The chair groaned with relief when he rose. His bones grinded out their protest at being forced to move after hours of immobility. Cooper hadn’t yet reached forty, but the last forty-eight hours had aged him dearly. He recalled a friend’s favorite saying, “It ain’t the years, it’s the mileage that matters,” she’d said. Now, he understood the meaning of it. The last two days felt like a round-the-world trip in a busted up Model T.
His feet shifted over a few feet to bring himself to the edge of the bed where his wife lay in a fitful rest. The worn, faded carpet underneath grated his feet like sandpaper. He looked down upon his wife, fearing what he might see. Over the past day, every hour had brought a seismic shift. It was if she was aging decades in hours. Faint lines had turned into deep crags in her face. Her hair had faded from a rich, beautiful black mane to a scraggly, matted tangle. The color had washed out. Her skin, which had been a fine shade of amber, now lay mottled. Her once full and firm breasts were now limp and sagging. Worst of all was her breathing. Gone was any semblance of the deep rise and fall of his wife’s chest when she slept.
Her chest rose and fell in fits and starts. She had been coughing so often that he scarcely heard it any longer. When he did, he shuddered. The coughs shouted out in desperation. As they frantically tried to clear her lungs and empty them of their life-stealing phlegm, they must have known that they were failing and cried out in wretched protest. Just a few hours ago, in a moment of consciousness, she had croaked feebly to him, “I need air, more air.” His eyes filled with tears at the thought, both of his impending loss and of his bitter helplessness: hospitals overrun, no doctors available, and only his bedraggled nurse neighbor doing what little she could for those fallen ill. It was the same across the city, at every hospital and clinic. Some veterinarian offices were even rumored to be swamped with the sick, clamoring for aid.
There was no doubt now. His wife was dying. It was cold comfort that everyone else seemed to be dying as well. Was it really only three days ago, he had risen from this same bed, kissed his wife goodbye, before going off to another week of work?
Fresh from the shower, Cooper ambled downstairs, stepping lightly on the stairs to avoid waking his son. Nevertheless, one of the steps squeaked loudly and he grimaced in apprehension. He paused for a few moments, heard the contented breathing of Jake continue unabated and then descended. It was not the first time he smiled about his love-hate relationship with his old house, built in the early 1940s. He loved its style and character, but some of its quirks drove him crazy, too. He often joked, “This house was born during a war and it’s been a fighter every year since. I just wish I wasn’t its enemy these days!”
He stepped onto the landing and scanned the living room to his right. Sure enough, the black, cast iron woodstove held a few dying embers that threw a shallow orange glow. He debated rekindling the fire, but decided against it. Two hours from now, the house would be empty with Elena off to work and Jake at school. Woodstoves were good for long-term heat, but not so efficient for the short. Instead, he turned the corner into the dining room. The solid oak table that occupied most of the room intimidated the rest of the house. It lay like a hulking battleship docked impressively in some nameless Third World nation’s capital harbor. The thing must have weighed over two hundred pounds. Cooper admired how it imparted solidity to their home.
He paused here, as he usually did, and closed his eyes. He inhaled the coffee brewing in the automatic coffeemaker on the kitchen counter and the faint whiff of wood smoke from last night’s fire. He felt the wood flooring under his feet and reached out to touch the strong oak table. This is the way to wake up. I am a lucky man. He opened his eyes and smiled as a ray of sunlight caught his brown eyes.
He continued to the kitchen, his bare feet shifting from amber-colored oak wood flooring to the green-speckled, and chilly, linoleum. A few minutes later, toast and coffee in hand he returned to the dining room table and put his cup and plate onto the table. He continued to his front door and opened it to retrieve his newspaper. He breathed the chilled morning air deep into his lungs. Cooper loved the fresh, yes; I am alive feeling that it gave him.
He gazed out to his front yard. The trio of white birch trees stood as silent sentries watching over his yard. The blueberry bushes still lay leafless, as the season was stuck between the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Between the birches, a jogger was heading down Lincoln Street, twoard the forested park that was two blocks to the east of his home. Dressed in warm running clothes this season demanded in the Pacific Northwest, the jogger’s shoes made a distinct clip-clop, clip-clop on the sidewalk. A city bus chugged down the hill, heading west, the soft whine of its engine was a quiet contrast to the noise they made coming the opposite direction; when climbing the hill. He closed the door and made his way back to his waiting breakfast and newspaper.
“Let’s see what we have today,” Cooper mumbled to himself as he opened the newspaper. He munched on his warm, wheat toast. Sipping the hot, black coffee, he relished the feeling of the warm liquid curling its way down his throat and into his stomach. Already, he could feel the caffeine coursing into his veins.
The headlines covered the familiar topics these days. Unemployment. Tensions in the Middle East. Global Warming. Cooper read voraciously and quickly moved into the middle pages of the newspaper. His friend, Paul Dranko, who was a cynic and distrusted every institution ever made by man—be it government, religion, the military or the local PTA—always told him that’s where you could decipher some real news. Cooper had laughed him off when he’d told him that, but he couldn’t help but look at those pages a little more closely ever since. Over time, he’d seen the wisdom in his friend’s remarks.
Today, nothing struck him as notable. There were about a dozen church members from Seattle returning from a retreat that were all hospitalized with flu-like symptoms. A brief article appeared about a huge military contract signed with Taiwan for US weapons—mostly aircraft and missile defense systems. Expectedly, Chinese officials were expressing their “deep disappointment” with the weapons sale. Another story showcased a local manufacturing company that was relocating its operations from Asia back to the United States due to the need for higher quality controls and stronger connection to its engineering and design team. “Wow, that should have been on the front page,” Cooper exclaimed to himself. Finishing his breakfast, he ended by reading the uplifting story of James Michaels, a former high school football star who’d been paralyzed while playing and now was competing in the upcoming Para-Olympics. Some guys you just can’t keep down. He circled that story with a red marker and left it open on the table for Jake to read later. He was sure his son hated him for it, but Cooper never passed up an opportunity to impart an important life lesson to him.
Twenty minutes later, he was dressed and heading out the door. Before doing so, he stopped in the doorway to his son’s room and gazed in. Swaddled up in several blankets, a fresh face with eyes closed, he breathed in effortless slumber. A lock of black hair hung down between his eyes. He caught a glimpse of red pajamas from under the bundle of blankets that held his boy. For years, Cooper had kissed him lightly on the cheek before leaving on his trips, but about six months ago, Jake had started waking up when he did so. So, Cooper now only peered in, welcoming the sight of his boy so calm and peaceful. Cooper smiled and pivoted to head out the door.