Mary rose from the grass slowly, brushing a few stray blades from her knees, using the headstone for support. She remembered a time when she stood effortlessly from a cross-legged sit, long legs unfolding like a newborn foal’s.
“You okay, Ma?” her son asked. “Need a hand?”
Mary allowed herself to be guided to her son’s Suburban. “I need a ladder to get up in here, Jimmy,” she told him. Jimmy smiled and hoisted her into the front passenger seat. “Need to make any stops or are we going right home?” he asked.
Mary shook her head, thinking about the places in town she and Earl visited every week on their errands. Not that they ever really needed anything. Jimmy took care of most everything on the computer somehow. He had groceries delivered, paid their bills, arranged for a home health aid to come by a few times a week and help make sense of their medications, and scheduled the teenager on the next block to come and take care of the yard. Jimmy even ordered pizza from their favorite restaurant and had it delivered to the house every Friday evening.
Earl used to complain that he felt like a prisoner serving a life sentence. “That boy is worse than a warden, Mary,” he would declare. “If we were in jail, at least we might get parole.”
“He means well,” Mary would reply, feeling like a prisoner herself.
One day late in the morning, Earl came to her and said he was out of eardrops and needed more. Mary picked up the phone to call Jimmy, but Earl stopped her. “Let’s just run a little errand and get them ourselves,” he said.
Mary smiled. Earl handed her her purse and put on his hat. “We’ll go to the Rite Aid next to Willy’s,” he said. “Have a grilled cheese after.”
After that day, Mary and Earl found the need to run errands several times a week. A trip to the hardware store for a lightbulb for Earl’s bedside lamp on Monday. A chocolate Frosty at the Wendy’s drive-through before bed on Wednesday. Thursday morning, a yard of light blue satin ribbon from the craft store for Mary’s flower arrangement. Another outing for an order of waffle fries from Willy’s. “The warden doesn’t need to know we figured out a way to escape for a little bit,” Earl would cackle.
And now Earl was gone, his escape eternal.
Mary didn’t believe Earl would just up and leave like that without her. She waited up every night. She had Jimmy drive her to the cemetery three mornings a week and she waited there. One Saturday, when Jimmy was meeting with some people who wanted to buy Earl’s car, Mary mentioned that she felt like some waffle fries from Willy’s.
“No problem, Ma,” Jimmy told her, pulling out his phone. “Willy’s has an app now. Fries’ll be here in no time.”
As the spring flowed into summer, Mary sat on the porch and waited for a sign from Earl. She watched the teenager mow the grass and shake his head when she offered lemonade. Her Friday night pizza lasted several days; she sat on the porch with a cold slice on a napkin in her lap. The air shimmered and crickets did the wave.
Seven weeks after the funeral, Mary was ready. Earl wasn’t coming back for her. Jimmy had gone home, assuring her he’d be back Saturday. The house was quiet in a way Mary had never noticed before. She escaped to the front porch with a cup of mint tea and the last of Earl’s Twinkies and listened to the crickets.
When the sun started to dip, Mary went back inside and rinsed out her cup and left it in the sink. She changed into her favorite nightgown, the baby blue faded cotton one. She padded into the bathroom and washed her hands and face, combed her hair, and found the bottle of Earl’s Dilaudid, plus her own expired stash of Vicodin. Mary walked down the hall to the kitchen and fetched a wine cooler Jimmy kept in the fridge. Carried it back to the bedroom and arranged the three bottles on Earl’s nightstand.
Mary sat on the edge of the bed and turned on the little bedroom TV to watch Wheel of Fortune as she took the pills and drank the wine cooler. Then she got under the quilt and stretched. Someone was buying a vowel as Mary closed her eyes. She felt the bed bobbing gently, and remembered a wedding she and Earl had gone to years ago, when Mary had had two White Russians and whispered to Earl that her chair was undulating.
When she opened her eyes again, feeling as refreshed as a teenager after fourteen hours of sleep, Earl was sitting next to her, holding her hand.
“Baby, you finally made it,” he said, beaming at her. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to make your escape.”
“I’m here now,” Mary said, squeezing his hand.
“Welcome home, beloved,” he told her.
