Song of Silence. Cynthia Ruchti

if it happened again. It did. Lucy couldn’t imagine a world in which “nothing to do” and “perfect” fit in the same paragraph. A pouch of tuna, mayo, celery, potato chips, nothing to do, plus her spelled contentment for him. Her list didn’t start with tuna.

      His was the face she wanted to see at the end of the day, the eyes she most wanted to dream about, her favorite embrace. She craved holding hands all day every day when they were in college and never being apart far enough to slip a dollar bill between them, like testing for gasket leaks in a freezer door. At this stage of life, the idea made her claustrophobic. Guilt clamped iron fingers around her upper arm as if hauling her to relationship jail. He wasn’t her teenaged, annoying, flatulence-obsessed older brother. Except for the flatulence and older. He was her husband. Hus. Band. For life.

      Other summers, he’d worked and then come home at the end of the day. Other months of the year until this past year, they’d both worked and come back together at the end of the day. Lucy separated the celery from her tuna salad with her fork.

      Something landed on her forearm. She brushed it away. His hand. “Sorry. I thought you were a June bug.” Perspiring more than necessary for a day with a soft breeze, she reached for his hand and replaced it on her arm.

      Charlie’s face broke into the irrepressible grin that had fluttered her heart so many days of their marriage. “A June bug. That’s a compliment, right? Because I know how much you l-o-v-e June bugs.”

      “You startled me. My mind was elsewhere, I guess.” Actually, it was right where they sat, but try explaining that.

      His fingers traced her arm from fingertips to shoulder and back again. And again. “Lucy, you know I’m on your side, don’t you?”

      “In what?”

      “Battling this depression.”

      “I’m not depressed.” I’m sad. That’s all. Incredibly, deeply, soul-woundingly sad.

      “Sometimes . . . when a woman reaches your age . . .”

      She bit the side of her tongue. “Menopause? You think this is from menopause?” She’d check a mirror later for broken blood vessels in her eye.

      He stopped stroking her arm and wiped the condensation from his glass. “Maybe it will be good in more ways than one for Olivia to move back home for a while.”

      The great shrinking house. Did he think he’d have reinforcements when Olivia got there? “It’ll be good to have her here. For a while,” she agreed.

      Lucy needed to turn a room for overnight guests into a longer term guest room. She had flowerbeds that needed water and weeding, not in that order, and she craved a few minutes on the computer to look up clinical depression so she could prove that wasn’t her problem. Charlie might have all day, but she had things to do.

      “It’s funny Martin hasn’t called lately to take you fishing with him,” she said.

      Charlie swallowed, most of his mouthful, and said, “He calls almost every day.”

      “He does?”

      “I turn him down.”

      Lucy’s eye twitched again. She pressed a finger against the offending muscle. “Why would you do that?”

      “You’ve been kind of needy lately.” The tilt of his head and almost impish look—so like Sam’s—said he didn’t mean it like it sounded.

      She forced her face into neutral rather than the glare that begged to form. What I’ve needed is a little breathing room. She should tell him exactly that. Yes. “I think you should take him up on it one of these days. Go. You need to get out on the water while the fishing’s at its peak before it gets hotter and the fish aren’t eating as voraciously as they are now.”

      “Listen to my outdoorswoman here.”

      “I’ve heard your fishing stories for a good number of years, Charlie. And, for the record, I’m not needy.” She flicked her celery bits back into the pile of tuna and stirred extra long.

      ***

      “Did you get Martin on the phone?” Lucy grabbed another armful of out-of-season clothes hanging in the guest room closet.

      Charlie leaned against the doorjamb of the room that would become Olivia’s again. “Yeah.”

      “And?”

      “We’re not going today.”

      “Okay.” She shifted the weight draped across her arm. “Why not? Too late in the day?”

      “Too late”—he sighed—“in life.” He lifted the bulk from her arms, laid the clothing on the empty bed, and swallowed her in his fierce embrace.

      “Charlie? What’s . . . ?” She could feel him trembling.

      “Eve had an appointment today,” he breathe-spoke into her hair. “Her doctor thinks it’s early onset Alz—”

      “No!” Lucy matched the grip of his embrace. “Martin must be devastated. Oh, Charlie!”

      “Don’t leave me, Lucy.”

      “I won’t.”

      “I mean, mentally. Or . . . emotionally. I don’t even know what I’m saying. Just don’t. Okay?” He rocked her back and forth. Almost a dance. Not quite.

      “What are you whispering?”

      His dance slowed. Stopped. “Praying for Martin.”

      Lucy pulled back. She wiped the moisture from the corner of his eyes with her thumb, and marveled that two polar opposite hearts could beat as one. “And I was praying for Eve.”

      She smoothed the curls of silver in front of his ears. The man needed a haircut again. In her head, the melodies of every Top Forty love song tumbled over each other. Yes. This man. Forever.

      Somehow.