Maggie discovered her husband at the bottom of the basement stairs – his body contorted, eyes wide open and empty of light.
She remembered hearing a tumble and thud in the middle of the night, waking momentarily before dismissing the sound as a fleeting element of a fading dream.
So, Maggie went back to sleep.
She was so startled by her early morning discovery she almost fell down the stairs herself. Now she stood frozen in the doorframe, unsure what to do.
She nervously fumbled around the pockets of her bathrobe for her phone while staring down at the strangely twisted body of the man she had spent 30 (mostly good) years with.
The gravity of her loss rose from the soles of her feet, and she felt rubber-legged and lightheaded – she wretched suddenly and grabbed the railing to steady herself.
After a few deep breaths, she swiped the security code into her cell, opened the phone app, and stared absently at the number pad.
“Fuck” she whispered to herself.
Who to call?
If there had been any signs of life, this wouldn’t be a question. But the 911 emergency had passed — her husband was dead.
She dialed her son – but with no idea what she would say when he picked up, she panicked and hung up the phone on the third ring.
“FUUUUCK!” she screamed, her voice so loud she reflexively looked down at her husband to see if the sheer amplification had snapped him out of death. It hadn’t. However, her scream woke her dog, Molly, who she heard hopping off the bed upstairs.
Her phone rings.
It’s her son.
The confluence of Molly making her way down the stairs, her dead husband in the basement, and her son on the end of her ringing phone cause Maggie to burst out crying.
“Come on, Maggie, pull yourself together,” she says tersely before answering the phone.
“Mom, is everything OK?”
“No, it’s not.”
“I’m sorry I hung up on you!” now sobbing uncontrollably.
“Mom, what’s wrong!!??”
“Your father fell down the stairs. I think he’s dead.”
She knew he was dead.
She wasn’t sure why she said, “I think he’s dead” – maybe she was trying to protect her son from what she was feeling – alone and adrift.
Was a fifteen-minute drive with false hope better than one with the hard truth?
There was a prolonged silence, followed by “I’m on my way.”
She still hasn’t found the courage to go to him. She’s still at the top of the stairs, and he’s on the cold basement floor.
Dotingly, Molly sits at her feet, wagging her tail softly, looking up at her and seemingly wondering, “Why are we standing in the doorway?”
She pats Molly gently and says sadly, “Daddy’s gone.”
Her moment with Molly evaporates in the sudden crunch of car tires on a gravel driveway – a car door slams, followed by an urgent knock on the front door.
She glances again at her husband before heading to the living room with Molly in tow.
“He’s never going to leave her,” she whispers into the mirror before peeking from the bathroom to the bed, the rise and fall of tangled bedsheets, and the messy truth of her life.
Three years of skulking around hotels and motels in towns miles from where she and her dirty little secret lived their other life.
The sex was great. There was no denying that. But three years in, Maggie wonders, “Would it be so great without all the secrecy – without the element of danger”?
“Probably not,” she says to herself.
“Fuck it – I’m done.”
She packs her overnight bag, gets in her car, and drives.
She never spoke to her married lover, landlord, best friend, or roommate. She drove west for three days – before settling in Jacksboro, New Mexico.
A fresh start.
A few months later, she landed a job as a technical writer at zDeck, a fast-growing company specializing in patio design and architecture.
John graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor’s degree from New Mexico State.
He floundered in the sciences for a few years before settling on an English major – primarily because he enjoyed the classes. From American Short Stories to British Romanticism, he connected with the content – it prodded him to think and broadened his perspective on life and human nature.
Maybe all those stories and poems (and the characters that inhabited them) were a welcome distraction from his life.
“A degree in the humanities isn’t skills-based,” he recollects the words from his bemoaning father.
“It doesn’t give you the tools you need to make money!”
“You’re right, Dad, it doesn’t,” John remembers cavalierly responding to his father’s concern.
“But it’ll help me understand the human condition and navigate life’s absurdities- and I think that’s what I need right now.”
John rarely thought ahead. Not because he didn’t see the value, but because he never acquired that skill – he never observed his parent’s “planning” when he was growing up, the consequence of a disengaged alcoholic father and a mother struggling to keep herself and her family afloat.
In John’s childhood, there was no long view. Growing up was day-to-day.
After graduating, John fell into technical writing, “like a blind man into a quicksand pit,” he warned his son years later when counseling him on the importance of “having a plan.”
In the late 80s and early 90s, technical writing wasn’t specialized (or all that technical)– if you could write, you were a candidate – and John could write.
He was bright, creative, quick-witted, and had an innate way with words.
Everyone who came to know John liked him – almost immediately, it seemed.
Maggie remembers when she met John at zDeck in 1989.
It was John’s second day on the job. Maggie sat at the breakroom table, daydreaming over a cup of coffee and playing with a sugar packet, when he walked in – lunch bag in hand – a nervous smile on a handsome face.
“Hey,” she nodded at him.
He responded kindly with a “Good morning,” opened the refrigerator, and deposited his lunch.
“I’m Maggie, by the way.”
“Hi Maggie-by-the-way, I’m John.”
She smiled, bit her lower lip playfully, and thought, “Hmm, this could be fun.”
Maggie, casting the sugar packet aside, “So, how do you like zDeck so far?”
John, happy to engage:
“So far so good. I’m still learning the ropes. They have me in training this week and next.”
Maggie, smiling: “Ahh… Inkslinger training . . . I remember it well.”
John, somewhat surprised:
“You’re a writer? Tell me – and be honest – what am I in for?”
Maggie, without missing a beat:
“Humiliation, mostly.”
“Ha!” John responded with delight at both Maggie’s response and the natural rhythm of their conversation.
Maggie pushes up from her chair and starts towards the breakroom door. She feels his gaze on her back, looks over her shoulder, and says, “Good luck with training; I’ll see you around.”
“See you around, Maggie-by-the-Way.”
In 3 years, they were married.
Thirty years later, John still referred to his wife endearingly as Maggie-By-the-Way.
Maggie opens the door. Her son stands and stares for a second.
“Where is he?”
Maggie turns towards the open door leading to the basement.
Her son brushes past her and walks tentatively towards the lit doorway – slowing his pace considerably as he gets closer.
When he reaches the doorway, he leans in, bends, turns his shoulders slightly, and peers down the stairs.
Molly remains at Maggie’s feet, quizzically looking across the room at the son and then back up at Maggie, wondering what was happening.
“Did you call 911?” the son asks solemnly – never looking back towards his mother, eyes red and fixed on his dead father.
“No, I haven’t.”
The son takes the cell phone from his coat pocket and taps the screen.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My father fell down the stairs – I think he’s dead.”
“Is he breathing?”
“No.
It looks like he broke his neck” – the son begins to cry.
“He’s dead. Can you please send someone.”
John feels the pervasive drop in temperature. It envelops him and pries him from his sleep.
The pilot light’s out again, he thinks to himself.
He sits up and looks over at Maggie – dead to the world. John muses to himself, “She could sleep through a hurricane (and an ice age, apparently),” and smiles in her direction.
He slowly swings his legs over the side of the bed, puts his feet on the cold hardwood floor, and stands.
Molly is tucked cozily in the crook of Maggie’s legs. Sleepy-eyed and content, she raises her head slightly, looks at him and wags her tail quietly.
“I got this girl; you go back to sleep,” John says to her as he heads downstairs.
The light above the stove dimly lights the kitchen. John opens the junk drawer and pushes aside pens and pencils, loose batteries, and an opened pack of note cards before finally finding the matches. He suddenly feels lightheaded and grabs onto the kitchen counter.
“Christ,” he says to himself.
He’s been having these spells for a few weeks now but puts off calling his doctor.
The dizziness passes; John stuffs the matches in his pajama pocket, walks to the door that leads to the basement, opens it, and takes a step.
John’s second dizzy spell inhabits his last vestige of conscious thought. It’s followed by the sensation of twisting and falling, momentary weightlessness, and a sharp crack of pain when the base of his neck meets the unforgiving edge of the fifth step on the basement stairs.
A bright burst of white light and a buzzing electric sound is followed immediately by complete blackness.
And just like that, John, sixty-two years old and newly retired, was gone.
The paramedics – a young man and a woman – arrive 5 minutes after the 911 call.
Maggie meets them at the front door.
“Hello, mam. Did you call 911?”
“My son called – but it’s my husband – he’s fallen – he’s at the bottom of the basement stairs.”
Maggie becomes lightheaded at the words, “he’s at the bottom of the basement stairs,” – and the paramedic reaches out to prevent her from falling.
Years later, Maggie would look back and wonder how eight words strung together could illicit such a strong physiological response.
“OK, mam, come sit with me.”
The woman paramedic slow-walks Maggie to the sofa while the other heads across the living room to the basement stairs, stopping suddenly at the doorway (like there’s an invisible forcefield) before proceeding to the basement.
About 30 seconds later, he’s on his phone – his words float up to the living room:
“Yeah, it’s Bill – we need the coroner at 77 Merton – yeah, looks like a fall – yes – male, about sixty, I think – Yes, his wife and son. Got it – OK – Thanks.”
Maggie and her son are still on the sofa when the paramedic comes up from the basement – they look at him, and he meets their eyes – he’s tight-lipped and pale. Maggie almost feels sorry for him – she wants to tell him, “It’s OK, you don’t need to say the words – we know he’s dead,” but she lets him speak.
“I’m sorry, mam, your husband is deceased. The coroner is being notified. He should be here shortly.” – this time, Maggie does not become lightheaded at the words – she feels her spine stiffen, and a sustained pulse of energy courses through her – emanating from the center of her chest to her limbs.
Maggie turns to her son, who suddenly seems wrecked and catatonic – like he’s been hit by the “everything-all-at-once” train. She slides towards her son, puts her arm around him, and pulls him close – he melts into her – he feels both heavy and empty on her chest.
The coroner arrives at 7:00 AM. By now, neighbors are waking to the flashing lights of the rescue squad and several official-looking vehicles parked haphazardly in front of 77 Merton Road.
Maggie gazes out her living room window towards her best friend Gail Green’s house.
Gail stands on her front porch, swaying while holding her coffee mug with both hands, worry draped on her face. Maggie wants to text her, but she’s unsure if that would be a breach of protocol.
After several minutes, Gail turns slowly and heads back into her house.
The coroner has been with John for nearly 20 minutes, and Maggie starts to feel anxious – then the male paramedic, who has been with the coroner, comes up the stairs.
“Mam, the coroner wants to know if you want a few minutes with your husband before we take him to County General.”
Maggie isn’t sure how to respond. She looks to her son for advice, and he nods approvingly.
“Can my son come with me?”
Maggie and her son walk down to the basement – John’s body is no longer on the floor. Instead, he’s tucked into a thick plastic body bag on a gurney, with only his chest and head exposed.
Maggie leans over and kisses John. His forehead feels like a cold stone on her lips. Maggie’s son stands behind her – head bowed – tears streaming down his cheeks.
Maggie turns to the coroner and asks if she can have the wedding band from her husband’s finger before they take him away.
“Of course. Can you give me a minute alone with your husband?”
Maggie and her son walk to the other side of the basement where John kept his workshop.
There’s an unfinished project – a repair to the rocking chair that John gave Maggie before the birth of their son – the entire workshop is infused with the comforting smell of wood shavings and varnish, which feels inherently nostalgic in John’s absence.
Maggie takes her index finger and traces the floral engraving on the rocking chair’s headpiece – the day’s events wash over her as she slips between a daydream and a trance engulfed in sepia-toned memories of her and John, young and vibrant, asleep in their bed, arguing across the kitchen table, crying while holding one another and laughing hysterically, at what she’s not sure. The memories play like a tattered and jittery home movie in her head.
With Maggie and her son distracted, the coroner reaches into the body bag and carefully extracts John’s arm, resting it respectfully across his chest. He proceeds to remove the wedding band. It takes some effort, as rigor has set in. With the ring off, the coroner gently twists John’s wrist so that his palm is facing upward – his arm still resting on his chest. He places the wedding band on John’s palm so that it looks like John is presenting it as an offering.
“Mam, you can come back now.”
Maggie and her son stand over John silently.
Maggie looks at the coroner with deep appreciation for his kindness – he nods and steps away from the gurney, disappearing ghostlike from the grieving wife and son.
Maggie gently takes the band from her husband’s hand, holds it close to her face, and reads the inscription.
Enjoying every day with Maggie-By-The-Way – 1992
She closes her hand tightly around the ring and smiles.
bendingtheneedle 