Remember,Molly?
By
Sharon Rose
The old man leaned forward, pressing his frail body against the cold north wind. It was an important day and he needed to talk to her. He stopped for a moment to rest and gaze up at the heavy low clouds. It would start to snow soon. He tried to move faster. The aluminum cane irritated him but he was afraid that if he didn’t use it, he might fall. It didn’t seem all that long ago that he could run like a deer. How could the years have slipped by so quickly? Tomorrow, he would be ninety-two. Would he be able to make this trip again? There was a broad smile on his face as he walked the last few yards. It was worth it all.
“Well, old dear, here I am,” he said. “I bet you thought I wouldn’t make it out on such a cold day, did you?” He laughed and took his mitts off. “See the snow coming down? I think it’s going to be a long cold winter.” He stomped some of the snow off his boots. “Remember the winter of ’35? By golly, I didn’t think we’d make it through that one. Snowdrifts over six feet high. We couldn’t get out to milk the cows for three days. Course, I guess some good came of it. Seems to me that Jacob came along not too long afterwards.”
The old man chuckled. “Aw, Molly, we had some wonderful times, didn’t we? Remember the day we met? They’d just opened that new grocery store in town and Pa and I came in for supplies. And, there you were, standing behind that counter looking pretty as a picture. You were seventeen and I was all of nineteen. Well, a boy that age was a man back then. I could stack hay and run a steam engine with the best of them. And, you? You were a real lady with your red hair all done up in ringlets.” He stopped for a moment and grinned. “I kept buying one thing at a time so I’d have an excuse to keep going back. My pa thought I’d lost my mind. What he didn’t know right then was that I’d lost my heart.”
The wind suddenly picked up and snow began to swirl along the ground, creating small drifts here and there.
“I’ll never forget the time you let John Henry take you to that dance. I don’t know how you couldn’t realize how I felt about you, Molly. You knew it was spring roundup. Oh well, maybe it was for the good. I made sure to come to town every Saturday night after that. Good thing I did too because that fall you agreed to be my wife.”
Tears sprang up into his eyes but he brushed them away with his hand. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his nose.
“It was a day almost like this,” he said, as he watched the barren tree branches bob. “I know you were disappointed. Every bride dreams of a June wedding but you know, old girl, it was a chance to get free government land and I couldn’t pass that up. Those were difficult years for you, moving far away from your folks. You worked hard to make that little shack into a home. How were we to know that the Depression would hit and shatter our dreams? By then, we had three sons. We lost everything. I can’t tell you how terrible I felt, Molly. And, I still do. I was supposed to be taking care of you. I made a vow and I didn’t keep it. There was such sadness in your eyes when we had to move back to live with my folks. I never told you this but one day, sweetheart, I caught you crying down by the river. You looked so lonely, so thin and frail. I knew then that I had to build a house for you. You’d given me five sons and I couldn’t ask any more of you.”
The old man paused and shook his head. It seemed like it had happened only yesterday.
“You were so excited about that new house. I don’t think I’d ever seen you so happy. You tied that pretty red hair of yours up in a bow, put on a pair of overalls and swung a hammer just like the men.” He stopped again and stared up at the darkening sky. “Why didn’t I see that you were working too hard? Why didn’t you say something? You never once complained. When it was harvest time, you prepared meals for over forty men. Everyone loved your apple pies. Remember, Molly?”
He sighed. It had been a long time since he’d tasted pie like that. Come to think of it, nothing tasted very good anymore.
“I guess while we’re reminiscing, we might as well talk about the time I came home from selling that herd of cattle and found John Henry in my living room. And, I don’t care what you say, old dear, I know that man never stopped loving you. You were still a beautiful woman and I was jealous. I’d bought you that pretty green scarf in town and somehow when I saw him sitting there, it just took all the joy away. I grabbed him by the shirt, lifted him right off that chair, and hit him with my fist as hard as I could. I can still see the look of horror on your face!”
He started to laugh.
“It wasn’t until I looked over John’s unconscious body that I noticed someone else was in the room.”
Tears ran down his cheeks. He caught his breath and wiped them away. It felt good; it had been a long time since he’d laughed like that.
“Now, how the heck was I supposed to know that old John had gone and taken a mail order bride?” He grinned and shook his head. “Yessir, people talked about that one for a long time. I don’t think they knew you made me sleep on the sofa for the next week though.”
He folded his handkerchief and put it back in his jacket pocket. His hands were getting cold. It seemed his hands and feet were always cold nowadays. The doctor said it was poor circulation - just something else that comes with old age. He was tired of hearing that as an excuse for everything.
“You know why I came today, don’t you, sweetheart? It will be forty years tomorrow. Forty long years. I don’t know why you had to leave me so soon. They told me you had a weak heart. Why didn’t we know sooner? I wouldn’t have let you work so hard, Molly. I know the doctor said that had nothing to do with it; it was something you were born with but I would’ve done things differently. We could’ve spent more time together. Just the two of us. But, you know, old girl, I miss you today as much as I did forty years ago. Forty years is a long time to live with just the memories but they are good memories and I thank you for them, Molly Brown.”
He straightened up and looked down the path he’d come on. It was a bleak lonely path.
“I’ll have to get back now or the nurses will be out looking for me. They know where I am. I told them that I was coming to see you today. I was going to bring you flowers but it’s too cold for that so I brought you something else, Molly.”
The old man pulled a pretty green silk scarf out of his pocket. He tied it carefully around the cold marble headstone. “I’ll come again when I can, Molly. It might not be until spring but I know you’ll be right here waiting. I’ll be ninety two tomorrow and you never know what the next day will bring when you get my age.”
The end.
