Cerea dilata

 Cerea dilata 

I was meeting Axel for coffee, so I was drinking only a quarter of a cup for breakfast: I’m still on - I’m still restricted to - one cup in the morning and one in the afternoon. Sometimes, I admit, the cups are bigger than they are at other times, when they are smaller.

     But then, the phone rang. I read the dial. “Hi, Axel,” I said. “Are we off?”

     “Can we do lunch - even early - instead?” he asked . . . his voice on the phone asked.

     “That would actually be better,” I said. I was having trouble getting dressed.

I didn’t say that, that I was having trouble getting dressed.

     This is a relatively new phenomenon. I get up as usual. I pull on my sweatshirt and put on my slippers. I go downstairs because Roz is in the bathroom upstairs. I make my cup of coffee and toast an English muffin and sit down at the kitchen table.

     I wait.

The kitchen phone, the color of Roz’s robe, and Axel’s voice.

Roz comes down in her long, green robe, falling from her throat to just above the floor. Her feet are bare; her hair is wet. She looks older and lovelier without make-up.

     She pours her coffee and puts it on the table. She asks me if I want another muffin. I say “no.” She asks me if I have taken my medicine. I say “no.” She puts her muffin in the toaster. She gets orange juice out of the refrigerator and pours three fingers into a rocks glass. She puts it in front of me.

     She picks up her coffee and stands holding it between her hands, leaning on her hip against the counter. The muffin pops up. She puts her coffee back on the table, butters and jams the bread, and sits down opposite me. I am about to cry as at a ballet, the music and the movement are so unworldly perfect. And that’s when I realize - just before she is going to say, “Your medicine?” - that I am going to have trouble getting dressed today.

     And the phone rings.

to be continued

04.12.18