Harry & Ruth (34 page)
Authors: Howard Owen
I never admitted the grim martyr's pleasure I took in waiting out Henry Flood, no matter what it cost my children
.
That psychiatrist
â
I told her some of this. I don't know why; I guess they're just good at drawing people out
.
She told me it's never too late
.
It's too late if Harry's dead, I snapped back
.
But it's never too late for you, she said. She told me something that worked for her. She said that she just tried, every day, to improve a little bit. Maybe she would learn a new word, or she would read an article about something important, even if it bored her to death. Or she would make peace with someone, even if she thought the other person was wrong
.
Nobody ever reaches perfection, she told me, but it gives you a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of forward motion, if you just keep pushing that rock up the hill, like Sisyphus. Except, she said, in real life, the rock doesn't roll back. In real life, you can push it a few inches forward, stop and rest, and then push it a few more inches
.
Fair enough. So these are my few inches for this particular day
.
If anything good has come out of this blackest month, it's Naomi and me. She stayed with me for a week, before they moved me to Atlanta. We talked and talked, more than we had since she was a little girl
.
There was a time, before Henry Flood changed all that, when Naomi and I could sit there at the grill, between shifts, and talk with such ease. In the years before your return, the memories that got me through rough days were Harry Stein on the church steps in 1942 and my chats with Naomi in those innocent times. Damn Henry Flood. Damn forgiveness. This day, I'm not up to pushing the rock those few inches. I might never be strong enough for that
.
Before Naomi went back to Colorado, we agreed to wipe the slate clean. We agreed that life was too short for us to get on each other's nerves anymore. We agreed, for the most part, to stop dwelling on the imperfections of the past and try to salvage what we have left
.
It might work. It might not. I'm going to try my damndest, though, and I'm not going to sulk and fret. If I have to go out there uninvited, I'm going to visit Naomi and Thomas and Grace and Gary in the new year
.
On the evening before she left, Naomi hugged me goodbye, and for the first time in 40 years, I didn't feel that tension, that holding back. And she told me she loved me. That might be what got me this far out of that black night you left us in
.
You know what? I think I might be getting my Naomi back. Wouldn't that be something, Harry?
There is one more thing
.
Roy McGinnis came and got me in Atlanta
â
talked Hank into letting him do it
â
and drove me all the way back to Saraw. He didn't say much, just drove until he got tired, then got us two rooms at a Hampton Inn, bought us dinner and breakfast the next morning, then took me home
.
He's been up here to see me almost every day, even though most days I'm not much company. Those days, he just sits and holds his hat in his hands, says something once in a while, waits for me to cheer up. He usually does cheer me up, Harry
.
Roy never was much to look at, and he isn't getting any better with age. Who among us is?
But he's been my friend. Just between you and me, I think he's had a crush on me for the last 50-some years, since we were in high school. He's been my protector more than once, and I'm ashamed to say I've usually taken him for granted. Now, him an old widower and me an old widow (truly a widow now, Harry), I finally told him how much his loyalty has meant to me. He just shrugged his big old shoulders and said that was what friends were for
.
I'm going to let him keep coming around, Harry, just to see how things go. It might work out, it might not. Too soon to tell
.
There's one thing we ought to get straight, though. There will never, ever be another time for me like that evening on the front porch of Crowders Presbyterian Church, Sept. 5, 1942. Everything else has been made of lesser stuff, even the second coming of Harry Stein. Some of it's been good, some of it's been bad, some of it's just been different. My weeks with you, my early days with Naomi, nothing came along to match that. It's horrible to say such things, when you've given birth to three other children, by another man, and that's why no living soul is going to see this letter. But it's true
.
The key from here on out, if you listen to that doctor I had in Atlanta, is to make the best out of the material we have left. The idea of pushing forward a little bit every day, that's growing on me
.
Maybe I'll even take swimming lessons
.
I don't believe in omens, Harry, and, God help me, I'm not even sure about Him sometimes. Before I finished this letter, though, I took a little nap. When I woke up, the radio was on this station that neither Hank nor I have ever listened to, to my knowledge
.
And you know what was playing?
“Deep in the Heart of Texas.”
I clapped four times, and said goodbye
.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2000 by Howard Owen
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1210-2
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