Late Bloomers

I feel like a hothouse tomato somebody jerked out of the pot and stuffed in the ground, then forgot to water. I thought I was doing fine, all dressed up, finally back on the piano bench at Smithville Baptist Church playing the prelude. Then Laura McCord, the town's failed opera singer and chief busybody, leaned over and said, "Pssst, Emily. Your shoes." Good lord. One blue and one black. That's what I get for trying to be a Nancy Reagan kind of widow who glides gracefully through grief instead of what I am"a slightly hysterical, totally clueless, recently bereaved woman who doesn't have the foggiest idea how I'll get through the rest of my life without Mike Jones. I don't think I should get out of the house again for about six years. Why didn't I take Delta's advice? She's smarter than I am, more educated, more beautiful, more everything. If she weren't my first cousin and best friend, I'd hate her. "Emily, you've got to let yourself grieve. Hole up and just let it rip. Stop prancing around trying to act like Bob Hope entertaining the troops." That's me to a T, always front and center, making sure everybody is having a good time, spinning tales, making them laugh. Even in the aftermath of death, for Pete's sake. Delta writes travel guides at the speed of light" a workaholic, her husbands said"and I finally convinced her to go on to Hot Springs where she's researching not one but two guides"one to spas and the other to great Southern restaurants. Although I'm three years older, it has always seemed the reverse to me. She came into this world screeching and batting her fists against the injustice of being jerked out of the safe haven of the womb into a remorseless world where her daddy would vanish under cover of night when she was six, and both her husbands would walk out to "find something more"as if there were anything in this world better than Delta Jordan. I'd hugged her hard, and then said, "You go on now, Delta. It's high time for me to grow up." She knew exactly what I meant. Mike petted and pampered me and protected me from life's messy chores, such as balancing checkbooks. If I'm to survive without him, I've got to start learning how to do a few things by myself. But first I have to finish playing the prelude. I don't know what possessed me to think I could sit here only three months after the funeral praising the Lord with music instead of wanting to box his Holy jaws for prematurely jerking my husband up to Glory Land. Granted, Mike was sixty-five, fourteen years older than I. Still, he had the joie de vivre of a fortyyear-old. What he didn't have was the capacity to win over the cancer cells that invaded his brain. I'm going to beat this thing," he'd say, even after all his hair was gone and he could barely put his harmonica to his lips. I believed him. I would picture the Big C slinking off in the face of Mike's riproaring rendition of "Mess Around." He loved blues. It's the kind of music you fall into, the kind that leaves no room for death and the injustice of being the one left behind to cope. "Pssst, Emily." Laura McCord taps me on the shoulder again. "Stop it." I drown her out, falling into this music, tapping the rhythm with my fashion faux pas shoes. The preacher gets down from his pulpit and heads my way. "Emily, I'll have somebody take you home. I don't believe this church is ready for rockabilly." To my mortification I realize I've segued from high church music to Ray Charles's "Mess Around." Maybe I am losing my mind and I'm only imagining myself a widow. Maybe Mike is holed up somewhere right now consulting with the best psychiatrists about my care. I stand up, unable to look at anybody, unable even to remember where I parked my car. Mercifully, somebody takes my arm and leads me from the church. "I'll drive you home in your car. LaWebb, Peggy is the author of 'Late Bloomers ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373881284 and ISBN 0373881282.