by Noah Matthews
Copyright 2009
“Get up Sylvia! Get up right now.” Sylvia lie limp on the vinyl floor on one side with her rounded back to her friend Rebecca.
“Becky, I told you not to put that rug there.” Sylvia gave the scrunched rug a weak kick with her right foot.
“How can you complain about that now? Come on dear. Get up.” Rebecca stood leaning on her walker with one hand and pushing back the same shock of gray hair that always seemed to be hanging in her face. Sylvia struggled against the cold floor with her left arm and right hand to no avail. “Aren’t you going to get up?” Rebecca gave her a gentle nudge with her walker.
“Becky, how long have we been friends?”
“Well, its been nigh on to eighty years now. Almost as long as we’ve been alive, but what has that….”
“And in those eighty years, how many times have you pushed me down or tripped me?”
“Why Sylvia!” I never shoved you but playing as a child .” Rebecca swatted at the rebellious hair that had slid from behind her ear and back into her face.
“As I recall, we were pretty rowdy as children. Not as some would say girls should be. At least not back then. I sure did my share of shoving and perhaps, maybe even more than my share.”
“So?” Rebecca scrunched her eyebrows together the way she did in anticipation of hearing something about which she was certain not to agree.
“So, here I lie practically shoved by you to the cold floor and I can’t get up.”
“Gentle Jesus! Do you figure you’ve broken anything?”
“No, Becky. I guess…” She trailed off, refusing to finish the thought, but instead made a hasty substitution. “I guess I’m getting a little older is all.” Sylvia pulled her arms up to her and folded her hands under her cheek.
“Ah,” scoffed Rebecca. “Older? Old. And I’ve been telling you that for thirty years now and all it took was a spill to the floor? You are old. We’re both old. Eighty four, Sylvia. My, my. Eighty four and both still living.”
“Eighty four, eighty four,” Sylvia mocked. “Eight four ain’t nothing.”
“Isn’t anything,” Rebecca corrected her.
“Rebecca Crabtree, don’t you be correcting me now. Was the worst thing your daddy ever did sending you off to be a school teacher. Too hot for your britches you were when you came back to town.”
“You always were jealous. Just a jealous housewife who thought her life hollow while I saw the world.” Rebecca had a way of landing on words she wanted to emphasize. In this case ‘world’ sounded more like ‘huh-whirled.’
“Saw the world? There you go again. You saw Millersburg. A town so small you could pitch a rock from one side to the other. That’s the world you saw. “
“Nonetheless, I did something with my life.” Her eyebrows relaxed in satisfaction.
Sylvia stiffened. “And I didn’t?” I raised seven children and stood by my husband for forty years, God rest his soul. Now you stop taking that attitude with me, you old cow!”
“Cow? Well, I like that, you, you crow….” At this they both smiled. It was a familiar banter. A comforting give and take of words that had been their shared security blanket for all their lives as friends.
Sylvia let a moan, barely audible, escape her lips. Actually she pushed it over her lips and when it did not register a response she produce a second, even louder moan.
“Sylvia! What is it? I’m sorry dear. Something is broken?”
“No. I was just thinking.”
“Well, good grief stop that. You never were much for thinking.”
“Thinking about how times were different when we were younger. You know, the trees seemed greener and taller somehow. The sun warmer, the world….. well, the world…. I don’t know. Perhaps feeling this way comes with age. Remember old Mrs. Perchstrom who lived in that big gray house down near the river?” There was no answer. “Rebecca!”
“Yes, I remember, “ she answered as she made her way to a chair in the adjoining living room.
“Where are you?” Sylvia twisted in a futile attempt to cast a disapproving glare at her retreating audience.
“Well, if you are going to tell one of your stories and there isn’t anything broken, I’m going to sit myself down. You know I can’t stand for long. It hurts my knees.”
“Oh! That is all in your head. Anyway, old Mrs. Perchstrom had a tall wooden fence that ran clean around her property to keep the kids out. Remember that?”
“We always thought it was to keep the kids in so she could eat them.”
“It was to keep us out of her apple trees but it never worked. “
“Neither did that good-for-nothing half starved dog of hers she kept alive on apple cores and kid’s bones,” Rebecca interrupted.
Sylvia rolled her eyes and continued. “You and I used to walk past there every day to and from school. Remember? Oh the skinned knees the both of us got from scaling that fence and climbing those apple trees.”
“It wasn’t actually our fault we took those apples. They always seemed to call to us.”
“Sylvia, Becky. Come get us out of these big trees. Look how red and shiny we are.” Sylvia laughed and closed her eyes, her mind awash with memories of those times. “We felt like we could do anything then. Anything. My how time changes things, Becky. Inside I am just as I was then – still that young girl, but outside, I’ve become old Mrs. Perchstrom. How did it happen?
“I don’t know, dear, but it does. It just does.”
A comfortable silence fell between them.
“You know, you were the best teacher that county had ever seen. You did a fine job.”
“Your Tuck was a lucky man. My how he loved you. And seven fine children.”
“ All gone, Becky. What momma outlives her own children? But, that is just what I’ve gone and done.”
Silence drifted into the kitchen and living room and once again settled over them. The mantle clock breathed its tick, tock, tick, tock. The burner under the water heater in the hall closet puffed and flames danced their way around the circular burner. The house settled gently into its comfortable and familiar song of occasional creaks and groans.
“Sweet Lord alive!”
Rebecca straightened from her chair slump. “What is it? Are you in pain?”
“I can see clean under the refrigerator from here and its awful! The dirt!”
“Oh Sylvia. I’m going to call Richard and have him come over and help you up. He’s such a nice neighbor.”
“Help me up,” Sylvia repeated softly. “I guess I am old.”
“Then we can all have a nice cup of hot tea.”
“And an apple?”
“Yes dear, a cup of tea and an apple.”
