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| The Travelers |
My phone rang early and unexpectedly this morning. I hate when that happens. I was prepared to ignore it, getting on with
pouring my granola, when I saw the name on the caller ID.
The name which the voice feature on my phone was now trying
to pronounce made my heart pretty much stop.
It was the name of a man I met through my husband’s employment. I’ve known of this nice man for years without really
knowing him at all.
Having recent concerns about my husband’s blood pressure,
specifically in relationship to his work, my hands began to shake as I crossed
the kitchen to pick up the phone.
“Brenda? This is
S.B.” (He obviously said his whole name,
but for purposes of this story, let’s just use his initials.) He sounded like he had something important to
say and I had a sickening feeling in my stomach. About the time I was gripping the counter-top
for support; my racing mind began remembering that S.B. no longer works with my
husband. In fact I’m pretty sure he left
the company years ago.
Before I had a chance to stop imagining my husband in an
ambulance and suck in a reviving breath, S.B. launched my emotional surfboard
onto a new wave of worry. “I got a text
message this morning from Emery.”
Okay, now my hands were in full-Parkinson shake. Emery is my father’s best friend and he
attends church with S.B. I’ve been
feeding cats for the last week because my parents are on a cruise with Emery
and his wife. This could only be
terrible news.
S.B. continued. “I
got your phone number from Steve Shelly.”
Steve is my brother-in-law and in my addled state of apprehension, my
immediate thought was something like “Why
the heck didn’t my brother-in-law call me or better yet drive the 2 miles between
his house and mine to deliver terrible news?”
But S.B. was to be the bearer of the tidings. “Your mother needed to get a message to
you.” All of my anguish zoomed in on my
father. He always attends overseas trips
and cruises with reluctance. Though his
wife is an ambitious and tireless globe-trotter (and he can’t stand when she
goes anywhere without him), his heart is really back in Pennsylvania watching
golf on television, an appreciative cat on his lap. Dear Lord no, I’m not ready to lose my Dad.
And then S.B. dropped the other shoe. “Your mother thinks she might have an
appointment scheduled on Friday morning for a haircut and a facial and she
wants you to cancel it.”
Seriously? This one
minute early morning phone call which had doubled my heart rate, shot my
adrenalin levels to remarkable heights and sent my impressionable brain on a
circuitous route through terrors like emergency rooms and ship doctors was
going to end at the Classic Hair Salon in Trumbauersville? I was effectively reduced to a pile of jelly.
It took ten minutes for my hands to stop shaking. There had best be something better than a My Parents Traveled the Seven Seas and All I
Got Was this Lousy T-Shirt in my mother’s luggage.
