Apology Unaccepted
by Tracey C Boone Swan © 2006
“I’m sorry that I forgot your birthday, Dear,” he said picking up a piece of toast from the delicate gold rimmed plate in the middle of the breakfast table. “I’ll make it up to you though, Sweetheart."
She wondered if he ever could.
She glanced at the table; everything was in its exact place as it was every morning. The table was covered with a perfectly pressed linen table cloth. Flawlessly folded napkins sat gracefully next to each plate anchoring the perfectly positioned silverware. She set the table meticulously with her best china for every meal. The morning china was in a cheery rose pattern trimmed with gold. In the evening she set out a tasteful, more formal, Chantilly pattern. She had already been up for two hours when he plopped, yawning and stretching, into his chair at the breakfast table.
She looked up from the shirt she was pressing to the end of the table where he sat, spreading his apology as thick as the plum jam he layered on the toast.
Little hair was left on his gleaming head, a head that had once been filled with thick locks. His eyebrows were a bushy mess, threatening to poke out one of his eyes each time he expressed interest. White and gray whiskers protruded out of his upper lip and moved hypnotically as he spoke. He took a bite of the egg that she’d poached and she watched as he chewed, his mouth open exposing egg white mixing with the oozing yolk, the same eggs she’d run out to buy at five-thirty the evening before because she knew he’d expect eggs with his breakfast.
Steam rose from the iron as she set it on the end of the ironing board. She’d already laid his pants across the bed right underneath a crisp clean white undershirt and cotton boxers she’d folded at 5:00 am that morning.
He was talking to her now. He was really talking at her. She wondered how it had taken her so long, thirty-seven years, to figure out her mother had been right about him. How many times had he forgotten her birthday? She’d lost count. She picked up the steaming iron and continued ironing the shirt.
“Mr. Adams has asked me to take over the Roberts account.”
“Humm,” she said. That was all she had to say; just enough to indicate she’d heard him, but nothing of her opinion. He never cared what she said. She watched him cram the last corner of toast on his plate, dripping with raw yolk and red plum jam, into his mouth and before he’d swallowed, he grabbed another slice from the plate.
He had worked at the same company for the last twenty years. Other men had been promoted or found better prospects else where, but not Harry; he was content to be passed over as long as he had a job.
She put the iron on the end of the board and watched the steam rise. He was still talking when she turned the shirt on its back, fitting the fabric on the curved nose of the ironing board.
He was going on and on about something he needed her to do. His socks…the brown pair needed mending, would she mind taking care of that today. And he had another pair in his bedside table that had a hole in the heel.
“Of course, Luv, I’ll take care of it,” she said pressing the creases out of the pale colored shirt.
“And while you’re at it,” he continued pausing to belch, “can you pick up my overcoat from the cleaners?”
She nodded her head and glanced at the table. There was little left to eat. She finished off the shirt, put it on a hanger, and carrying it in her hand, she walked behind Harry. Reaching up, she hung the freshly pressed shirt on the door frame.
She was standing next to counter only inches away from the brewing coffee pot and just about to pour herself the last cup, sit down and finally have a sip of coffee, when Harry asked her, “Be a dear and top off my coffee, will you?”
“Of course," she said leaving her empty cup on the counter, she grabbed the coffee pot and carefully poured the coffee to the brim.
“Thank you, Sweetheart,” Harry said, “You’re the best. Sugar?”
She turned passively and put the empty coffee pot on the counter and effortlessly opened the narrow tool drawer right next to the sugar canister.
"Of course, Luv," she said as she raised the hammer high behind his head.