The Table
by Julie Smith
Rose dead? But here she is, in her best church-going dress, boots, bonnet and all, lying on her favorite red-plaid blanket, placed on her dining room table. The blanket looks so small, like a runner. It seems to him Rose shrank in death…everything looked smaller. Her hands folded on her stomach, the wedding band just as shiny as when she put it on 54 years ago. He noticed it yesterday when she gestured to the sky saying what a lovely day it was to pick raspberries. And off she went, bucket in hand, white apron flapping in the breeze, turning around and waving with her lovely smile.
Jacob kneaded the corner of the woolen blanket in his hand. He closed his eyes as tears floated down the groves in his face, trickling on the table. He wiped the small puddle off the pine table and smeared it on his pants.
“Watch out for putting white rings on my table,” she’d say. The kids and I were always watching out for making marks on the table. Dark brown with knots and grainy swirls, its glossy surface reflected the surrounding bookcases, hat rack and parlor palm. It looked like marble the color of chestnuts. He gazed closer at the imprints of the written word and dents from four generations of studying, laughing, crying and eating.
A knock at the front door and a shadow through the curtained window brought Jacob out of his reverie. He got up and pushed his hand over his face wiping away the pain to normality. He opened the door.
“Morning, Jacob. Sorry about the loss of Rose. She was a good Christian woman.” The man looked down at his hands and turned to a shorter man, anchored behind, who peeked around and mumbled in agreement, hat in his hands.
Jacob nodded as he waved them inside. He pointed at the table. “I’ll leave you to it, Thomas…Bert. I’ll be outside on the porch.”
He walked outside and sat on the swinging chair Rose and he shared every evening before sunset. A black gleaming hearse pulled by white matching horses stood ready, the back door open; just a brief visit, horses stomping, eager to pull their passengers back to the edge of town to the mortuary.
The two men trundled through the doorway, the red blanket wrapped around Rose. Out the gate, into the back, Rose was going. He wanted to stop them and ask for one more day, to come back. He wasn’t ready.
Jacob went back inside and sat down at the table. He ran his hands over the surface, trying to feel and savior Rose’s last resting place. Snippets of scenes past whirled behind his eyes: laundry being folded in little piles, Rose cutting out material for clothes, Christmas and Easter dinners, Sunday morning breakfasts before church. Rose’s old pine table was the center of the house, where friends shared stories as they supped coffee and fresh apple pie.
Jacob stood up and shuffled out the door. An hour later he stumbled back, threw the front door open, eyes locked dead ahead. He pulled the table out the narrow doorway, fighting the throw rug which clung to the legs, refusing to let go. He lifted the table, front up, then back, sliding it down the steps, pulling the dead weight with his fingers clamped on the edge. A large, smokeless fire hissed and spat near the barn, a light breeze, a bellow, fuelled the yellow flames. He upended the table on the fire, and watched as his past, his love and purpose, roared with the cremation. He wept and moaned, wailing at the perfect, blue sky, at some spirit laughing at him.
Jacob traversed the dirt pathway to the barn. He grabbed the shotgun, sat down on a bale of hay and ended his pain.
Four days later, Jacob and Rose were buried together in the family cemetery on top of the eastern hill overlooking the valley. Forty mourners attended the funeral. Many returned to the house for the wake. All wondered what had happened to the beautiful, pine table.
Julie Smith: "After years of tertiary eductation which proved worthless in terms of the evaluation of worthiness, I moved from the U.S. and made Australia my home away from home. No, not running away, just curious." Contact Julie.
