Steve Straight Biopsy

Steve Straight

Biopsy

Before the oncologist calls with the results, and we hear whether my wife will have to endure another two years of surgery, radiation, and chemo sickness, her hair falling out in clumps, white cell count dropping precipitously––or worse

or not

we pretend to vacation by the lake, and I notice the lone maple turning orange and red prematurely, the dark clot of cloud moving over us, and down in the middle of the lake, someone’s unmoored raft drifting with the current.

After the call and the tears and the hugs and more tears only then do I see the pair of loons circling each other across the lake, the newly opened waterlilies by the shore, sunlight replacing shade as the cloud moves north

andwhen mywife flings the ice cubes from her drink over her shoulder into the lake, the tiny rings spread out in perfect concentricity until eventually the surface returns to glass.

Pegi Deitz Shea

Autumn Equinox at Valley Falls

Late September, summer’s finalsigh: I pick them up from the nursing home, Bob and Shirley and Rosemary, buckle them in, pack their walkers with the picnic basket in the trunk.

They can’t manage the grass or the sand on the beach, so I line up lawn chairs in front of the lavs, as if the Memorial Day parade might come drumming up the drive. Lunch is nothing fancy— just things they never get— rich cheeses, crisp crackers, and fruits so fresh they crunch. grape soda for Bob, O’Doul’s for Shirley, and for Rosemary, a martini in a sippy cup.

Oh, we know the rules: Alcohol Prohibited in Parks. But at 95, she can’t be denied. I’m their Jack Nicholson, and they’re flyingoverthe Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s not the food that delights them most, nor the thrum of reawakened locusts, northe ripplingreflections of firstyellowleaves upon the pond’s cold springs, nor the husky sweet aroma of reeds drying in spikes. No.

It’s the toddlers squealing as minnows tickle knees, dogs leaping for Frisbees, and birds swooping, swooning to mate before the sun, all too soon, falls into the valley.