The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(108)

Her wake and funeral were held at Our Lady of Mercy. The pews were filled with so many people from our past that the pastor had to open the choir loft, something usually done only during the holidays for the attendees my father had called Christmas Catholics.

I buried her at the Catholic cemetery. Six weeks later, I buried my father beside her. He simply could not live without her.





13

Several months after my parents’ deaths, at the end of January, I walked in the door with two six-packs of Corona and margarita mix. Sunday nights, Mickie and I either cooked or went out for Mexican food. Tonight, Ernie and Michelle were joining us. They had taken their youngest son off to college the prior weekend after a few semesters at the local community college, and we were celebrating their freedom as empty nesters. I recalled Dr. Fukomara’s statement to me during my vasectomy consult that he and his wife were empty nesters and could have sex in any room in the house. When I said the same thing to Ernie on the phone, he’d responded, “Yeah, but do you?”

Mickie stood at the kitchen counter, sprinkling cheese over the top of a neatly arranged tray of tacos. Douglas and Blue, the two pit bull puppies Mickie had rescued from the Burlingame pound, sat at her feet, hoping for spillage.

Mickie and I had settled into a regular routine. We traded off cooking dinner and doing the chores around the house. To keep busy after my parents’ deaths, I spent my free time working on bringing Fernando to live with us. Mickie loved to garden, something she got from those afternoons she’d spent with my mother. In no time, she had transformed my bleak and neglected front yard into something worthy of a picture in a magazine.

A part of me, the insecure part, still had moments of anxiety, moments when I would drive down the block, certain Mickie’s blue Honda with the white racing stripe would be gone. But the car was always there, and so was she. I should have been happy with the situation; I should have accepted this was all Mickie had ever been capable of giving. Marriage was just not something she wanted to consider. When I brought it up, she had brushed it aside, asked why we needed a piece of paper to tell us what we already knew, that we loved each other and would never leave the other.

But that was not my nature. I was my mother’s son, and it was our way to rock the boat.

“Do you want to marry me?” I asked, putting the Corona on the counter.

The cheese stopped falling.

When Mickie did not answer, did not look at me, I made a joke, which was also my nature. “This would make it official,” I said. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry what name Douglas and Blue should use at school or if they should hyphenate it. And there’s Fernando,” I said. “I’m still optimistic, despite the red tape. I’m optimistic we can have what my parents had. A family.”

Mickie finally looked up at me. “I love you, Sam.”

“I love you, too.”

“But you know how I feel about marriage.”

I tried to smile. “Is it against your religion or something, because I’m willing to convert.”

“Don’t joke.”

“Help me to understand. I want to have what my parents had. I thought we both wanted that.”

“We can’t, Sam.”

“I think we can.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She picked up the tray of tacos as if to move past me. “You deserve someone better.”

“I don’t want someone better. I want you.”

“Thanks a lot.”

We laughed. I took the tray and placed it on the counter and put my hands around her waist. “So, is that a yes?”

She put her arms around my neck. “You’re sweet, Sam. I regret a lot of the things I did in my life. I can’t take them back.”

“Is that what this is about? I don’t care about your past, or who you’ve been with or what you’ve done. Do you love me?”

“I’ve always loved you, Sam, even when you didn’t know it.”

“Then why isn’t that enough?”

“I gave away a part of me in my youth, Sam. I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s a part I can’t get back. It’s a part that you deserve.”

“What?” I was dumbfounded, but then again, maybe I wasn’t. Maybe this was one of those things that Mickie had spent so much time talking about and crying about with my mother for all those years. At that moment, I felt fear, certain Mickie would tell me that I was going to lose her, too.

But before Mickie could answer, I heard Ernie’s BMW in the driveway. “For such a great athlete, his timing has always sucked,” I said.

“Can we table this for the night? Maybe talk about it when I get back from my conference?”

In the morning, Mickie was to leave for a College of Optometry conference in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on advances in the treatment of keratoconus, a degenerative disorder of the eye. I had intended on going with her, but we had turned our practice into a free eye clinic for the disadvantaged, and I needed to be there.

“Okay,” I said, knowing it best not to push her. “We’ll just enjoy Mexican Night.”

“Gracias, se?or.”

“De nada, se?orita.”

We ate our tacos and drank margaritas while listening to the guitar riffs of Carlos Santana. “A toast,” Ernie said. “To good friends.”