It reminded him of the life they had known together, when everything seemed to be grist for both their mills. In this way they were like an alliance of mismatched nations. Austria-Hungary. United Arab Republic. Yugoslavia. And how long had they lasted?

“Well, we can’t have everything we like.”

Sam thought about that last comment as they walked into the store. He rattled a cart free from the rack. He pushed it while she went ahead to the produce. But the cart had one stiff wheel, so it kept veering to the right. Roxie returned to him, holding a couple of zucchinis. “What’s the matter?”

“This cart. I always manage to get the broken one.”

She put the zucchinis into it. “You want me to push it?”

Sam raised his hands. “Now, what difference would that make?”

Roxie placed her hands on the handle and pushed. The cart rolled forward, all four wheels turning smoothly.

Sam watched as she moved off to the deli section. Then she stopped and turned. “Are you coming?”

Sam lingered by the muffin rack. He looked on as Roxie bought cold cuts, which she placed in the cart with the zucchinis. Someone he didn’t recognize, another woman, approached her. They whispered to one another. Then they both turned compassionate eyes toward Sam. The other woman smiled and nodded before heading off. Roxie, for her part, moved on to the fish. Sam stepped lively and took over the cart, but the wheel jammed again and it veered into a display of artisan breads. “Goddamn...”

Roxie turned and brought a hand to her mouth to stifle her laugh. “I thought you were an engineer.”

That was a cruel dig. Yes, he was an engineer. Was. But no longer. Now he was a...what was he now, exactly? He immediately thought of Greg Moreau, who was the same age and now spent his days hanging around the small engine repair shop in town, coffee mug in hand. When Sam had brought his lawnmower in for its annual tune-up, sad-faced Greg shuffled over to him. “How’s retirement treating you?” asked Sam.

Greg didn’t mince words. “I feel so damn useless.”

That comment alarmed him. Sam was determined never to feel useless. He had the eaves, the garden, the car, the flag bracket. There was no reason on earth to feel useless; not when so much needed to be done. What was Greg talking about?

“Sam.”

“Hmm...?”

“Do you want me to push?”

“Push?”

She struck a studious pose. “You are so out of it,” she said, a note of real concern in her voice. “Maybe you should see the doctor.”

“The doctor.”

She shook her head. “I have everything I need. Let’s go home.”

Home. Wasn’t this an appropriate moment to tell her she wasn’t going home, at least not to his house? All he had to do was leave her there, get in the car, and drive away.

She had retaken control of the cart, which was once again wheeling smoothly. He watched as she went to the cashier’s line. Hmm...another moment when he could try to make her come to her senses. He’d watch and wait to see what she did for money. And then he got caught up in another thought: what if she no longer had any senses to return to?

“Sam, should we do cash or a card?”

Mechanically, he drew the Mastercard out of his wallet and handed it to her. Then there was the visit to the ATM. The moment of truth. 2142 my foot, thought Sam. He looked on, expecting catastrophe, but the machine clicked and buzzed before delivering a crisp handful of bills. But how? How was it possible? Hadn't he changed the PIN? Oh, she’s a sorcerer, that one. First the cart, now the ATM.

The next thing he knew, they were sitting together in the car again, on their way home. When they arrived, he helped get the groceries into the kitchen. Then he announced, “I’m taking a nap.”

He half expected resistance, or a snarky comment. But no, she said only, “Good. I think that’s what you need. When you wake up I’ll have a nice sandwich for you.”

Sam considered that a nap might reorient the map of what was going on. Maybe his mind had jumped in some odd way. A nap might let the neural event evanesce. When he awoke, Roxie would be gone, and he would pick up where he left off.

Sam lay down and snuggled into the pillow, all but purring with contentment. This was retirement’s greatest boon — being able to close one’s eyes at will, whenever one wanted, and drift off for a bit before awakening to rejoin the day. He was soon out. But Roxie was there again, seemingly with no limit to her reach: she infiltrated his dream, and he watched, disembodied, as she busied herself about the house, humming in a light-hearted, girlish fashion. When he awoke some twenty minutes later, she was standing next to the bed, holding a plate, the whole scene reminiscent of a Flemish painting that might be titled, Woman Bearing a Sandwich.

“It’s pastrami.”

Sam loved pastrami, but he hadn’t touched it since she had left. And now here she was, tempting him with forbidden fruit. The doctor had counseled reducing his consumption of red, salted meats, and Sam, taking things, as was his tendency, to the nth degree, had dispensed with the idea of moderation and seized upon complete abstinence. “But Doctor Roy...”

Roxie tsked and waved him off. “Doctor Roy isn’t here. Come on, now, you know how much you love pastrami.” She pushed the plate at him, and he accepted it with all the reverence of Holy Communion.

It was all so odd. Roxie had always hectored him about so many things, not least of which was his health. No salt, no red meat, no alcohol, no added sugar, no cholesterol. It had left him subsisting on water, air, and anxiety. And now here she was, seducing him.

He tucked into the sandwich and moaned with delight as Roxie stroked his thinning hair. “We’ve had a good life, haven’t we, Sam?” she said, almost in a whisper.

With the sandwich in his mouth, he raised his eyes to her in a pitiful, needy fashion, as if bidding her to tell him he was a good boy. But she simply hovered, and stroked, and smiled, and when he was done, she took the empty plate and returned to the kitchen.

Sam sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes shifting. Something had to be done. But what? He had to at least get a grasp on the situation, some understanding of what was going on. He reached for his cell and called Dr. Roy’s office. “I need to speak with the doctor. No, no emergency, but I need to speak with him.”

Sam knew that the message would be conveyed, but he also knew that it might be the end of the day, or even the next day, before he heard back. And then, a minor miracle — his phone rang and it was Chip Roy. “My assistant detected a note of urgency in your voice, so I wanted to call you right away.”

Sam was oddly touched by this sentiment of concern. And then, embarrassingly, he belched into the phone.

“Did you have pastrami?”

“As a matter of fact...”

“Oh, Sam...”

“That’s not why I’m calling.” He then proceeded to relate the saga of Roxie’s return. “It’s like one of those movies where one person disappears into a time warp, and when they come back years later, they haven’t aged a bit.”

“Are you saying that Roxie has stopped aging?”

Sheesh. Chip was such a literalist. “No. I mean time seems to have stood still for her. She left five years ago, but she doesn’t think she ever left. She’s forgotten that we’re divorced.”

“Divorced? I didn’t know you were divorced.”

“C’mon, now. I must have told you during one of my visits. Didn’t my blood pressure come down when she left?”

“Sam. Think. You haven’t made an office visit in at least five years.”

“Bullshit. What are you talking about? Don’t you send reminders?”

“Which you routinely ignore.”

“Well, I don’t particularly like doctors.”

“Well...”

“But now that I have you on the phone, what am I going to do about Roxie?”

The doctor hummed disconsolately. “Is she otherwise functional?”

My God, thought Sam. What a word to append to a person, especially a woman. But he knew what Chip Roy meant. “Yes, yes, she talks and walks and cooks and shops, and she has a prodigious memory for numbers: bank PINS, phone numbers, addresses...”

“Fascinating.”

“Yes, fascinating for you, but I have to live with it.”

“Have you decided to live with it, Sam?”

He gazed into the distance and blinked. Yes, that was the operative question, wasn’t it? Why did he need Chip Roy to phrase it so succinctly?

“Sam?”

“Y-yes. I’m here.”

“It doesn’t sound like Alzheimer’s. It’s something else.”

“What could it be?”

“I don’t know. But if she’s not a danger to herself or others...”

“No. No danger. But it is a bit like living in a Salvador Dalí painting.”

Sam caught himself. Chip Roy, for all his medical acumen, would not understand the reference. It was as if he had been born a doctor and had never become curious about anything else.

“I’ll talk to a colleague of mine. In the meantime, keep me posted, Sam. And call the office for an appointment. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

That was it, then. No solid advice, no diagnosis, no pill. Sam got up and went into the kitchen, where Roxie was slicing vegetables for the evening meal. “We’ll eat vegetarian tonight,” she said without turning from her task, “to sort of balance out the pastrami.”

“I’ll be in the garage.”

She turned to him and the light glinted off the knife she was holding. “Don’t you want to be out here with me?”

Sam pulled back. “Why?”

She shrugged. “To keep me company, I guess.”

Sam had the garage on his mind. He wanted to put up some new shelving for all the car care products, to keep them in one place. He was retired, goddammit, and he was hellbent on doing it. In fact, he had wanted to do it for the past five years, along with installing gutter guards, getting an automatic garage door opener, and sealing the flashing on the leaky skylight. Why the hell couldn’t he remember to do these things? He had the time and energy. Why couldn’t he remember? A while back he had prepared a list of tasks to be done and had put it in an envelope labeled, Things To Do. And then he forgot where he had put the envelope. But at least he knew that the envelope existed. As long as he knew that it existed, he was okay.

He labored in the garage for a solid hour, wondering if he could perhaps find an ally who would tell him, “You’re right, Sam. You’re absolutely right. Roxie has got to go. Just be firm.”

Firm. Was there a difference between firmness and cruelty? Yes, of course there was. A parent can be firm with his child, whom he dearly loves. The thing was, he didn’t think he loved Roxie anymore. He had lived without her for five years, with no ill effects. Oh, he ate a lot of ramen and generally skipped lunch, got those Grab n’ Go meals from Shop 'n Save, and didn’t change his underwear every day the way he used to, but what was wrong with that? He had lost a little weight, which was a good thing. His bowels were rumbly, but that just meant he needed more roughage, more fiber. Oddly, the Grab ‘n Go meals didn’t contain a lot of fiber. They were, in fact, rather mushy. That’s probably why he was so irregular.

When he reentered the kitchen, the meal was already steaming on the table, and the place settings were meticulously arranged. She had even lit two candles and dimmed the overhead lights. What was this, an attempt to be romantic?

Roxie wiped her hands on the dish towel and sat down. Sam went to the sink and washed his hands as well. He stared at the dish towel, which Roxie had placed on the rack, and grimaced. If he used it, it would be a strange intermingling, no? His dirt and hers, together again. Instead, he ripped off a sheet of paper towel.

“Sam.”

“Hmm?”

“It’ll get cold.”

“It won’t get cold.”

He took a seat opposite her, his movement disturbing the air so that the candle flames trembled like two teenagers contemplating the prospect of intimacy.

“What is this stuff?”

She sighed. “It’s not stuff. It’s mushroom, pecan, and rice casserole, seasoned with cilantro. You’ve had it before. You know you like it.” He watched as she took the serving spoon and placed a dollop on his plate. “Go on.”

He picked up a teaspoon and probed the mass before lifting a portion to his mouth. Why was he surprised that it tasted good? In fact, it was delicious. He could never make ramen taste this good. Was this one of the things he should have been missing during the past five years? When he put his spoon down for a moment, he watched as Roxie replaced it with a fork. “It’s not soup, Sam,” she said.

After supper they shared a glass of red wine, the light of the candles glinting in their eyes as they looked at one another.

“I miss Mark.”

He wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. Something about the tone. Odd. Mark was happily married, with a solid job and ample income. “What are you worried about?”

She sighed. Took another sip of the wine. Put the glass down but still held the stem, as if to anchor herself. “Worried?” she echoed. “I think we’re past worrying, Sam. It’s the missing that’s so difficult.” And then she smiled. “Remember the time he tried to walk to Canada?”

Sam returned her smile. It was a warm memory. “And the time he watered those sacks of cement in the garage because he wanted to clean them up for me.”

“He did that for Father’s Day.”

“No, it was my birthday.”

She tsked. “Sam, your birthday fell on Father’s Day that year. But it’s good, it’s very good that you remember that event.”

Sam frowned. She was talking to him as if he were a child. But it saddened him to consider that for the last five years he hadn’t had anyone to talk to about his boy. “He’s so far away.”

It was true. Gone were the days when families nested in place, intergenerationally. The so-called progress of the American experiment counseled fragmentation and flight. Go west, young man. Only now it was south, to the climates Sam viewed as suffocating. Still, Mark was doing well, enjoying good health, the most important thing.

“We should have never let him buy that motorcycle. Oh, Sam, excuse me. I just can’t help saying it. Eighteen-year-olds are just too young. Oh, Sam, I miss him.”

“What, Roxie...are you saying...?” His mind jumped. It didn’t want to process such a thought, like a Canadian quarter shoved into a vending machine and then plunks into the coin return. Invalid. He turned on her. Fierce. “Don’t you dare tell me he’s gone! It’s...it’s blasphemy. It’s calumny! it’s...”

She waited and allowed his ire to ebb. And then, softly, “Oh Sam, it’s not calumny.”

In the dim light, and given his weary eyes which fell in and out of focus, she suddenly looked younger. He reminded himself that she was the one who had left. He hadn’t thrown her out. He’d never asked her to leave. “What’s your plan?”

“Sam. I’m so tired. And the wine isn’t helping. Can we go to bed?” And then, “Are you okay now?”

Bed. The word hit him hard. They had come to the acid test, then.

“Sure. Let’s go to bed. Where did you plan on sleeping?” He watched, twirling the wine glass by the stem, his expression expectant. She had, for a moment, looked young. Now she looked exasperated.

"Sam, I’ll see you upstairs.”

He continued to sit at the table, mesmerized by the candles. He refilled his wine glass and drank it down much too fast. Just yesterday he had been footloose and fancy free. But did that equate with happiness, or contentment? His head was swimming. He just didn’t know. And now, today, here she was, as if it were he, and not she, who had been lost in a time warp. He mentally knit together the married Roxie with the one who had returned, splicing those two eras together, the way his Uncle Gene used to edit film from those home movies: cutting out the useless portions and joining the two ends of what was left. The result was something that one could watch without becoming distracted by the redundant.

Sam did his part—his part! — by clearing the table. When he picked up a spoon he couldn’t help staring at it. This is a spoon, he reflected. A spoon. And then, like a veil lifting, two more words erupted: Of course. He put everything in the dishwasher and pushed the appropriate buttons to start the cycle. The machine hummed. He turned off the lights, checked the front door, and gazed upwards from the foot of the stairs. And then he began the slow ascent.

When he reached the bedroom, she was already lying under the covers, her eyes closed, her hands crossed on top of her chest, which slowly rose and fell. She had reclaimed her side of the bed, and it struck him that, even during her long absence, he had persisted in restricting himself to his side. He went into the bathroom, performed his ablutions, and then, unselfconsciously, he undressed. He donned his flannel pajama bottoms, turned down the comforter and sheet, and, bare-chested, slid in next to her. And there he lay, staring up at the ceiling, wondering if he was in what one might call a pickle.

His wine-oiled mind began to wander. In the space of one day, he had gone from initial bewilderment to — what was it? — quiet acceptance of Roxie’s return. Was this what it was, then? Was he accepting her back? And who exactly was he accepting back? Was this the same woman he had been married to for forty years? How could it be, given the current circumstances? And what would Mark think once he found out? Which raised the next question: found out what? That he had decided to let her stay? What if this event were only the leading edge of some wedge, the opening gambit of what might be the complete loss of her faculties? What would he do then? Would it be compassionate to care for someone he had learned to live without? Or would it be cruel to pretend that things were not what they appeared to be? But Mark...could it be true, then? Sam balled the sheet up in his fists.

“You.”

Without turning to her. “I’m here.”

“Can’t you sleep?”

“Not yet. It’s my mind.”

“You want to talk?”

“I wouldn’t know what to talk about.”

“I could ask you questions.”

He laughed. “Oh, Roxie, I could ask you questions as well, but I don’t expect I’d get the answers I’m looking for.”

A pause.

“You.”

“Yes?”

“I have a question.”

“I’m listening.”

But instead of a question, she reached over and laid a soft, warm hand on his chest, over his heart.

That’s when another veil lifted. That’s when light poured through. That’s when it hit him like thunder.

She had never left.