Standing in my doorway, a silhouette surrounded by the blazing Florida sun, he told me…
“My girlfriend called me last night, and said she had a terrible pain…I’m so exhausted.”
I watched our twelve-year-old daughter struggle down the stairs with her pink suitcase…it was time for the visit.
“Yeah, and then she called me back and said the pain is worse…‘You need to take me to the emergency room.’”
I saw the mechanical movement of his mouth as he spoke…
“We were in emergency for five hours…She said it was the worst pain she ever had in her life. I’m so exhausted.”
Our daughter reached the foot of the stairs and looked back at me with the sour pain of regret in her eyes…time for the visit.
“Thank God…they didn’t have to operate. First, it was an x-ray, then it was the MRI. I’m so exhausted.”
No sex for you this week, I guess...He met this one on an Internet love line.
“Now, she needs to eat a special diet…I’m so exhausted.”
First, there was his sister’s friend, then a woman he met at Winn Dixie…a golden nurse who wouldn’t sign his pre-nup, and of course, the one my sister said looked like me…
I wondered if Ms. Gallstone would sign a prenup...
Our daughter swung her suitcase with both hands like a giant pendulum as she went down the porch steps and started across the lawn toward his car. “We’ll call you later,” he said, following behind her. “I’m so exhausted.”
I can imagine the ring he will give the new girlfriend…the finest white gold…with her beautiful caramel colored gallstone...a hard human crystallized stone…set snuggly in the setting. I’m so exhausted. |