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Orphans of the Storm

Bob Strother

    The first few drops of rain splatted softly against the living room windows as Maureen sat in one of the two matched, upholstered chairs watching the baseball game on TV. The Braves were playing the Marlins, and were up by two runs in the fourth. Her father had been an avid White Sox fan, and even though she’d never been able to figure why—they’d never lived anywhere even remotely near Chicago—she’d grown up with a love for the game.
    They didn’t have cable in those days and couldn’t get the Chicago channel. So on Sunday afternoons, after church and lunch, she and her father listened to the games on the radio, both of them stuffed into his old gray Lazy-Boy recliner. There was something about listening to the play-by-play that way. The announcers had talked more, certainly. Dead air time was a no-no. But the split-second pause between the pitch and the call, the excitement in the announcer’s voice when a long ball sent the outfielders running toward the warning track, when you saw the action only in your mind, it somehow transcended TV viewing.
    The rain picked up—pelting the windows like Mother Nature was pitching sidearm. Maureen got up, moved to the front of the room, and drew back one of the drapery panels. Jonathon had just pulled up in the driveway and was struggling with his briefcase and an umbrella. Maureen used the remote to turn off the television and stepped into the foyer just as her husband opened the front door. He placed his briefcase on the floor, leaned the umbrella against the wall, and shrugged out of his raincoat. Small rivulets of water ran down his forehead and rain pooled at his feet.
    He hung the coat on a rack near the door and glanced briefly in her direction. “Quite a storm,” he said.
    “Yes,” she answered, and turned toward the kitchen. “I’ll have dinner ready in an hour.”
    As she puttered about the kitchen, she could hear him in the hallway, using an old towel from the laundry room to soak up the mess in the foyer, then making a martini, and finally turning the television on to the evening news.
    Dinner was a quiet affair, as usual. They each inquired of the other’s day and provided the same pleasant but mundane replies while Entertainment Tonight droned on from the living room. Afterward, as she loaded the dishwasher, Jonathon took his briefcase to his home office, and busied himself with work.
    Maureen often wondered just how much work was done during those periods. Oh, he never closed the office door; he would consider that impolite, and if Jonathon was anything, he was polite. But she seldom heard the clatter of his computer keyboard, and if passing by, often caught him simply staring out the office window.
    It wasn’t that she blamed him. It was his way of coping, she guessed. For her, it was anything that that might keep her thoughts at bay—exercise (she was in training for a half-marathon), gardening, volunteer work at the local mission, and, during the season, televised baseball—anything that kept her from revisiting that day in the doctor’s office.
    She had sat beside Jonathon, clasping his hand tightly, already knowing what was coming, but powerless to control her destiny.
    “It’s in an advanced stage,” the solemn-faced doctor said. “We have treatment options, but I must tell you, the prognosis is not good.”
    Afterward, there had been the surgery, and then the chemotherapy, and finally the months of waiting—waiting for the inevitable.
    Maureen returned to the kitchen table, sat down, and began planning for the next day. First, she’d get up and run. And run. And run. And, if she was lucky, maybe the sweat would wash away some of the demons gnawing inside her brain. Outside, the wind was whipping torrents of water against the glass. It sounded like waves breaking at the shoreline. She let the harsh rhythm overtake her.
    She was startled, sometime later, to find Jonathon standing quietly in the doorway watching her. She glanced at the clock on the wall over the refrigerator. Two hours had passed since they’d finished dinner. Where had she been?
    “I’ve finished in the office,” he said. “I think I’ll spend some time in my workshop.”
    She nodded. “All right, then. I didn’t realize how late it’s gotten. I’ll have my bath and then go to bed and read.”
    The bath was steaming as Maureen slipped under the water and let the warmth flood her body. She still had her figure and could probably keep it as long as she was able to train. Not that it mattered to anyone but her. Jonathon hadn’t touched her in months, and she had been a willing accomplice, accepting any flimsy excuse that kept him from coming to her bed before she fell asleep.
    It was so different, she thought, from the beginning of their romance, when neither could find fault with the other. And, as their love had matured, even the occasional angry outburst soon dissolved into passion. But no more, she thought. The disease had seen to that. Neither of them knew how to deal with death.
    Half an hour later, as Maureen climbed into bed and pulled the covers to her chin, she thought again of her father. She remembered once during church, as she sat between her parents, the choir had begun a hymn. It was one she hadn’t heard before: “Let us break bread together on our knees...” The words had struck her funny, and she was driven to a fit of giggling. Her father had tried to contain himself, but it wasn’t long before he chortled and tried to hide it by coughing into his hand. Her mother had shushed them both, red-faced, but smiling.
    That afternoon Maureen meant to ask her father about the song, but once the baseball game had started, she’d forgotten all about it. The following day, while she was at school, her parents had both been killed in an automobile accident.
    Lying in bed now, she wondered which was worse, to lose one’s parents—or to be a parent and lose one’s child. She had experienced both.
    Neuroblastoma was an insidious malignancy that preyed exclusively on the young. Amy was diagnosed at four years old. They had lost her at six, nearly eleven months ago. For weeks afterward, Maureen had still heard Amy’s laughter in the hallways, the happy sounds of her pink flip-flops smacking across the hardwood floors. Then there was nothing.
    She looked over at the bedroom window where only a few beads of moisture remained, clinging tenuously to the glass. The storm had passed. The house was quiet as fog and just as cold. It was too bad, she thought. For a while at least, she’d had the noise.

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