A glint of sunlight from the snow resting on the slopes
of Pine Mountain caught the eye of the old man
that fateful afternoon. Slowly he straightened him-self
as he turned to gaze at the broad shoulders of the peak
that dominated the valley. The ache in his lower back com-pelled
him to rely on the support of his trusty hoe.
“Well, Old One, you call out to me again!” he said as
he reached into his rear pocket for his handkerchief. The
sun was strong for that time of year. Rarely did the tem-perature
reach the eighties in April—after all, they were at
five thousand feet of elevation. The old man needed relief
from his sweat. He removed his battered gardening hat and
wiped his bald pate.
His eyes absorbed the mountain’s beauty. “So craggy.
So white with snow, and so crisply outlined against a deep
blue sky.” He discovered that he was whispering his thoughts,
as he was sometimes inclined to do.
“Did you call?” a woman asked. It belonged to the
wife of the old man. He usually thought of himself as “the
old man”, but he never thought of her as “the old woman”.
He still saw her as the schoolgirl he had met over sixty
years ago. She could never be “the old woman” to him. It
was only his accursed mirror that reminded him of his age.
And the aching back. And the many prescriptions he need-
ed. He certainly didn’t want to accept that age had caught
up to him, but it had.
“No, love. I was just talking to Old Craggle-Puss up
there,” he said while pointing a wrinkled finger toward the
mountain.
“Sometimes, Joseph, I wonder about you,” the woman
said with a well-worn voice. She shook her head as
she returned to her petunia bed.
“Sometimes? When haven’t you wondered about me?”
he shot back with a chuckle heard only in a comfortable,
loving relationship that spans decades, toils, children and
fears.
“When you have that look in your eye.”
“What look?”
“Honestly! Fifty three years of marriage and you still
ask ‘what look?’”
You just like to hear me talk about it.” She said, with
a whisper of a smile on her face.
“Talk about what?” he said with an exaggerated shrug
of confusion.
“Well, they don’t call them ‘bedroom eyes’ for nothing,”
Anne giggled, blushing slightly.
Joseph loved making Anne laugh and hearing the sound
of her giggle. After all of these years, he thought, she still
falls for the routine. He watched as she turned the soil over
in her flower garden.
How many times had he stood watching as she worked
steer manure into the ground? It must be fifty or more, he
imagined. Well...there were those two years that they had
lived in a cramped apartment so long ago. There was no
ground available for her. She had planted flowers in a window
box that he had built out of pine scraps from the
housing tract down the street.
“How long have you planted flower gardens, Anne?”
Joseph inquired.
“Huh? What?”
“Flower gardens. How long have you planted them?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Must be around fifty years by now.
Except for those years we lived in that crowded apartment,
I’ve had one every year,” she replied as she walked slowly
over to her husband. He could tell that she felt like talking.
He leaned his hoe against a pine tree and motioned with
his right arm toward the chairs near the rear door of the
house.
“I think I could use a few minutes worth of rest,” she
said wearily.
“So could I.”
Joseph watched her as she described what flowers she
was planning to put in this year. He was a little concerned
that she hadn’t been looking as strong as she had in years
gone by. But then, he thought, he probably didn’t look
that good either. Life takes its toll after seventy-eight years.
Seventy-eight! He couldn’t believe it. It seemed like only
yesterday that he was a twenty-five year old newlywed, fresh
out of college. How could so many years have...
“...and the worms...Joseph! Are you listening?” Anne
broke into his wandering thoughts.
“Huh? What? Worms?” Joseph stumbled back into
the present.
“Are you taking your pills? You seem so, I don’t know,
so absentminded.” Anne leaned forward, concern etched in
her face. “What is going on?” she asked as she gently touched
his hand with her own.
“Going on? Nothing. I’m just tired, that’s all. Tired.”
“No. You’ve been struggling with something recently.
What’s bothering you?” Anne’s voice was caring but persistent.
“Why do you think that?”
“Joseph, it’s me. Fifty-three years of marriage has taught
me a few things—like how to recognize when something’s
bothering you.”
“I don’t know, Anne. I don’t know. I can’t seem to,
well, seem to stop thinking about things...” Joseph trailed
off. He turned his head back toward Mount Pinos. His
mouth quivered, as if fighting back tears.
“Things? What things?” Anne asked gently.
“It’s hard to…” Joseph fiddled with the button on his
lightweight jacket. “It’s hard to...”
“Hard to talk about?” Anne finished his sentence.
“Yeah. Sometimes I feel like I’m a whimpering five
year old. It’s so damned embarrassing.”
“I know it’s tough, Joey, but you need to talk about it.”
Anne quietly whispered. She stripped away six decades of
living, and called him by his childhood nickname. The tears
flowed freely as he turned once more toward her.
“I’m seventy-eight, Annie. Seventy-eight!”
“And I’m seventy-two. So?”
“I’m afraid,” he barely whispered. Anne reached out
and squeezed his arm. It was good to feel her still strong
grasp.
“We’ve faced so many things over the years together.
We can face anything. So you’re seventy-eight? You still
have those wonderful sensitive feelings that made me fall
in love with you. So our skin is a bit wrinkled? Inside,
we’re still in our twenties.”
“No Anne, it’s...” he was quiet as he bit his lip.
“Tell me. What can be so bad? Worse than almost
losing Sarah at birth? Worse than that time you had to go
out of state for work? We can face this too, Joey.” Anne sat
up straight as she pat his arm.
“Time is running out. I’m scared of...of...” he faded
off again.
“Death?” Anne simply said what was on Joseph’s mind,
if not his tongue.
“Death.” Joseph repeated with a mixture of anguish
and relief.
“We’ve got lots of time, sweetheart. We’ve got so much
we want to do.We have reasonably good health, a comfortable
pension, a decent house, grandchildren to visit with,
and our love. We’re doing fine.” Anne continued, her voice
upbeat, “Besides,” she continued, “you have so many projects
to finish—so many dreams to pursue.”
“Yeah, but that’s the problem. There isn’t much time.”
Joseph fought back tears. Anne put her hand under Joseph’s
chin, and turned his head toward the mountains above.
“When are you going to climb that mountain?” she
asked, “You’ve been talking about it for thirty years.”
“I’ve just been so busy.”
“No! That’s not it. You keep putting it off! You’re
down because you’re carrying so many regrets, so many
unfinished pieces of business. What happened to that list
of things you wanted to do? You know, the one you made
seven or eight years ago?”
“I still have it. It’s on my closet door.” Joseph began to
perk up.
“How many of those items have you done? Be honest,
now!” Anne had a definite assertive tone in her voice.
Joseph recognized this tone. It was the same tone of voice
that pressured him to complete his graduate work, so long
ago.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe three or four.” Joseph responded
sheepishly.
“I don’t think so, Joseph Marino. Three or four? Name
two projects that you have finished!”
“There was that shed that I built...”
“Shed? You mean the one that we bought and had
the boy from the hardware store put together? Try again.”
She was pushing, he could tell. He knew that he couldn’t
win this one, it was a repeat of the many “discussions” he
had lost in the past.
“Okay, maybe I haven’t finished many. But I’ve started
a few.”
“Hah! And they still sit there. Unfinished!”
Joseph knew what she was doing. She was prodding
him, in her own indomitable way.
“Well, I can finish any one of them anytime,” he said
with a grand sweep of his arm.
“How about finishing one this month? Pick one!”
she urged.
“You pick one. It doesn’t matter which one. I could
fi nis h any of them!” he boasted.
“No, you wouldn’t want that. I’ve always had one
specific one in mind, and you know it.”
Joseph sunk into his chair. He knew which one she
was getting at. It was the one that he’d done the least
amount of work on. He had good intentions, but, well,
something would always come up.
“I know it,” Joseph said in the sheepish voice that had
gotten so much practice this sunny afternoon.
“Finish it, Joey.” Anne pleaded. He turned to look at
her, and was startled to see that she was crying. Her eyes
were wide and round, like the ones he remembered when
she pleaded with him to have a baby so many years ago.
“It means that much to you Annie?” he asked in a
quiet, tender voice. She nodded as she wiped back the tears.
“I’m sorry, honey. I knew it was important, but I underestimated
how important. Why have you wanted it so much?”
Joseph had gleaned his own insight in fifty-three years of
marriage and he knew there was something Anne had never
told him about the stones.
“I’ve wanted an ivy-covered stone wall since I was a
little girl.” Anne looked up, her gaze tracing the shadows
growing on the snowy walls of the sentinel mountain overhead.
“And I’m afraid...”
“You’re afraid?” Joseph interrupted.
“Yes. I’m afraid that I’ll never see it.”
“Why is it so important?” he asked. She had never
really explained her obsession with a stone wall. Like he
dodged the topic of aging, Annie had never confided her
closely kept story. Now, as they sat there together, he truly
wanted to understand.
“So very long ago, I used to wait for my father to
come home from the mill,” Anne’s voice took on a reminiscent
tone and her eyes welled slightly. “I used to hide
behind the wall and pop up when he rounded the corner
to come through the gate. Years later I’d hide a bottle of
cold ice water for him. I’d smile, say hello, reach into the
ivy, and pull out a cold drink. And when a pack of wild
dogs chased me home from school, it was the strong stone
wall that saved me from them. Joey, so many memories of
my childhood were in that wall. It devastated me when
they tore down that old wall and house to make room for
that damned shopping center. Can you understand? Does
it sound senseless? Part of my heart, my life, was there.”
She had a grip on his arm that was vice-like. It was
the same grip with which she had locked onto him during
childbirth.
“I understand,” he said in a whisper, “and I’ll do it.
For you.”
“For us, Joey...it is something we can do together. You
do so much better when you accomplish something.You
need goals. I need a wall. For us.” She wiped away the
tears that had spilled over onto her cheeks.
“For us. For us.” He repeated.
The old man stood up and stretched his legs. They
made a creaking sound and even felt creaky. He looked
beyond the garden patch that they were working in and
looked at the rudimentary beginnings of the stone wall
along the road. He had to do it, he thought. For her.
She had given him so much in this life. Companionship,
children, understanding, and a good tongue lashing
when he deserved it. He wanted to give her something
back—something that touched deep inside her.
The wall.
“You go back to your garden, Annie. I need to look at
something by the road.” Anne followed him part way down
the path, but stopped to watch as he began straightening
the few stones piled at the bend of the road. She smiled as
she returned to working the soil of her beloved garden.
Joseph took stock of the stones, and realized that he
was woefully short. He estimated that he was only about
five percent finished, or, more realistically, ninety-five percent
unfinished. He turned to look back at his wife, who
had resumed her stooped over position in the garden.
“It will be finished, Annie. I promise you.” Joseph whispered
the words with clenched fists. He realized that he
didn’t feel seventy-eight at that moment. He knew he was
a man of thirty-eight. Well, maybe forty-eight.
He looked down at his wheelbarrow, which had been
sitting next to the unfinished wall for a year now. It had
rusted a bit over the winter, but with a little oil and elbow
grease, it would soon be fit for transporting rocks again. He
grabbed on to the wooden handles and lifted, feeling renewed
strength in his arms.
“Anne! Hey, Annie!” Joseph called out.
“What?” Anne turned with a quizzical look on her
face.
“Forget seventy-eight! Look...forty-eight!” Joseph
beamed as he struggled to push the rusty wheelbarrow up
the slight slope toward the house. He was showing off. He
felt like he was a teenager again. He remembered how he
used to flex his muscles for Annie when they were in school
and how she would giggle because a big, strong older boy
paid attention to her.
“Oooff....!” Joseph hit a rock with the wheelbarrow
and nearly fell.
“Hah! You haven’t changed a bit!” Anne laughed.
“But…” Joseph started, as he was trying to catch his
balance.
“You still show off. Only now I can see through your
‘muscles’. You are still trying to impress me!” Anne laughed.
Joseph regained his balance, and smiled a shy, embarrassed
smile. He felt a deep happiness as he looked into her
eyes and heard her laugh. His smile disappeared, though, as
he noticed a change in her expression.
“Joey...Joey...” Anne called out. She dropped her small
shovel, and clutched at her chest. She was reaching for a
nearby tree.
Something is wrong, he thought. Oh my God! She is
falling!
Joseph dropped the handles of the wheelbarrow and
ran toward Anne. She was not going to reach the tree. He
felt the cold, clammy sensation of panic welling up inside
of his chest. He could feel his labored breathing as he
stumbled up the rocky path toward her. He began to pray.
“Oh, my God! No! Jesus...NO!” His labored breathing
muffled what he wanted to be a shout.
Anne was heading toward the ground. She fell first to
her knees, then slumped over on her left side. Her right
arm was still holding her blouse, over her heart. Her left
arm was extended away from her body. Her head was
back, and she appeared to be staring at the sky. It seemed
like minutes stretched into hours for Joseph. He felt like
Anne was falling at full speed, but he was running at half
speed.
He stumbled and fell as he got within a few feet of
her. Joseph didn’t want to waste the time to get up, so he
crawled toward her. Terror gripped his heart and mind.
The terror of death.
As he reached her he put his hand under her neck.
He tried feeling for a pulse, but his panic, trembling and
own shallow breathing hampered him. Her eyes stared
blankly at the sky.
“ANNIE! ANNIE! Talk to me! ANNIE! You can’t
die!” he sobbed. He heard a raspy gurgling coming from
her mouth. She seemed to stir. Her eyes closed slowly. Her
breathing was shallow and erratic. He fought the panic inside.
“Got to calm down. Got to do something. What can
I do?” Incoherent thoughts raced through Joseph’s head.
Everything seemed hazy as he struggled for focus. Joseph
took a deep breath and looked at Anne’s face. The face he
had looked upon every night for over a half a century. The
face that he had pushed wedding cake into so many Octobers
ago.
“Phone,” Joseph’s mind cleared. “I have to get to the
phone!”
Joseph tried desperately, but he couldn’t lift Anne. He
turned his head toward the house, and back to her. He had
to leave her. But what if she...? Panic gripped him, but he
stuffed it back down.
He ripped his shirt out of his pants, unbuttoned it, and
placed it under her head. Rising, he looked into her face
one last time, turned, and ran to the house. It was a terrible
fight to keep back the tears.
Joseph pushed open the door, ran to the kitchen, picked
up the phone and pushed the buttons:
9-1-1
©1995-2004 Edward Mooney, Jr.
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