Despite Dad's flurry of activity around the yard and home, he always found time to take me to lunch. We ate at restaurants once or twice a week, which pleased me to no end, as I had enjoyed dining out since I was quite young. Even though my lunch and stomach seldom tolerated each other, it was worth the effort. The food, at any rate, tasted good on the way down.
Mom returned home from work usually between 4:00 and 4:30, although 5:00 p.m. stints became increasingly familiar as the years passed. The age-old thought that one's work is easier as the years unfold did not seem to hold any truth with respect to Mom's career. Her day never came to an end, even after she dismissed the classroom. Armed with at least one tote bag, she would continue her work after supper and into the evening, often falling asleep to attest to her fatigue. She was the only person I knew who could fall asleep and continue writing a sentence, although admittedly the content of a sentence produced through these means lacked all human sensibility and she would be obliged to begin anew.
Depending largely on the state of my health, I would help with the preparation of supper in varying degrees, sometimes fixing a large portion of the meal and other times doing little more than setting the table or peeling vegetables for the salad. Apart from helping Mom, meal preparation allowed us to catch up on the day's events, ranging from my occasional outings to Mom's cantankerous and incorrigible youth, of which there was always at least one per class.
When the dishes once again found their way into the cupboards, the day had slowed to a quiet pace. Dad would prop himself up in his recliner behind a wall of newspaper and give an onlooker the impression that he was avidly perusing the articles. Only a steady puffing or an occasional snort would indicate that the downcast eyes saw no more words on that page than would the gaze of a blind man. Mom remained awake as long as she puttered about the house, but once seated, soon acquired the visage of a woman drugged, weighted eyelids transforming her eyes to slits. At this point, I could leave the room entirely unnoticed. It was grand that we found each other so relaxing. Perhaps the moral of this paragraph is that no one falls asleep in the presence of someone he does not trust.
My parents probably considered they had struggled enough to remain awake, and by 10:30 settled into bed; I did not do likewise until after midnight. Often I was still rustling about when Norm returned home, and stationing myself on a kitchen chair, would oversee his hasty reheating of the evening fare. Observing Norm eat was no lengthy ordeal, for an entire plate-full of food could vanish in minutes. A food's aesthetic appeal held little importance as long as the flavor was agreeable.
Despite the fact that I had no school or work to punctuate weekends, they remained quite different from the rest of the week if only because both Mom and Norm were home all day. Saturday and Sunday were the only days when they saw each other since their work schedules did not coincide, and would therefore catch up on the latest tidbits of information while Mom did the laundry. Mom couldn't just sit and talk; she had to be mending a sock, or sorting clothes or folding towels. Her industriousness was not an exaggerated view of the work ethic driven into her as a child. . . merely her nervous energy seeking an outlet.
Invariably weekends would bring at least one outing for Norm and me, whether this consisted of a motorcycle ride, a drive in the car, a walk, or a combination of many alternatives; a picnic was almost always on our agenda. With my decreasing tolerance for heat, fall was especially wonderful. The air once again attained a seasonal crispness which beckoned us to bask in the sun or amble amongst the woodland's profusion of color. A feeling of serenity pervaded the entire landscape, a scene transformed after the chaotic months of summer. No children's cries pierced the tranquility. . . no dirt bikes invaded one's thoughts.
Toting KFC and a six-pack of beer, we would situate ourselves alongside of the Mississippi or travel to a park and eat beneath the trees. Lingering for hours in the cool breeze of autumn and then, perhaps, hiking on a trail or country road for a stretch, was leisure at its best, and life was most worthwhile. These were the days I loved, yet of more importance than the day was the person with whom I shared it, for it is not the experience but rather the presence (or absence) of an individual that truly raises life's moments above the mundane. Never had I encountered such utter compatibility; we thought in the same way. Norm often said, "We might as well not talk at all," because certain occasions would find us simultaneously blurting out identical thoughts and then stopping our tongues in midair. "Oh, well." The end result was obvious to both of us, so there was no purpose in voicing our viewpoint or observation.
Norm seldom aired his feelings toward a person, for he was able to demonstrate his tolerance and love for an individual through actions and, not unlike many people, found it extremely difficult to verbalize that which resided on tender ground. When someone's love for another is clear, words, though pleasant to the ear, merely add warmth to the heart. Rarity bestowed Norm's statements with more value; since the words need not have been spoken to be understood, the words themselves only clarified his feelings.
More than once, however, Norm asserted that he was not sure how he could handle my death, for aside from our great companionship he thought of me as his touchstone with the female sex. There was not a large array of women associated with his line of work, except for the teachers who were yet in their rooms when he arrived, and he did not wish conversation to become difficult simply through a lack of social contact. How well I understood his statement; a steadfast advocate of personal "self-sufficiency," I feared dependence of any kind upon habits or people. That I so enjoyed Norm's company was, in itself, a trifle unnerving because a loss of such magnitude would prove devastating, yet Norm and death were two words which, in my eyes, spanned the distance of one star to another. It was unthinkable that Norm would die before me.