Asunder
By Karen Schindler


Maddie always gets jam on her sleeve.

He still found that endearing.

Some of the other little things that she did that were cute at first, the giggling, the hair twirling, the taking her teeth out at parties….those things were starting to pall.

It’s tough being married for seventy years. Familiarity and gravity both take their toll after the first fifty years or so. But there was still love. A lot of love.

He’d never strayed.

Even now that he had to pretend to be her grandson. And they had to move every four years so people didn’t notice the fact that he never got any older.

The last forty years Maddie had been forced to keep her hands to herself in public. But that was getting harder for her to remember now that senility was starting to rear its ugly head. Maddie had always been a sexual creature. And passionate. She still was.

One night while having an intimate supper too much wine had overruled discretion and Rita Blessing, the gorgeous young lady who played the organ at church had happened to see Maddie with her hand on his crotch.

When Rita had broached the subject in the vestibule the next morning he had waved her concerns off with a lie about spilled creamer, but since Maddie hadn’t had a napkin in her hand at the time he didn’t think Rita had bought his story.

Rita had stood tantalizingly close to him that day at church while voicing her worry over the mental health of his “grandmother.”

About a week later Rita waylaid him in the bread aisle when he had gone to the market for milk. She made her intentions painfully clear to him as she pushed her soft breasts into his arm and breathed her thoughts into his ear.

She told him that he had to think of the good of his grandmother and of his own happiness and that he deserved a little joy in his life too. She had smiled knowingly at him when she felt a little joy make its presence known in his jeans as she followed her breathy thoughts up with a slightly overlong hug before leaving him to “think about maybe changing his living situation.”

And now here he was, standing in the shower “thinking about his living situation.”

He and his wife had made tender love this morning. He had to be very very careful with Maddie. He was horrified last winter when he had fractured her hip while they were in bed. They had told the ER doctor that she had slipped in the bath. He had been terrified to touch her for months after she had healed. But Maddie had told him that whatever the risk she couldn’t live without being able to express physical affection with him. That she would die without his touch. So they persevered, but with caution.

Now Rita offering a lush body and everything that being with a young woman would entail…….he found his thoughts drifting to her more and more and was wracked with guilt.

He loved Maddie.

He would never hurt her. He had meant his vows. Especially the let no man put asunder. Or in Rita’s case, no woman, no matter how tempting. After seventy years divorce wasn’t an option. It was til death do we part or nothing.

He finished getting ready.

They breakfasted and went off to church together.

After the children sang, Rita came down from the organ and squeezed into the pew next to him. When she placed her hand on his left thigh he felt his own organ stir. He felt Maddie stiffen on his right. When she shifted subtly he looked at her. Her hands were in her lap holding her hymnal. But her eyes were on his lap. He could see tears streaming down her face.

Shame burned a red path up his neck to his ears. He squeezed Maddie’s hand and told her that he needed some air. He excused himself and went outside to walk around the block.

The ambulance screaming up the street was his first clue that something was wrong. He raced inside just ahead of the paramedics. Maddie lay in a broken heap at the bottom of the stairs. Reverend Ash was just placing his suit jacket over her face. He looked up with stricken eyes as her grandson approached him.

“I’m not sure what happened. It almost seemed like she pushed away from me, but she must have caught her shoe or something. I was holding her elbow helping her down the stairs and then she just tumbled down them. God son, I’m so sorry for your loss. I know you were devoted to your grandmother.”

He looked down at Maddie, lying there lifeless, a suit coat over her face. Tears ran down his face and dripped onto the cold marble floor. Rita came to his side and asked him to please step aside so the paramedics could load Maddie onto a stretcher.

Rita thought that he had merely lost a beloved grandmother.

She had no idea that he had just lost the love of his life. His wife of seventy years. A woman that he’d watch grow from twenty five to ninety five and loved every moment of it. That he had just lost the only woman he’d ever loved.

Rita placed her arm around his waist and steered him to a chair. She looked at him with eyes filled with compassion and tenderness and the promise of more. She handed him a glass of water and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and asked if there was anything else that she could get him.

He looked up at her with streaming eyes to tell her that there was nothing else that she could give him. But the words stilled in his mouth. Probably because his heart had just jolted into his throat.

Rita had jam on her sleeve.


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Karen Schindler writes even when she's not writing. A lover of words her whole life she is amazed and awed when she can string sentences together that touch the heart/mind/funny bone of another soul. And she feels lucky that sometimes she manages to do all three.