Proud to be published by Bold + Italic out of India. They also nominated this story for a Pushcart Prize.
Sylvia Schwartz
Updated: Mar 11, 2023
Updated: Mar 11, 2023
Proud to be published by Bold + Italic out of India. They also nominated this story for a Pushcart Prize.
Updated: Mar 8
Originally published by Savant-Garde Publishing. “Your characters felt incredibly realistic, and I absolutely loved the sweet story between them.” ~ Miranda Winters-Sayle, Editor & Publisher
Jim Stark’s long legs, resulting from his six-foot-four lanky frame, had difficulty adjusting to the narrow pew at the back of the church. He wasn’t sure he belonged there. Not just in the church, his first time there, but in this sparsely populated, picturesque river town he’d found in a Southern Living magazine left at his dentist’s office. He’d moved here from Detroit right after his younger brother, Peter, died. Peter had said Georgia was one of his favorite places in the country. He’d driven around Georgia after his sculpture show in Atlanta. Said the people were like their peaches and to image everyone in Georgia covered in peach fuzz. Not the scant amount found on store peaches but the protective, thick coating on a fresh-picked peach whose fuzz can fly around and land in your hair and clothes. Getting to know Georgians takes time, he said. Try to undercover things too fast, and that peach fuzz will stick to you, marking you as rude or rash.
Only his artistic brother would have described people like peaches. Jim looked around the congregation, now standing as they sang from their hymn books. He couldn’t picture any of them covered in peach fuzz and felt foolish even trying. But he still recalled Peter’s laugh when he’d told him stories about the South. To Jim, that laugh had also seemed at his expense, his brother knowing he’d never traveled farther south than Chicago in his sixty-seven years. But he never had the need to until now.
The congregation bowed their heads. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen so many people gather to pray. Jim had prayed alone by the roadside for the ambulance to come and again in the hospital for his brother to make it through the night.
When the service ended, Jim rose not feeling any different from when he’d walked into the Crossroads Methodist Church — though perhaps he shouldn’t have expected to. His prayer for Peter to come home was the last one God ever answered.
Once outside the church, he couldn’t decide what to do with himself. Walk along the river? Read a book? His old Ford, parked in front of his one-bedroom apartment, needed a tune-up. But he still wasn’t up to the task, having avoided ordering the parts during the two months he’d lived here. It ran, so what was the rush?
#
Mary Rowlands had been late to the service. Getting up and around for Mary, now eighty-eight, wasn’t as easy as it used to be, though she still drove, her ample waist comfortably snug in the driver’s seat of her old Buick. She was only five-foot-one-inch tall, but she made up for her petiteness with a broad face and stocky legs that made her appear solid and surefooted. She had debated with herself all morning whether to go. It was another hot July day, and she knew the church’s ceiling fans never did more than move ‘someone’s’ overzealous dousing of perfume — that same ‘someone’ whose drugstore always ran a ‘special’ on that brand on Monday. But today, something in the air made her joints ache and her body restless. She didn’t care if anyone commented on her lateness or lack of Sunday attendance. Having reached a certain age, other people’s opinions mattered little to her. As she bypassed the stares of those already seated, she noticed the new gentleman in town sitting in the back pew alone.
After service, she caught up with him standing outside the church and tapped his shoulder.
“I heard you fix things,” she said, pressing a lace handkerchief against the back of her neck and then dabbing it over her sun-spotted forehead.
“I used to,” Jim said, not knowing if he was ready to take on odd jobs.
“Have you ever fixed a piano?”
Jim had fixed about everything: clocks, watches, locks, faucets, carburetors, and even tube TV sets when he was a kid. He’d also tuned his mother’s piano when she was alive.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, where are my manners? I’m Mary Rowlands,” she said, stuffing the handkerchief under the edge of her sleeve before raising her hand to shake his.
“I’m—”
“—Jim Stark, yes, everyone knows that. Afraid we don’t get many new people moving here.”
“Oh,” he said, wondering how people knew who he was when, since the accident a year ago, he no longer knew himself.
“Would you be kind enough to come over and look at my piano?”
“Well, I—”
“—I’m over on Sycamore Lane near the town’s gazebo. It’s 1245 Sycamore Lane. Look for the yellow rose bushes hanging over the white fence. Would tomorrow around 2:00 p.m. be okay? My piano tuner passed away, and there’s not another one for miles.”
Jim stared down at this woman in her paisley dress, yellowed under the arms, and her sturdy, white orthopedic-looking shoes. He didn’t know many people in Chesterfield except his landlady, the banker who set up his account, and the teenagers who cashiered at the grocery store. None of them had been outgoing, so he had no idea what to make of Mary or her request. But the thought of fixing something, of making something whole again, appealed to him in a way he hadn’t realized how much he missed.
#
Mary sat by her parted curtains, waiting for Jim to arrive. Mary often judged a man by his handshake. Jim’s had been tentative at first, his fingers slow to hold her hand, like a man who didn’t make snap decisions. But once his calloused hand embraced hers, his grip became firm as if once committed, he was all in. She hoped she was right. She also noticed that for a tall man, Jim appeared smaller in stature than he should have somehow. It might have been how he rounded his shoulders or glanced at his feet as they spoke. But she sensed a kindness about him. Or perhaps it was his unruly, bushy white hair that gave him a boyish quality that reminded her of her only son whose job kept him in New York.
While Jim parked his car, Mary stood waiting inside her open doorway.
#
The first thing Jim noticed wasn’t the overgrown faded roses that lined the fence and pathway to the white-columned entrance or the elliptical glass transom above the blue door; it was the ivy. The variegated greenery spread across her brick Tudor as if it had found a welcoming and permanent home. It stood in stark contrast to his front lawn in Detroit, brown and yellowed by summer’s end, despite his constant watering and weeding. He deliberately neglected it once he’d built his brother’s wheelchair ramp to the front door.
“Afternoon, Jim.”
“Afternoon, Mary,” he said as he entered and set down his toolbox. “Now, what exactly is wrong with your piano?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. At one point, Mr. Murphy, my previous piano tuner of almost thirty years, said it was a lost cause, but then he believed in lost causes. Do you believe in lost causes, Jim? Too many people nowadays give up on things when they get old.”
“I’ve had my car for over twenty years.”
“Good, you understand. Sit down. I’ll get us some lemonade.”
“Shouldn’t I look at your piano first?”
“Down south, we only rush time when it’s disagreeable. I hope you don’t find me disagreeable,” she said with a smile before disappearing into the kitchen.
While she was away, Jim snuck over to her yellow-keyed, ebony grand piano, covered in a fine layer of dust, and peered under the heavy lid. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw—a cracked soundboard, misaligned dampers, and rust on the brass agraffe screws. All the pleasure he’d experienced earlier—the weight of his toolbox in his hands again and the power to fix things—vanished as he stared at the utter brokenness.
Back home, Jim had fixed everything he could for his brother. He reconfigured the house they’d inherited from their parents: widening doorways, lowering countertops, modifying bathrooms. He also managed Peter’s pain and sleeping meds and oversaw his physical therapy treatments. But it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t enough, he thought, as he returned to his seat before she re-entered the living room carrying a tray with glasses of iced lemonade and cookies.
“Mr. Murphy liked his oatmeal molasses cookies with extra cinnamon. I do hope you like them.”
Now that he’d seen the insides of her piano, he was confused and unsure of what to say but decided to be polite and go through the motions.
“What did Mr. Murphy say was wrong with your piano?” he said as he reached for a glass of lemonade.
“Said the problem was humidity. Every time he almost got it tuned and ready for me to try it, he’d say, ‘sorry, not today, that darn humidity has done it to us again.’ Afterward, we’d have a good little chuckle, knowing there are some things you can’t do anything about. Bless his heart, he was here almost every day. Said it was the only way to stay on top of it.”
“When was the last time you played it?”
“Well, let me see, it’s been a long time. I remember the parties my husband Henry and I had. How the Moonlight Sonata, which I played, filled the room. You could feel it—waves of music moving the air. It was like a cool summer breeze had come through the windows and touched us, like the grace of God. Do you believe in God, Jim? I don’t mean to pry. Not everyone who goes to church does. Though maybe ‘believing’ isn’t the right word. I believe he’s there, but that he keeps to himself. He certainly has since my Henry died, which was over thirty years ago. Guess it forces us to be more creative in fending for ourselves.”
Jim set down his glass, his hands cold and damp from its condensation. He wiped them across his jeans, wishing he could wipe away having to tell her the truth. He remembered the moment his brother asked him in the hospital if he would be all right. Jim hesitated, and at that moment, his brother knew, knew he wouldn’t walk again.
When Jim’s palms were dry, he said, “I don’t think I can fix your piano.”
“Nonsense, you haven’t even looked at my piano. You seem like a capable man. Besides, fixing and trying are two different things, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“—then won’t you at least try?”
Jim walked over to the piano and lifted the lid. He stared at the total damage he’d only glimpsed at earlier. Of the two hundred strings once tightly wound with high-quality copper wire, only one or two weren’t slack or broken. It was impossible to see them and not recall the devastation he’d witnessed after the crash. The passenger’s side crumpled around the street pole; the metal buckled like a crushed can. After pulling himself out of the driver’s side of his brother’s car, he called 911. It took a blow torch to get Peter out of the car. A miracle, they said, that his brother was still alive. Black ice. Nobody’s fault. Still, Jim blamed himself and his inability to make his brother whole again, at least in spirit.
When he turned to Mary, her bright eyes looked like she had all the faith in the world in him. Didn’t she understand it couldn’t be fixed? That broken things only break your heart. In the end, his brother took his own life.
“I’d like to help you, but—”
“But, but, but. You seem like a man with a very limited vocabulary,” Mary said, almost spilling her glass of lemonade when she set it down. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, clutching her hands together. “I don’t know what’s come over me. You had a nice handshake, and
I really thought you were the one.”
“The one?”
“The one who could fix this old piano. I thought, well … never mind.”
The hope he’d seen in her eyes vanished. Whatever energy had pumped her up dissipated, leaving Mary looking deflated and forlorn as she slumped back in her chair, her small chest caving in on itself. Would coming back be so bad? It wasn’t like he didn’t have the time. Before he talked himself out of it, he said he’d try.
“Good!” she said, sitting upright again. “Trying is all anybody should be asked to do in this world. It’s the only thing left I can do. So you will stop by tomorrow, won’t you? You don’t have to stay long.”
Jim took a few moments to consider how this would work. “There’s one condition, Mary.”
“What’s that?” she asked tentatively.
“I’ll only charge you once the job is done.”
“Why, that’s the same arrangement Mr. Murphy came to. You two must be more alike than I realized.”
Then he sat down and tasted one of her cookies.
“They’re good, aren’t they?” she asked.
“They are,” he acknowledged. It was the only thing he was certain about, aside from the fact that he’d never be able to fix her piano. But, for now, that seemed enough.
“More lemonade?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
###
Updated: Mar 5
“Dear Linda, I am very very very very very sorry,” James scribbled in a greeting card — and not any variety of greeting card, but a Hallmark one, whose messages he normally would have thought overly sentimental but now thought wholly appropriate given the circumstance warranted flowers.
James also believed the repetitive use of the word “very” five times was such an original idea that, by the time he looped the giant letter J on the bottom of the card, his choice of a card became vastly superior to the ordinariness of mere flowers. Would her ex-boyfriend, Paul, in Chicago, have ever thought of this? No, he would have resorted to roses, and red ones at that, as if women weren’t completely tired of that cliché. The card James found had been crammed in a dollar bin, calling out to him with its shiny black bird gliding against a cloudless blue sky, symbolism for their relationship. Well, not how their relationship was now, exactly; things weren’t exactly soaring, upward, that is, but she could see this was where he wanted it to go, couldn’t she? However, the fact that the bird was a hawk and swooping down as if to capture prey may not have been the perfect choice. For hawks have been known to eat small cats, and it was Linda’s whining indoor cat, Muffet, that James had let outside. Muffet had yet to come back.
***
“I’m busy, Linda said into her phone, her legs flopped over the arm of her chair so that her calico dress draped over her cowboy boots, her favorite book on herbal gardening on her lap.
“Still?” James asked, sitting alone in his apartment. It had been almost a week, and he couldn’t remember Linda ever missing their Friday night movie night. He’d buy caramel popcorn. She’d get a kernel stuck between a back tooth. He’d give her a stick of gum to dislodge it. They’d go out for Chinese. James was a junior engineer who valued their rituals. He believed rituals, even after two years, were still enough to satisfy them both.
“But you got my card, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then what? Was it wet? Soggy? Because if the rain dampened the card, that would have dampened its message.”
“No, James, the card was not damp,” she said, sitting up straight. “What if we had kids —”
“— kids?! What are you talking about? You want to have kids?”
“No, I mean, maybe. Let me finish. What if you let one of them out?”
“Huh? Aren’t kids supposed to play outside?”
“Not without supervision.”
“But cats aren’t like kids. They don’t want supervision.”
“I’m not talking about cats.”
“Then what are we talking about?”
“Responsibility.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly!”
She hung up.
She doesn’t think I’m responsible? he thought. In line for a promotion at Dresden & Waller. Diligently saving money, knowing Linda’s teaching salary didn’t bring home much. They were young. No need to rush things. What did she want?
He called her again.
“Linda, don’t be like this. I said I was sorry.”
“James, I need time off.”
“You’ve got the whole summer off.”
“I mean with us. I need to think. I’m going to Chicago to see my mom next week.”
“You can’t think here?”
“I’m sorry, James.”
“Hey, only one of us is supposed to be sorry. Or just one of us at a time. Then the other is supposed to forgive. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. So, don’t be sorry. I don’t want you to be sorry about anything or do anything to be sorry about. You won’t, right? Let’s not talk anymore about being sorry—”
“—James, can you stop talking? Stop going on and on for just a moment.”
Linda put her book on the end table, walked to her window, and looked at the Colorado sunset, her phone against her ear. James sat on his couch without moving.
“You used to like that about me,” James began. “Told me after talking all day as a teacher that it was kinda funny how I could go on and on without interruption. I do it less and less. Now only when I’m nervous.”
“I know, James. But I gotta go. Love you.”
Then she hung up.
***
After two nights of restless sleep, James came to the realization that what Linda really wanted was another cat. He walked into the shelter, proud of his decision but not prepared for the shelter’s zoo-like smell. It was one thing to have a girlfriend with one cat, quite another to enter a world aromatized by hundreds of them, along with dogs, parakeets, hamsters, rabbits, and even mice (which made no sense to him since he always got rid of them; though, to be fair, his were neither cute nor white.)
For a moment, he pondered whether Linda would like a mouse; after all, isn’t this what cats bring home to show their affection? Mice don’t shed. They don’t eat much. He watched a seemingly content mouse going round and round in its cage. It was almost meditative. The more he thought about this white mouse, the more he thought it was the perfect make-up gift, making him envision make-up sex, which after a few blissful moments left him guilty since it was his wanting uninterrupted “non-cat-scratching and mewing outside the bedroom door” sex that had gotten him into this predicament.
No, a cat was better. A cat and a mouse? He couldn’t think. The cacophony of animal noises, each species communicating from their row of cages in their native tongue, was almost deafening and contrasted oddly with the humans who shushed, ooo’d, and awe’d while speaking in a pseudo-baby-talk language of their own. The place reminded him of a giant horse barn, even though he had never been to one, with its mixture of straw and cat litter that fell from rows of cages and scattered across the plank wood floors. James had never owned a pet, too big a commitment, although he hadn’t expressed this to Linda; he wasn’t a complete fool.
Across the room, a door with a sign read: “Playpens for the Young at Heart.” He ventured into this room staged with two large playpens at opposite ends: one filled with puppies, one with kittens. Two young girls in oversized white lab coats handed kittens or puppies to prospective owners.
He addressed one lab-coated girl near the kittens and, with arms stretched wide, said, “Do you have anything bigger? Something big enough to fend for himself.”
“Oh, you mean a cat?”
Then she escorted him to a giant cage where cats slept or perched on a multi-tiered carpeted dwelling. One cat eyed him from a corner. What if a new cat doesn’t bond with Linda? Linda’s cat certainly hadn’t bonded with him. No, a kitten was better, but wouldn’t it grow up to become a cat and get out again?
“Uh, what about a puppy instead?” he said, walking over to the puppy pen. Having never owned a cat or a dog, James could not fathom that a person might be a dog or a cat person. After all, vets didn’t care for only dogs or cats. They treated both. Besides, a dog could protect Linda. The more he thought about it, the better that choice became. A dog would run up to greet him versus a cat scurrying under the couch to hide. A dog would lick his face and make him smile, versus a cat scratching his hands until they bled. A dog would curl up at his feet to show affection versus a cat running under his to trip him. With the idea of a dog planted firmly in his mind, he couldn’t help but go one step further. What’s better than one puppy? Two, of course, so they can play together. Now that’s thinking responsibly.
***
James wasn’t prepared for the amount of work that caring for two puppies entailed. They didn’t seem to understand that they were supposed to pee on the newspaper in their cage. At night, they whined until his heart broke, sending him out to purchase an alarm clock, which one chat thread said would calm them by simulating a mother’s heartbeat. It didn’t work. He dragged the cage beside his sofa, where he slept with one eye open.
Every day, he’d dash home at lunchtime and leave work early to feed, walk, and play with his puppies. He enjoyed how the soft, furry puppies jumped and ran around before tiring out and nuzzling against each of his thighs when he sat down to watch TV. He set the game on mute, not wanting cheering crowds to agitate them. He called them Puppy One and Puppy Two, imagining that he and Linda would name them together. He smiled at the idea of surprising her. Women love surprises. He could hardly wait.
***
“Another week?”
“There are some things I need to help Mom with while I’m here.”
“Are you sure that’s all?” he said, suddenly realizing Paul was closer in proximity to her than he was.
“What do you mean?
“Did you go to Chicago to see Paul?” James blurted out, wondering if he should fly out right now to confront Paul to tell him it was over between him and Linda. How could that guy not know this? Of course, with Linda there and not here, James could understand how Paul might get confused. After all, James was confused. Why was she there and not here?
“James, I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”
Did she tell Paul about the missing cat? Is he planning on getting her a new cat, because that wouldn’t be a good idea with two new dogs. She would have to return that cat because she was with him now, not Paul. Well, of course, not at this very moment.
“And this is something you have to tell me from Chicago? You know I’m not good with bad news over the phone. Are you okay? Is your mom okay? I don’t care if Paul is okay.”
“Everyone’s fine.”
“Then what? Tell me. I can take it. I mean, I think I can take it.”
“Muffet came back.”
“What?”
“I should have told you before I left,” Linda said, sipping matcha tea. “But I didn’t think you’d understand. A coyote could have eaten Muffet. I needed to take her someplace safer. That’s why I gave her to my mom.
“Whew, not Paul then?”
“Paul? Why would I give my cat to Paul? Paul is a fish person,” Linda said.
Puppy One jumped onto James’s lap and licked his cheek.
“Now, Linda, you don’t actually believe people are strictly fish, cat, or dog people, right? I mean, people can change, or they don’t have to change because maybe they were always both a cat and dog person—or even a dog, cat, and mice person.
“A mouse person? Who would ever want to be a mouse person?”
“Someone might. They come with their own wheel.”
***
The night Linda flew back to Denver, James drove over to Linda’s rented house more nervous than excited, determined to be the man she wanted him to be. Someone she could count on to always understand. He brought a simple gift. One he had thought long and hard about. It was so perfect, he wondered why he’d never considered it before. James gently carried it from his car to her back kitchen door, the same door he had let the cat out, which fueled dread. What if she doesn’t like it? What if she doesn’t realize how much he loves her? After knocking rat-a-tat-tat lighter than usual, kitchen lights came on, footsteps approached, cafe curtains parted, and the door opened.
Before Linda had a chance to say anything, he thrust his arms out with his gift and said, “Welcome home.”
“It’s a cactus,” Linda said.
“Oh, Linda, I knew you’d like it. It hardly needs any water, so if you had to go somewhere and forgot to water it, it would probably be okay. Except, of course, I could always come over and water it for you — if you wanted — if you wanted to give me a key to your place, that is, not that you have to; I mean, it’s a plant, not a dog — I mean, a dog needs constant attention; but, then again, a dog can also be the right kind of attention. Have you ever thought of yourself as a dog person, Linda?”
“What?”
“I mean, I know you’re a cat person and all, but dogs are nice, too, don’t you think? Would you like a dog, Linda, because I got two and I couldn’t bring myself to take them back? They’re in my apartment. I can run and get them, so you can see -- so you can see how much someone can love a dog even though a dog is a really big commitment. You can see that, Linda. Can’t you?”
Linda smiled. He knew he had chosen the perfect gift and was very very very very very happy.
Originally published by Edify Fiction and featured in their anthology.