It was an early Saturday morning. The smell of thunderstorms was in the air, and grey clouds filled the sky. It had begun to drizzle, but it was nothing heavy yet. Sara stood inside the front door to wait for Tony; she wanted to make sure she saw him come in. She was anxious to see him this morning, wanting to know how he was doing, what he would look like outside of her office, and she wondered if his wife was still on his mind. It had been a half hour, so she decided to sit on one of the couches that faced the door. Her feet were hurting her because of the heels that she wore.
Sara began to massage her feet to try and lessen the pain, then she heard the bell of the front door. It was him. Sarah watched Tony as he walked through the door shaking his umbrella to rid it of the rain. This was not what Sarah had expected; she was surprised at his unorthodox attire. When she had first met Tony, he looked like he had stepped out of a page of GQ or off a Ralph Lauren poster. This morning he appeared to be a stylish bum. She studied him from toe to head and saw that Tony wore torn up grey sweat pants with a white thermal shirt. He covered his head with a khaki colored Ralph Lauren Polo ball cap and his eyes hid behind Ray Ban shades. He had bracelets on his wrist with a ring on every finger except for the one that counted.
“Good Morning Tony.” Sarah attempted to greet him as gentle as possible, but Tony seemed in a growling mood.
Tony walked pass her with a strong, but strange arrogance; he replied with a rough, “A mighty good one ain’t it?” Sarah was then confused. She was no longer looking at the gentleman that came into her office. This was a stranger that she had never met before, no more was he the sweet man who was madly in love with his wife, no, this was a new type of jerk. Tony moved towards the coffee counter, he smelled the aroma of the morning coffee beans and felt a grumble inside his stomach. He then turned towards Sarah and asked with a dead voice of confusion, “You wanna get some food?”
Sarah looked surprised at his offer, but she obliged him. “Yes, I haven’t eaten yet.” Tony bought two coffees and three breakfast sandwiches, one for her and two for him.
“You have the ring?”
“Yes, here you go. I’m surprised you actually left it at my office. I thought that your life revolved around everything about your wife.”
“Yeah. That would be nice, now, wouldn’t it?”
“Are you ok Tony?” Sarah was now worried about her patient. At this point Tony was no longer an attractive widower, he was only a patient who was in need of her help. Sara leaned across the table to grab Tony’s hand and smelled alcohol. “Tony! Have you been drinking?”
“Well, my dear,” Tony threw his hands above his had as to plead innocence and blurted out, “Today is Saturday.”
Sarah looked at him with a face of disbelief and disapproval. “Saturday? But Tony, it’s not even ten yet.”
Tony smiled and looked straight into her eyes, “Well I guess your right, but I just figured, this morning, that I would spend some time with my best buddy Jack D. He always seems to know how to take away the pain.”
“Tell me about Saturday. What about Saturday is causing you so much pain?”
Tony stood up and maid his way over to a couch in the middle of the store. He placed his plate and mug down lightly on the coffee table as he sat down. Sarah followed Tony, sat adjacent to him on the couch and waited for him to begin speaking.
“Saturday was the day we spent in bed. Every weekend we took a drive out to our summer home that her father bought for us as a wedding gift. He was slammed under piles and piles of all kinds of money.” Toni took a bite out of one of his sandwiches; he looked at her and took another bite. He washed down the sandwich with a sip of coffee and continued his story. “Every Saturday morning we laid in bed and ate pancakes. We would trade off who would cook each week, even though she would usually throw the chefly duties at me. I didn’t mind because I would love to just watch her sleep. She was the type that slept peacefully, such that she almost looked better sleeping than she did while she was awake.”
Tony grabbed the last bite of his first sandwich; he wiped his mouth with a napkin and took his time to think of what to say next. “I used to love that place. What I loved most is that it allowed us to get away from reality for a while. Though we were two functional adults, we were two adolescents in grown bodies. I would love to just watch her run around the field, or swing from the tire swing that we set up. Sometimes we would swim together in the lake behind the house, or lie in the field and study the cloud images, then remain in the same spot and make pictures with the stars. It was always so easy to just be there with her. We never argued there, even when there was a problem bugging one of us, we just waited until we got back to the city to discuss it.” Tony grabbed his mug and rubbed the rim, “You know why that place is really special though?” Tony paused as if to wait for an answer then continued, “We actually had our first kiss there. She took me out there and showed me the abandoned home and the field that she loved and told me that she would live and die in that house one day. We stood by the lake, and as the sunset sparkled over the ripples I leaned over and kissed her. It was perfect.”
Tony then stopped speaking and looked at Sarah. Maybe it was the alcohol starting to get to him, because when he looked at her he did not see her face, he saw Mary in her place. He then leaned over and kissed her.
