Missing
by
Popser
At first he was sly about it, almost polite, just asking questions. "Haven't seen the wife, lately. She all right?"
"She's fine," I said to the man standing on the walk by my yard. I was picking up pine needles dropped during the summer heat.
"It's a nice day out for a walk. You two still walking?"
"Whenever the weather's cool," I answered. I put another pile of pine needles in the trash box at my foot.
He rubbed at his nose, saw me looking at his hand push his nose up, and added, "Allergies. Going to be a hot day," he said.
"Yes, it is," I said. Now, I liked this good neighbor who lived down the street, but I knew he was wondering where my "wife" was. I had no way to easily explain to him that she was inside finishing the "Quilt-in-a-Day she had started the month before. It was her first quilt and her days were long with her sewing. She never believed that "one day" nonsense anyway.
"Well, tell her hello," my very puzzled neighbor said, and he went on his way, his first sneeze chopping at the morning air as he moved up the street.
I finished picking up the pine needless and began pulling at small clumps of new grass that had sprung up in the cracks of the driveway. I looked at them and knew I had better things to do than try to get them all out. As I bent once more, my nice neighbor from across the street came over carrying a small aluminum covered dish.
"Brought over some cookies," she said. I reached for the plate as she came up to me, but she passed me by. She walked up toward the front door of the house. "I'll just stop and say hello," she said. "I haven't seen her out the last few days."
"She's not...." I began, but my sweet neighbor was already knocking at the front door. I watched and waited. She knocked again. She waited, and I watched her wait. Finally she turned to me. "She come down with the flu?" she asked.
"No, she's fine. Probably busy inside." I came up beside her, feeling my legs groan as I walked. I had stooped down one time too many. "I'll just take the cookies and tell her you came by," I said.
"You're sure she's all right?"
"Just fine," I said, but she shook her head as if she didn't really believe me.
And it went that way all morning. As I watered, as I raked, as I cleaned out the car, neighbors passing by on that morning all asked about her, my Darling Wife. "Fine. She's good. A little busy," I said to them all, and they all looked puzzled and concerned and went on their ways.
By lunch time I decided I was through my outside work for the summer and went inside the house for lunch.
"Join me for lunch?" I asked my Darling Wife as I peeked into the living room where she sat hunched over the table trying to manipulate the quilt through, over, under, and around the sewing machine.
"Not now, I have to finish this row," she said.
"All right," I said. I showed her the dish of cookies. She paid the cookies no attention.
"Just a little while longer. Then I'm going to stop for lunch."
"I'll wait," I said.
"No, you go on. I don't know how long this will take."
"All right," I said again. "By the way, everyone says hello. They've been wondering where you've been the last few days."
Did you tell them?"
"No. It'd be too hard to explain." She nodded and kept on with her quilting, the machine humming along. I took myself and the cookies into the kitchen to make lunch.
Ten minutes into lunch, there was a knock at the front door. I went to answer it. I opened the door and two more of my neighbors stood glaring at me.
"Has she been kidnapped?" the taller of the two men said. He was nervous in his speech, hesitant, but he had spoken.
"Kidnapped?" I asked.
"Yes, has she?" the shorter man said. He sounded concerned.
"Someone tell you my wife has been kidnapped?"
"No," the taller one said, "but no one's seen her lately, and everyone on the block's been wondering."
"We were all really wondering," the shorter one said.
"Quiltnapped," I said. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to crack a smile, but I was serious.
"What?" they said in unison, a barbershop quartet minus two.
"Come on in," I said, and they came in, and they followed me into the living room that she and her quilt had taken over, DW insisting she needed all the space.
"We don't understand," they said. "Is she here?"
"Oh, yes, she's here," I said, and I moved over to the quilt spread across the chair and over and around and through the sewing machine and across two folding banquet tables. I found a bump in the quilt and took the quilt in both of my hands and lifted it up and there she was. "Oh, yes, here is my Darling Wife," I said.
They looked at her emerge from her quilt cocoon. They stared at her as she continued to sew.
"Go shout it from the rooftops," I said. "She's alive and well. Tell them all you saw it with your own eyes. And tell them she promises she'll be outside before summer's over."
I hope.
Copyright 1998 by A.B. Silver
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