Amo Le Sue Ossa

thedustwillsing:

“Honey, please stop scrubbing the fridge.”  She was tuning him out again.  “Mary I’m serious.  Stop cleaning the fridge; we can do that tomorrow.”

“That’s the problem with you Mark.”  She said this without turning her head to look at him.  “It’s always tomorrow, and tomorrow it will be the next day and this fridge will never get cleaned.”  Her hands continued vigorously against the inside of the door.  She was still wearing her black dress.

“Don’t you at least want to change first?”  No response.  Her hands kept up their fast back and forth pace as she shook her head to herself.  Mark knew what was happening; it was the same thing that happened when Mary’s father had passed away a few years back.  Soon they would have the cleanest house in California and Mary would still find new things to clean.  It was her strange way of coping. 
“I heard that seventy-five percent of refrigerators have some sort of mold growing in them.”  Mark doubted if that was true but didn’t say anything.  Instead, he sat on the couch and tried to sort his thoughts while watching Mary deep clean their refrigerator.  

Gaylin, Mary’s mother, had always been good to him – even when he and Mary were first dating.  There was no ‘in-law tension’ that you heard so many people complain about; Gaylin was practically his biological mother.  She always treated him like family.  He wondered how Mary kept such a calm demeanor after the death of her mother.  She was hurting, of course – that was evident within the meticulous scrubbing of the fridge – but she had yet to shed a single tear.  

Her mother had lived a good life: eighty-seven years old, and she had died peacefully in her sleep.  That had to make it easier, but it was still tough to let such a great woman go.  Mark was getting teary eyed just thinking about it. 

“Mary, at least go change first.  Get into something comfortable; for God’s sake, you are still wearing the clothes you wore to the funeral.”

“I am comfortable, dammit!  And I…and..” she started choking on sobs.  “And this ff-fr-fridge won’t clean its-itself, s-so just let me be.”  She mumbled something else about mold through a tear soaked voice and went back to scrubbing the perfectly white door.