“Lack of sunlight this time of year,” he explained. “It’s more and more unheard of the closer you get to the equator, where the daylight remains fairly constant. Up north where we live, though, as the days get shorter, so do our tempers, if you know what I mean.”
“What do you do for it?”
“Try to get out in the sun for a few minutes each day,” he recommended. “Or even just sit in front of a sunny window whenever you can. Getting more sleep will help as well. Perhaps even taking an afternoon nap every day if you don’t already take one. You’re a very healthy person, so you should try to find something to keep your mind active to pass the time. That’s always important.”
“I’m tired of just passing the time,” Francesca told him with a sigh. “I want to fill it and live it.” She sat there sulking for a time. “Maybe I should get myself a job,” she suggested.
“There’s no reason why you can’t still work if you want to,” said the doctor.
“Really?” said Francesca. She had made the suggestion as a joke and was much surprised by his response.
“I mean, just part-time,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to see you working more than a few hours here and there every week. Not that you couldn’t, but unless you need the money, why would you?”
Francesca turned the idea over in her mind. By a strange coincidence, while she had been straightening up the kitchen after supper a few days earlier, she had happened to notice an article on the front page of the career section of the Sunday newspaper. The article was titled “Getting Back into the Job Market: A Guide for Older Workers.” At the time, she hadn’t given it much thought. She hadn’t bothered to read the article, but instead used that section of the newspaper to wrap up the food scraps from dinner. Looking back now, though, she wished she had saved the article. For a moment, it seemed like an intriguing possibility. But then another thought brought her down.
“It’s been years since I worked outside the house,” she told him. “Last time was before I had my children. Who would hire me now, and to do what?”
“I don’t know,” admitted the doctor. “But it’s never too late to learn something new, something that you might enjoy, and at the same time be of use to an employer. I guess you’ll just have to keep your eyes open and wait to see what comes up.”
“Wait,” Francesca muttered. “You sound an awful lot like someone else I know. Seems like all I do these days is wait.”
The doctor gave her a kind smile. He helped her put on her coat and then held open the door. “See you next year, Mrs. Campanile,” he said pleasantly.
“If God wants,” Francesca replied, giving him a nod. Then she picked up her pocketbook and headed out to the front desk to schedule next year’s appointment.
CHAPTER 9
The newspaper lay in an orange plastic bag at the bottom of the front walk when Francesca looked out the window early the next morning. The sun had only partially risen, so the front yard was still in shadows. From where she stood, the newspaper looked like some sort of small, bright orange creature curled up asleep on the icy pavement.
Francesca let out a grunt of consternation. Once upon a time, the paperboy would have at least made certain that he tossed her morning newspaper up onto the front step so that, one, it would stay dry, and two, she wouldn’t need to go traipsing through the snow or rain to retrieve it. She remembered Jimmy, their paperboy when she and Leo had first moved into the house. Jimmy had been up every morning at the crack of dawn, his sack of newspapers slung over his shoulder as he pedaled his bike from house to house before school. In those days, The Providence Journal also put out an afternoon edition, The Evening Bulletin, so Jimmy would come around again after school. He was the nicest, most polite young man she had ever met, and she always gave him something extra when she paid him each week.
Nowadays, though, there was no longer an afternoon edition of the newspaper, and one person in a car did the job of ten paperboys. This arrangement, she presumed, is what some people referred to as progress. Francesca did not think of it that way. Whoever it was that drove by every morning at five a.m. had no time for niceties such as making it easier for an old lady to pick up her newspaper. She often awoke to the sound of the newspapers plopping against the sidewalks on her street. As best as she could discern, the driver never stopped, but simply flung the papers out the window as the car passed, letting them land wherever. Sometimes hers came to rest within easy reach; sometimes it landed in the middle of a puddle on a rainy day. Francesca was lucky, she supposed, that her daily newspaper had not yet ended up stuck in a tree someplace—but then again, it was probably only a matter of time.
At lunchtime, the newspaper still rested on the same spot. Lately, the headlines had been proclaiming nothing but gloom, something that Francesca felt she already had in ample supply; there was no need to hurry out to get more. Besides, it was a bitter cold day, and she had been disinclined to brave the elements that morning. Instead, she had spent the early part of the day upstairs, rummaging through the bedroom closets. It always amazed Francesca to discover how much clutter her children had left behind. No matter how many times she straightened out the attic or closets, she inevitably found something that she had previously overlooked. Truth be told, much of what was left was old clothes that were beyond use. Many of these she simply tossed out from time to time, when she had the chance. The clothes that were out of style but still in good condition she usually gave away.
Certain things, however, were still too precious to Francesca to give away when she came across them. Whether it was a dress Rosie had once worn, or perhaps a bonnet Alice had adored as a little girl, the clothes from when her children were small were always the ones that affected Francesca the deepest. On this particular morning, she held up a little blue cardigan sweater that she happened to pull out of Joey’s closet. Her son had last worn it, she well remembered, for Christmas back when he was all of four years old. Hanging beside it was the shirt and the pair of corduroys Francesca had dressed him in that day. Down below on the floor, she found the tiny pair of shiny black shoes in which he had clomped about the house so proudly. She knelt to take a closer look at them. Holding the shoes up, she recalled how he had looked so adorable that day that everyone had just wanted to pick him up and hug him for all they were worth. Joey was too much of a little boy, of course, to let anyone hold him, so he inevitably managed to squirm out of their arms before long.
Now, as she knelt there thinking back on that day, remembering her son and daughters as they were, wishing for all the world that she could have them back like that again for just a little while, Francesca breathed in the scent of the wool and squeezed the little sweater to her heart. In her mind, she understood that time marched on, that these things for which she sometimes yearned could not and should not ever be. Still the tears ran freely from her eyes, until she carefully placed the sweater back on its hanger and tucked the shoes back in their place. Then, drying her cheeks with the back of her hand, she closed the closet door and returned downstairs.
Later, Francesca finally went out for the newspaper while the last of the soup she had made the previous weekend was heating up on the stove. Muttering something uncomplimentary about whoever it was that had delivered her newspaper, she hurried back inside with it, hoping she wouldn’t slip and fall in the process. A shiver raced up her spine when she finally made it back into the front hall. She shook off her coat and went into the kitchen to warm up.
Francesca looked over the newspaper while she sat at the kitchen table, eating her soup. As she often did, she gave the front page only a cursory examination before going directly to the obituaries. Perhaps it might seem odd that someone who was feeling so gloomy would be so anxious to read the death notices. In truth, though Francesca read them with dread, praying that she would not find the name of anyone she knew, it seemed like wakes and funerals were the only time she saw her old friends anymore. In an odd sort of way, they were something to look forward to. Besides, when Francesca was feeling glum, as she did at this particular moment, the fact that she did not find her own name listed there was something of a consolation.
Relieved