Luther had woken up just a little before the sun broke out.
It had been like this lately. Fits of sleep. Naps. Nothing intensive. Nothing healthy. Just when he felt himself drawn down into a dream, the house would pop or the wind would whistle past the window, startling him awake. Leaving him thinking that, for just a second, she had come back to him.
But it was always the wind. It was always just the settling of the house.
He lay in bed and looked up at the ceiling, willing himself to go back to sleep. Minutes passed in idle, clutching thought until his body just felt lighter, not heavier. He finally sighed, giving in to the bedlam in his mind, and put both feet on the floor. He rubbed his face with his hands and then stared at them with bemusement. He had such old, leathery hands, he thought. Sometimes he wondered to himself how they'd come to be that way.
He shuffled downstairs to the kitchen and, as he had done habitually when he was wide awake, ritually put on a pot of coffee. Washed the pot out. Trashed the old filter. Took new ones down from the cabinet. Pulled the coffee can from the shelf and shoveled out exactly two and a half scoops. Turned the coffeemaker on after it was done and sat down at the kitchen table to have a smoke.
He fired up his lighter with a hiss, then a sharp snap, and took that satisfying first drag of the morning. The coffeemaker rumbled and gurgled as he looked outside, the yard slowly bearing up with the growing dawn. Her garden, the one right beyond the porch, was rich with marigolds, emblazoned with the morning sun. Orange and yellow ones, glistening like so many polished coins. And then he felt himself missing her, surrounded by too many goddamn reminders. His earth and her toil.
He told himself he’d uproot the flowers today before he went to the shop. And knew he’d forget. He always forgot. Whether it was purposeful or not, he didn't know. And endeavored to suffocate any chance of answer with another deep drag of his smoke.
40 years ago, they had met, in a broken-down juke joint in Greenwood. He had seen her from the stage. A wisp of laughter in a sequined dress that made her seem as rich as the ocean. A vibrant young coffee-skinned firecracker with a smile like warm rain, she seemed to hold the room entirely. Men buzzed around her like curious bugs, no one moving any closer than their courage would allow. And yet, all the while, she kept throwing glances at him as he played the blues.
Once his set was finished, he stored his guitar and made his way to her side. He screwed up enough courage to walk up, unannounced and offered to buy her a drink. And at first she flatly refused. But he told her that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and even if she didn’t want to talk to him, he just wanted to look into her eyes a little closer than from the stage. Or he’d regret it for the rest of his life. It was clunky and soaked in buckets of charm, sure. But he meant it and he didn’t care. She peered into him, her face betraying a little curiosity and then her face broke into that smile and a laughing nod. It was the sweetest "All right then" he'd ever heard in his life.
Over drinks, she told him her family had recently moved from California to here. Which was strange. Most people he knew were trying to get to California, not the other way around. But she said her father worked as an airplane mechanic and that he'd found the best work here, working for American Airways. Weren’t many black mechanics at the hangers. But her dad was a good one. The best Hughes Airport ever had, she said. So he loaded her mom, her and her two brothers into a beat up old Ford and found a house for rent on the north side of town. He had just barely enough to cover the first month’s rent, she said and she laughed about how they’d survived for months on macaroni and cheese and popcorn. Luther simply listened and ate up every word.
He asked her what brought her here, to this old joint, and she told him she was there to sing with her friends. He asked her what they sounded like and she said, matter of factly, like the Supremes. Only better. He smiled at that and asked her if she was going to be famous someday. Yes, she said, she knew it would happen. People had told her she had talent. He grinned in answer and asked if she trusted any of those people. She laughed and said no, not a one of them. But she was going to be a famous singer anyhow. "I'll have to be the judge of that" he whispered.
Later on, when she had come home with him, after the laughs and drunken spills across his front lawn, he had stopped her at the door. Cupped her face in his hands and looked at her.
The whole world seem to shake in surrendered kiss.
The coffeemaker grew quiet. Chased from his thoughts, he stood up, ashed out his cigarette and opened the cabinet. Fishing out a mug, he poured himself a full cup. And in the stillness, stood at the kitchen window, taking in the silent grace of her flowers.
The light was growing stronger now. That was for sure.
Taking sip after cautious sip, he knew. She wasn’t coming back. In his bones he knew, where he didn’t need it to be true. He knew no matter how many nights he lay in that bed, half asleep, half listening, she would never come through the door again. Would never sing through the house, would never greet him with a giggle or a pat on his belly. Or offer to cook him bacon and eggs before he went out to work. Or light up his entire life with her smile. She wasn’t coming back and he was just too goddamned tired to fight it any more.
He put his mug on the counter, leaned against the edge of the sink and nodded to himself. He would plant roses this year, instead of marigolds. He would put something else there in its place. It was long past time.
Fighting reluctance, fighting irrational hope, he opened the door to the garage and took the hoe from the far south wall. And made his way out, with a taxed heart, into the morning light.
He knew what he had to do.
