{"id":479,"date":"2018-10-26T01:22:39","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T01:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/?p=479"},"modified":"2018-10-06T20:29:32","modified_gmt":"2018-10-06T20:29:32","slug":"symphony-by-niles-reddick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2018\/10\/26\/symphony-by-niles-reddick\/","title":{"rendered":"Symphony by Niles Reddick"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/em><\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

Symphony<\/h3>\n

for Gloria<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the Hospice nurse left Sam\u2019s room, she told Iris, \u201cYou can go in now. He\u2019s still awake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you,\u201d Iris replied, adding, \u201cfor everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nurse smiled, walked down the hall to collect her purse and coat from the rack.<\/p>\n

\u201cSam?\u201d Iris called, pushing the door open. \u201cYou awake?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, I\u2019m awake.\u201d His eyes were closed, but he opened them wide, turned his head, and glared at Iris. \u201cI\u2019ve already had a bath,\u201d he told her.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, what do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I\u2019d sit with you a while. We can talk or I could read the newspaper to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can read,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat do you want to talk about?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can talk about whatever you want to,\u201d she said. She remembered how she\u2019d done all the talking when he was stationed in New Jersey and they met at Atlantic Beach on the boardwalk. They\u2019d had a hot dog at the stand, drank Cokes, and held hands. She was captivated by his Southern drawl, his yes mams, and couldn\u2019t imagine moving South, where it wasn\u2019t the heat that was so bad, but the humidity and insects.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t mind talking to you, but I see you\u2019re wearing a ring,\u201d Sam said. \u201cDon\u2019t you think your husband might get jealous?\u201d<\/p>\n

Iris thought he was lucid, that he was playing with her as he\u2019d always done. \u201cOh, come on.\u201d She touched his hand. \u201cYou\u2019re my husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m not,\u201d he said. He pulled his hand up toward him. \u201cI don\u2019t even know you.\u201d Sam closed his eyes, and before Iris could stand and walk to the bedroom door, he was snoring.<\/p>\n

Tears welled in Iris\u2019 eyes, she pulled the door closed, and scurried to the living room, sat on the sofa, and bawled.\u00a0 Iris knew it was the Alzheimer\u2019s eating his memory, but the diagnosis and realization didn\u2019t 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\u2019t really help take away the feelings she had when he didn\u2019t know her.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-7J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":482,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions\/482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}