FEATURE: “Burnt Toast” by Barbara Kivowitz
She woke up to an empty bed and the metallic smell of burnt toast. Like a living creature, the odor snaked its way throughout the house, peering around corners, slinking under doors, permeating the weave of the blanket on their bed with its acid. She pulled the bedding up to her chin, closed her eyes, and tried to sleep. She did not want to play out the story of what must have happened in her mind before she confronted the reality.
He hadn’t been himself. In fact, he had travelled so far from the self she married forty years ago that she barely recognized him anymore. She certainly could no longer predict the punchlines to his jokes or the ends of his stories. These days he’d start talking about who he met on the train into the city as if that hadn’t stopped happening twenty years ago. And then he’d suddenly switch to how lonely he was after their dog died. And then he’d start running through the house looking for Spike in closets and under the couch. He’d work himself into such a state that she’d have to play old Nat King Cole music really loudly to capture his attention.
And then he might reach his right hand out to her, inviting her to dance. She’d walk into his arms, press against him, nuzzle into his neck, notice all the areas he missed while shaving that morning. And then they’d slow dance. For those few minutes she stopped worrying about how they could manage at home and how they could afford extra help. She floated back to the jazz club they used to go to that’s not there anymore. She felt the warmth of his arms around her body and relaxed into the way he breathed in her hair.
The burnt toast wouldn't let her go. It gripped her by the throat. She had told him not to use any appliances in the kitchen. That she would scramble his eggs, make the coffee, toast the bread. He remembered sometimes, and other times he put the whole egg in the toaster or poured hot water into his cup without the instant coffee and then looked at her with such a lost look her heart broke again.
She got out of bed and slowly walked to the kitchen. The toaster was still on. The bread now shriveled into a clump of ashes. She noticed the refrigerator door was open and the butter was missing. She thought, “Well, at least he got that part right.” She was a bit surprised he wasn’t just sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for her to make it all better.
She heard the bewitching melody of “Unforgettable” playing softly in the living room. She smiled as she moved to the beat and two-stepped into the room. She saw him slumped in his armchair. Head tilted too far to one side. His right hand dangling. She ran and faced him. His eyes were blank, his chest still. His mouth frozen in a small smile. In his left hand he clutched a melting stick of butter.
Barbara Kivowitz is a therapist and patient/caregiver advocate. Her book, Love in the Time of Chronic Illness, led to articles in popular and clinical publications. She has published poetry, fiction, and memoir in Passager Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Instant Noodles, the Writers' Journal, Litquake Elder Anthology. One of her pieces was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She divides her time between San Francisco and the Sierra Foothills.