The Double Room for Mom and Dad

The room did not breathe.

“Mark is my son,” Dad said, more gently. “He has a place at our table, and I hope he will sit in it. But Patrice is the one who will sign.”

He sat down. Mrs. Lindgren said “Amen” out loud, in the voice of a woman who had said it a great many times and meant it.

A man at the back began to clap, slowly, and then the whole dining room did. Leona banged her walker on the floor. The co-op men stood up.

Mom looked around with her corsage and her bright, puzzled face. “Norm,” she said. “Why is everybody clapping?”

“Because we’re married, Elaine,” Dad said. “Sit still. Eat your cake.”

I went out into the courtyard and stood by the bird feeder with my hand over my mouth.

Neal came out after a minute. He did not say anything. He handed me a paper plate with a piece of Everly bakery cake on it, and a plastic fork, and stood beside me while I ate it.

Through the glass I could see Kara at the back of the room. She was not clapping. She was crying, quietly, with both hands around her purse, and a woman from our church had sat down beside her and taken her arm.

The paper

Doug Haverkamp came Monday morning with a folder, and Georgia Moll came with her notary stamp. Dad signed in the east window light with the same green pen he had used on forty years of seed orders.

His hand shook, but the signature was his. Mom watched from her chair and asked if it was the church bulletin.

“It’s the bulletin, Elaine,” Dad said. “Go on with your knitting.”

Leona telephoned Mark that afternoon. Kara told me later that he stood in the driveway with the phone against his ear and did not say a word for a long time.

I did not call him. I did not trust what I would say, and I did not want to say it in anger. I had signed my name where his had been, and that was enough for one week.

I worked my last extra Saturday on the first of December. I came home and sat in the truck in the driveway for ten minutes, the way I had every Saturday since October.

This time I was not tired. I only wanted to sit there with the engine off and see how it felt.

Neal came out and opened the door. “Supper’s on,” he said. “You don’t have to pick up another shift. Come eat.”

Landing

The first Sunday in December I stopped by a little before two. Georgia had put the third chair in the corner room that week. Dad had asked her for it.

It is a plain oak chair with a green cushion. It sits by the east window, pulled up close to the recliner, close enough that the arms touch.

Nobody has said whose it is. Nobody has had to.

Mom was knitting something that will never be finished. Dad had the farm paper open on his lap, and the little radio was murmuring about soybeans.

Her hand was resting on the arm of his chair, and his was resting on hers.

The sun came flat across the floor and lay over the two beds, the oak chair, and the recliner. The leather is still worn smooth on the left arm. Nobody has ever suggested we replace it.