Niles Reddick is author of the novel Pulitzer nominated Drifting too far from the Shore, a collection Road Kill Art and Other Oddities, and a novella Lead Me Home. His work has been featured in eleven anthologies/collections and in over a hundred and fifty literary magazines all over the world including PIF, Drunk Monkeys, Spelk, Cheap Pop, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Slice of Life, Faircloth Review, among many others. His new collection Reading the Coffee Grounds was just released. His website is www.nilesreddick.com
Symphony
for Gloria
When the Hospice nurse left Sam’s room, she told Iris, “You can go in now. He’s still awake.”
“Thank you,” Iris replied, adding, “for everything.”
The nurse smiled, walked down the hall to collect her purse and coat from the rack.
“Sam?” Iris called, pushing the door open. “You awake?”
“Sure, I’m awake.” His eyes were closed, but he opened them wide, turned his head, and glared at Iris. “I’ve already had a bath,” he told her.
“Yes, I know,” she said.
“Then, what do you want?”
“I thought I’d sit with you a while. We can talk or I could read the newspaper to you.”
“I can read,” he said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“We can talk about whatever you want to,” she said. She remembered how she’d done all the talking when he was stationed in New Jersey and they met at Atlantic Beach on the boardwalk. They’d had a hot dog at the stand, drank Cokes, and held hands. She was captivated by his Southern drawl, his yes mams, and couldn’t imagine moving South, where it wasn’t the heat that was so bad, but the humidity and insects.
“I don’t mind talking to you, but I see you’re wearing a ring,” Sam said. “Don’t you think your husband might get jealous?”
Iris thought he was lucid, that he was playing with her as he’d always done. “Oh, come on.” She touched his hand. “You’re my husband.”
“No, I’m not,” he said. He pulled his hand up toward him. “I don’t even know you.” Sam closed his eyes, and before Iris could stand and walk to the bedroom door, he was snoring.
Tears welled in Iris’ eyes, she pulled the door closed, and scurried to the living room, sat on the sofa, and bawled. Iris knew it was the Alzheimer’s eating his memory, but the diagnosis and realization didn’t erase the pain she felt about losing him, of him not even knowing who she was. Even her believing he was between worlds, partly here and partly there on the other side in an afterlife, and that they would someday be together again, didn’t really help take away the feelings she had when he didn’t know her.
She walked over to the stereo. She was wearing a house dress and bedroom slippers. She turned on the best of Diana Ross and the Supremes, and as their harmony, music, and back-up played gently, she danced slowly, sliding her slippers across the wooden floor, imagining and remembering their dancing in this very spot draped in each other’s arms when they first bought the cottage sixty years ago, then just outside of town. Now, the town had sprawled and their neighborhood was considered a historical district, and even though Sam is in the other room moving closer and closer toward the exit door, she feels him, smells Old Spice, and hears the symphony she once felt.