Edward and Phyllis—the perfect lifetime partners through thick and thin.
But when death takes Phyllis, can Edward find the perfect way to honor his dear wife’s memory?
Edward draped his tired arm over the back of the well-worn wooden bench. Many evenings he and Phyllis had spent here watching the sun dip below Lake Michigan’s rim. Sometimes in blazing summer heat. Sometimes in crisp fall air. Always together. Always with his left arm draped over the bench behind her shoulders. Her nestled into his side.
Connected.
The seat beside him was empty for the first time since before the choppy lake shore grew to the attraction it now is. He and Phyllis courted here with a plaid wool blanket spread on the unkempt sand. A wicker picnic basket held whatever goodies Phyllis had baked.
He shook his head when he remembered the time she’d tricked him. Put the black snake—very much alive and very much angry—in the bottom of the basket. He’d shot up from the blanket, into the lake, and was halfway to Canada before his heart stopped racing. She’d laid back in the sand and guffawed at him. He’d come back to their lunch spot, dripping wet and not too trusting, only after the snake had retreated to the dunes. For the next ten picnics, he’d been the one to pack their basket.
Edward asked why she’d done it. She stretched her legs out, her blond hair falling across her shoulders, and blinked her blue eyes at him. “So, Edward, when I die, you’ll have a good story to tell at my funeral.” How young they’d been.
And he had the preacher tell that story at her funeral. Most everyone knew it already. Everyone but the preacher, and he hadn’t wanted to include such an antic in the eulogy, but Edward insisted.
He and Phyllis had watched, year by year, as the beach grew to a tourist spot. They’d gave up their blanket and picnics when their joints didn’t allow for such maneuvers down to the sandy beach and when the beer can and dirty diaper litter kept them on the perimeter.
They settled for long walks down the cement sidewalk toward the fishing pier and lighthouse. Then they’d laid claim to the bench. Watching the walkers and joggers and lovers and haters. Children dragging mothers to the water’s rippling edge. Mothers dragging children, sand caked to their bare legs and feet, back to the walkway. Back to the parking lot.
Phyllis and Edward had been actors in that scene more than once with their own children. Even now, his own children and his children’s children waited in the parking lot, or maybe they were skipping in the opposite direction of the bench. He didn’t know. But he was glad they’d given him some moments alone—well, as alone as one could be on a public beach—before Phyllis’s final send-off party.
A drone buzzed overhead. Edward leaned forward from his seat a bit to see if he could spot the police officer manning the flying machine, but the man—or lady cop—was too far down the beach. He remembered when the drones came. At first he thought it was a kite or a remote-control airplane some teenager had spent his allowance on. Over the years, he and his wife had watched more than one meltdown over unintended water landings of such not-so-waterproof craft. Tears and squawks and boohoos over the gadgets Lake Michigan swallowed up.
But the drones were different. Crime increased. Police force numbers were down. So they employed eyes to the sky and, if a ruckus or problem arose, a cop or two on four-wheelers would come flying down the beach. Phyllis had spotted the drones first and figured out what was happening. “It’s so if someone’s down here mooning the boardwalk, the police can respond right quick to catch it first-hand.” She’d grinned at him. Eyes still as blue as when they dated. “So keep your pants on, old man.”
And they’d seen plenty of full moons on the boardwalk.
The drone flew past Edward’s bench and hovered over the fishing pier. His hearing was going, but he could tell by the small groups’ collective body language that things were heating up. Waving arms. Hands on hips. Stomping off when someone pointed at the aerial surveillance. The group dispersed. No cops came rushing down the beach. Too bad.
Edward and Phyllis always liked waiting for those white and black four wheelers.
Edward leaned back on the bench and stretched his legs out in front of him. His dark trousers soaked up the sun’s rays. He’d have been more comfortable in his golf shorts, but they’d come straight from the funeral home. The drone floated and bobbed back in the opposite direction. Edward waved at it and draped his arm back over the side, smiling.
Phyllis. That day with the drone. He’d never know how long the idea had played in her head. How long she’d planned the antic or if it just…happened.
After a similar instance where the drone managed to break up a potentially volatile situation, on its way back, Phyllis decided to follow it. Waving. Half jogging, half running.
Which brought a four-wheeler, because Edward was trying to get her to stop. And the eyes in the sky thought something was wrong with the old couple. Or that Edward was after her. When the young, straight-outta-training lad came rushing to her aid, she assured the man that Edward was harmless, a pussy cat really. She’d batted those crystal blue eyes at him and said she wanted to know if the cop and his buddies were really watching. And to thank him for his service. “And, by the way, kind officer, could I have a ride?”
And without waiting for a reply, she’d flung one leg over the back of the four-wheeler, situated herself on the seat behind the young man, wrapped one arm around him, pointed straight ahead with the other, and shouted “Onward!” The boy turned all kinds of red, as did Edward, and the officer took off with Phyllis whooping and laughing up and down the beach.
Carl, his name was. He was at the funeral today. And Phyllis had gotten him to give her more than one ride on the four-wheelers, but only after she’d promised not to wave down the drone unless something was wrong. Carl promised to find her if he was on duty. He’d offered Edward rides, but Edward allowed Phyllis all the glory. Enjoying her enjoying herself.
When their son asked her what she was thinking, she replied, “So when I die, you’ll have a good story to tell at my funeral.”
Carl, more man than boy from that first night on the beach, told this one. With a stern warning to the funeral-goers not to wave down drones—lest the spunky gene run in the family.
Edward could see his family making their way toward him. Good-looking group, even if he was biased. They bumped and amoeba-d their way along the sidewalk, sometimes stopping to let the kids meander off the walkway onto the sand. The beach wasn’t all that crowded this evening, for which he was glad. Phyllis liked to people watch, but Edward wanted some privacy tonight. His son had Phyllis’s ashes tucked under his arm.
It’d been a long day.
It’ll be a long few months, adjusting to the empty space on the bench.
The empty seat at the dining room table for two in their tiny beach house three streets up from the dunes.
The empty spot in the bed next to him.
He watched as his daughter swatted the two-year-old’s rear. The boy had tried to taste the sand. Edward’s son and his wife had their hands full with pre-teenagers. Tweens they call them now. Everything had a label. Phyllis didn’t like that. Political correctness was never her strong suit. Phyllis pretty much said what was on her mind.
“Let the words fall where they fall. Call a duck a duck, an idiot an idiot.”
He guessed by the pace the group was walking that he had about five more minutes. Maybe ten if the kids kept getting distracted.
That was another game the couple had played. How long do you think that person/group/child/cop will take to get from the lamppost at the corner of the parking lot all the way to the worn wooden bench? They’d gotten pretty good at it. Even played around on their Jitterbug phone with the timer and could nail down most passerby’s rates to ten-second ranges.
The toddlers always made things interesting, though. “The wildcards of life!” Phyllis would say.
The breeze blew off the water, sending a shiver of cold over Edward’s bones despite the funeral suit’s layers. Edward felt for the fat, black permanent marker in his inside suit pocket. It was still there. He’d planned on passing it on to his son. Just before, but not too soon.
Further down the beach, a group of young men were whooping and goofing off. One guy, young and dumb, passed off his canned beverage to one of the buddies and took off ripping through the water, cartwheeling and failing miserably. The group laughed and journeyed on with their drenched, foolish friend.
Fitting. Edward smiled again. Phyllis’s other favorite thing to do after their bodies had slowed down was to spot the “hold this” moments. Where an idiot got an idea and the idiot’s buddies gave audience and helped by holding the beer can, or fishing pole, or whatever.
She and Edward would laugh and then retell their own—mostly her—“hold this” moments.
The family was half the distance to the bench they’d been a minute ago. The toddler, wild hair blowing in all directions, sticking to his face, had fallen in line and held on to mommy’s hand. He remembered silhouettes of Phyllis holding their children’s hands through the years. Walking this beach after a long day. Or early summer mornings. “To wear the little rascals out so you and I can have some fun later, Ed.” Then she’d wink. With those Caribbean, crystal blue eyes.
Carl was coming up the beach, too, small shovels tucked alongside him on the four-wheeler. Edward stood to stretch. It was about time to put Phyllis to rest. Though she’d not like that phrase. She’d want to be out bopping and frolicking and getting into mischief. But she’d agreed to this place. To keep Edward company for as long as he could make it to the boardwalk. His old legs, happy to accompany Phyllis on whatever grand adventures she’d dreamed up were stoving up. It was today or never. He felt for the marker again and twisted his wedding band nervously.
“Ready, Dad?” His daughter laid her head on his shoulder and rubbed his back. She looked like her mom. Blond. Blue-eyed. Phyllis lives on. He returned the gentle half-hug and focused down on his wedding band again.
Phyllis had twirled it that last day at the beach house. There in the bathroom. The day she’d decided to go into the hospital for pain control. “I need your help, Edward.” She’d stood in front of the mirror and looked at her reflection next to his. She reached up and felt his cheek. He bent down and kissed her gray hair. Still gorgeous. Her eyes still blue, though dulling, more Lake Michigan than Caribbean.
“Anything.”
She twisted his wedding band. “You’re not gonna like it.”
He’d smiled at her. “That’s what you’ve said before all of our grandest memories.”
She handed him a black permanent marker and undid the top couple of buttons of her nightgown. “I want you to write what I tell you. Right here.” She ran her finger along the underside of her collar bone. Just above her heart. Her hand trembled. Phyllis hated hospitals. She’d wanted to pass at home, but things escalated quickly. No time for hospice set-up. No time for planning. Just diagnosis and pain.
“I’m confused—”
She brought his hand holding the uncapped marker to her skin. “I’m scared, Ed. I don’t want to linger. I want to be free. So, I want you to write right here.” She pointed again. He nodded.
“Write: So, when I die, let me be,” her voice shook. “This way, they’ll see. And they won’t try…”
Edward’s hand paused. She’d turned to look at him straight in the face. Took his scruffy cheeks in her hands. “Please.” She twirled his wedding band on his left hand as he wrote with his right. The Do Not Resuscitate order, Phyllis style, under her collar bone.
At the hospital, the nurses fell in love with Phyllis. His wife’s personality oozed out wherever she went, despite her pain. One gal, Serena, senior nurse, said “Now, I’ve seen it all.”
She’d taken great care of Phyllis in those last days. And she’d been at the funeral, too. And Serena had helped Edward with his own permanent marker request—after some protesting, of course, and assurances that Edward wasn’t trying anything, well, final.
“Quite the opposite, Serena. Quite the opposite. I’m taking a page from Phyllis’s book on life.” He’d winked at the old nurse and she’d happily complied with his request.
Now his family—what he and Phyllis had spent years creating and nurturing—arrived at the bench. Carl stood with shovels ready. And the younger men got to work as Edward cradled his wife in his hands for the last time. The funeral director had shown him urns of all sorts. He found the loudest, brightest one. A lime green one with purple streaks. Loud and proud. Like his beloved.
He patted the top of the box and laid it gently in the sandy earth. He stood back as Carl led the efforts to wrap Phyllis in her favorite beachy earth. Near her favorite bench.
As Edward watched, he started unbuttoning, his hands shaking. Sweating. He thought about backing out, but he was old enough to get away with such antics. Maybe they’d blame it on massive grief and loss. But it was now or never for Edward’s “hold this” moment.
He could taste the sweaty salt on his lips as he fiddled with the shirt buttons. Then his trouser buttons. Then his zipper. A smile broke over his wrinkled face. No one was watching him. They were all watching her.
Once all the things that bound him into the funeral suit were loosened, he retrieved the permanent marker. He slipped out of his shoes. Still no one was watching him. Not even the little ones looked back toward the water.
Off came the socks.
Edward dropped the suit jacket to the bench’s back rest. He pulled his son aside and handed him the fat pen.
“Here, Son. Hold my marker.”
Before the young man could respond, Edward ripped off the dress shirt, stepped out of the suit pants and took off running toward Carl’s four-wheeler wearing nothing but blue and white polka-dotted boxers and a block-lettered message scrolled across his back: SO WHEN I DIE…
He jumped onto the ATV, started the engine—thankful Carl had left the key in the ignition—and took himself on his first joy ride.
Well, that’s not accurate.
Life with Phyllis was a complete and utter joy ride. Every day.
What a rush! As he sped down the beach, sand kicking up against his bare back and legs, his family shouted warnings over the engine’s rev and the tweens whooped and cheered. He braked hard and turned back toward them for another pulse-pounding pass.
So they’d get this moment good and imbedded in their minds.
So when he died, this would be the first of many good stories to tell at his funeral.
