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Dear Time’s Waste

  Joseph G. Mitchell

  Cover photo by Paul Bica

  Copyright 2016 Joseph G. Mitchell

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  “If I could go back,” a short pause, as if savoring the taste of sweet frosting. “I would do everything different.”

  Greg Tripp mulled over his co-worker’s words from that morning as he steered his truck along the highway. The setting sun in his rearview mirror imitated the rising sun he had stood beneath earlier that day, when his peer admitted that he wished to be divergent from his present self. Greg could not remember how the conversation began, but that one sentence resonated loudly in Greg’s mind.

  The echoes shook loose the rest of his friend’s confession: “If I could go back, I would do everything different. Knowing what I know now, I would have made a lot of other choices. Actually taken some things seriously. I’d have been more focused. I’d have applied myself. I just don’t feel like I’ve ever really learned anything or done anything with my life. I had a chance to really be something, be good at something, be successful, but I squandered it. I let it get away from me. I let my life get away from me.”

  “Well hang on.” Greg said. “What’re you saying? You’re not successful now?”

  His friend hesitated before gloomily replying: “It doesn’t really feel that way.”

  Having recollected the rest of that exchange, his friend’s subsequent concession lingered in Greg’s mind.

  “What do you do?” he thought to himself. “You live out twenty-something years of your life and you reach a point where you wish you could undo it, start over, and try again? He’s young enough. It’s not as if he’s old and feeble and physically limited from trying something new. He speaks as if his life is over, but he still has the rest of his life in front of him. Regrets from a death bed and he is still decades from it. If he is so desperate for change, he still has plenty of time to make it.”

  “But what he meant was that he cannot pursue those kinds of things you only can from a young age.” Greg countered. “Not anymore, he can’t. You can’t just erase the board and start fresh right before your thirtieth birthday. Not when you already have a life haphazardly built for yourself: a wife, a kid, a car note, a mortgage. He’s stuck in it, doing what he does because he has to, not because he wants to.” A pause. “And he doesn’t want to bury his dreams. He knows he must, because you can’t move forward still tethered to what’s behind you, but he’s reluctant to let it all go. Because that means surrendering his ambitions. Giving it all up.”

  “But what is so wrong with what he has now? You said it yourself: a wife, a kid, a car, a house. Are those the things he would rather surrender as opposed to his ambitions, those childhood dreams?”

  “What, does he sound selfish to you?”

  “I don’t know. I think he’s depressed, maybe in denial. And I don’t think he hates where he is, but he definitely sounds ambivalent about it all. Almost apathetic.”

  “Are we still talking about him?”

  The thought brought a grin out onto Greg’s face. “No, I’m not like that anymore. Nostalgia might nip at my heels from time to time, but I’m happy as hell to be where I am. I am the exultant sum of my choices. The road behind me might have been a little rocky, but it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you just get there.”

  Greg’s affirmation subdued his inner voice. Adjusting the volume knob on his truck’s stereo, Greg surrounded himself in loud music in the final few minutes of his journey home. After navigating off of the highway and through neighborhoods that alternated between ranch-style homes and clusters of tall and bending pine trees, Greg turned into the driveway of his single-story brick home. As he climbed the shallow ramp, he tapped the garage door remote hanging off his sun visor and parked his truck to the side to allow his wife enough room to pull into the garage when she arrived later that evening.

  “Home at last.” Greg beamed as he descended from his seat and to the pavement. He breathed in the autumn air, which was still warm from midday, and sampled the subtle aroma of cut grass that hung in the breeze like a thin miasma. Closing the truck door behind him, Greg passed through the garage and stepped through the doorway leading into the house. Immediately, he was met by an embrace from a smiling, medium-sized black lab.

  “Well hey there, Belle!” Greg fawned as he ran a hand over the dog’s head. Scratching Belle’s ear as she leaned into him, forepaws pressed against his thighs, Greg swooned. “How is my girl? Did you miss me or something?”

  Her tail swinging like a metronome, Belle’s brown eyes regarded Greg with joy as her pink tongue dangled slightly between ivory incisors. Greg chuckled as he lifted Belle by her paws and let her down gently to the floor. “Do you need to go outside?” he rhetorically asked. In reply, Belle bounded towards the back door and stopped halfway through the living room to regard Greg over her shoulder with another wide smile. Following her, Greg passed through the living room and the connected dining room before reaching the back door. With Belle at his feet, Greg unlatched the lock and gave the door a gentle push, after which Belle pranced outside and onto a concrete porch. Greg observed the canine as she stepped off of the concrete slab, sniffed at the sage grass, and promptly dropped her body to the ground. Her paws angled towards the sky, the black dog twisted her shoulders rhythmically as if she had an itch between them and the prodding blades of the lawn were the only panacea. As Belle squirmed under the setting sun, Greg chuckled to himself as he closed the door. Turning into the kitchen, Greg poured a glass of water from the faucet and regarded the time on the stove: 5:22. Sipping at the cool water, Greg internally debated between going for a run and plopping down onto the sofa. Knowing Ann would not be home for a while longer, Greg figured he could get in a decent run, shower, and get dinner prepared by the time she walked through the door. He emptied the glass, set it down in the sink, and made for the bedroom. After changing out of his uniform and withdrawing a shirt, a pair of shorts and a pair of socks from their dresser, Greg grabbed his running shoes and sat at the foot of the bed to pull them on. The act was a dare, to be sure. On the cusp of going out under the sun and sweating for thirty minutes, Greg was a nudge-from-gravity away from mimicking his dog and dropping to his back on the bed. He resisted the impulse as he tightened his laces, knowing that a run through the neighborhood would be good for him. Maybe even fun. He stood up off the bed, exited the house through the garage door, and stretched his legs briefly before heading out under the sky and onto the pavement.

  Already at a quick pace, Greg reminded himself to slow down or he would tire quickly. The cerebral admonishment was similar to every warning he had issued himself before every run previously and it was one he typically ignored. At twenty-eight years old, Greg was confident he was at his best when it pertained to physical conditioning, a necessary attribute considering his employment, which was an achievement he was proud to have finally attained. It was only ten years earlier, when Greg was a senior in high school, that three Navy recruiters were at his school, talking to students and awarding miscellaneous gear to those who did push-ups for them. Greg had watched male and female classmates confidently perform dozens of repetitions and, for some bizarre reason, imagined he could follow suit. He had no intention of joining the military back then, especially the Navy, but Greg felt an anomalous need that he must prove himself to somebody stirring inside him. Brazenly, Greg approached the recruiters and declared that he would drop and push for them.

  He could barely do ten.

/>   Greg navigated off of the asphalt and onto the sidewalk as a vehicle approached. Already feeling sweat form at his hairline, Greg fought back at the whispers in the back of his mind to stop the tedious exercise, to quit, and to rid himself of that creeping cramp in his side and just walk instead. Inhaling a deep and controlled breath through his mouth, Greg drew out his exhale through his nose and shouldered on.

  He remembered the embarrassment that hung off of him like a heavy coat, and the disbelief in the eyes of the recruiters, as he skulked away that day. He had proven nothing to anyone, especially himself.

  “If I could go back…” Those familiar words reappeared in Greg’s mind, sounded out in his friend’s voice, as age-old flashes of mortification and melancholy blinked in his memory like a strobe light.

  “What difference does it make?” Greg thought. “As awkward as that moment was, it was just a flash in the frying pan. The only one who remembers it is probably me anyway, so what’s the point of thinking about it, wishing you could change it?”

  “There isn’t a point.” His friend’s voice declared. “But maybe it’s just fun to think about. Wouldn’t it be fun to think about how, if you could go back, you would have just walked past those recruiters? If you could go back, would you still have been so nervous trying to talk to girls? Speaking of, maybe you would have acted a little differently when you first met Ann?”

  “Ann…” Greg’s eyes wandered off the road in front of him and glanced seven years into the past. Had it been that long since they first met? It felt so fast. And the trying times they had been through together: two deployments, months spent apart on top of that, and like an odious stew, it was all mixed in with his melodrama. A contemptible young man, Greg had told Ann too many terrible things in the first couple years of their relationship. Disdainful things. His inattention to her needs and theirs as a couple should have terminated their bond a squillion times over, but Greg figured Ann must have achieved apotheosis prior to meeting him because she never yielded. Every time Greg wanted to cut ties and quit on her, Ann would stand resolute. She knew he didn’t want to quit. She knew that, despite being incorrigible, Greg had the capacity to become a good man and a good husband. He just needed to give them—and himself—the chance.

  Greg reached the end of a cul-de-sac. He turned it all around though, similar to how he was following the gutter as it curled like a concrete serpent, and reached his own acme over the years. His memories of his conduct would leave him scarred, however. He had voiced his compunctions to Ann ad nauseam and she had always forgiven him. She would reiterate every time the topic was broached that he had become the man she knew he always would and that the journey was always worth it, even in spite of his preceding acrimonious behavior. Their relationship now seemed to be the envy of everyone they knew. They were more than husband and wife now; they were best friends, too. While other couples appeared to demonstrate obligatory or mechanical love, Greg and Ann always seemed to enjoy a wholesome and authentic kind of affection for each other. It was something he wished they always had.

  “So you would do it different.” The voice sneered, believing it had made its point.

  Greg hesitated. “No, I wouldn’t. I don’t think I could appreciate her now as much as I do if I wasn’t such an asshole back then. And it was all part of the ride, remember? Doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you get there.”

  Another gap. “You remember what day it is?”

  Still sweating, still running, but missing the euphoria he typical felt at this point, Greg recalled the name scribbled onto today’s date on his calendar.

  Paul.

  “How long has it been?” The voice asked. “Since he died?”

  “Since he was killed, you mean?” Greg said. “Nine years.”

  “Now isn’t that something you wish you could change? If you could go back, would you stop that fight from happening? Would he have even been on that side of town? Would you be there with him, instead of miles away? You thought the two of you were more brothers than you and your actual brother were. You’re almost seven years older than Christian, but Paul? You were maybe six months removed, right? You went to the same high school—he was at your senior prom! You remember the look on his face that night?”

  His lungs already burning, Greg could feel his throat tighten too. His cousin’s smile materialized in his mind, like the moon from behind a cloud. “He was there with his girlfriend. I didn’t know how he got in—the both of them were sophomores. Yeah, I remember seeing him. I think that was the last time I ever saw him.”

  “He always wanted to join the Marines.”

  Greg chuckled. “Yeah, for some odd reason. Now I guess I’m serving for the both of us.”

  “It’s not quite the Marines, though.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  Greg opened his eyes and found himself staring at the ceiling fan in his bedroom. Dressed in his shirt and running shorts minus the shoes, Greg was perplexed to see that he was on his bed instead of on the road. Lifting himself up onto his elbows, Greg first saw Belle sitting on the floor by his feet, looking at him with that darling smile on her face. He regarded her for a moment before he turned to look over his shoulder at the alarm clock on his bedside table. Black digits backlit by a soft blue glow: 5:26.

  “Really?” Greg asked aloud. He was flummoxed at how he ended up prone on the bed when he so vividly recalled jogging through the neighborhood. As he tried to piece together what had happened, Belle gently prodded his leg with her nose. Taking notice of her, Greg surmised that he must have fallen asleep for a moment and simply dreamt of the run. It was what he had been thinking about, the reason he had changed clothes, so he merely imagined it after he succumbed to the aforementioned nudge-from-gravity. Standing up, Belle spun in a circle before leaving the room ahead of Greg. Guessing the dog desired a treat, Greg retrieved a biscuit from atop the refrigerator and fed it to his canine companion.

  “If you’re hungry, I’m guessing Mommy will be too, when she gets home.” Greg grabbed a slab of frozen ground turkey from inside the freezer and set it in the microwave to thaw. On an almost weekly basis, he and Ann would cook spaghetti for dinner. It was a relatively easy, straightforward and modest supper that Greg always relished. As the meat revolved in the microwave, Greg was surprised to hear the hum of an engine begin emanating from inside the garage.

  “She home already?” Greg noticed Belle’s ears had perked up as she took a moment from gnawing at her biscuit to regard the door on the opposite end of the house. After a moment, the door opened and Ann stepped inside, the groaning of the mechanical garage door behind her as it shut.

  “Well hey there.” Greg said.

  “Hey babe.” Ann replied. Belle had abandoned her treat and galloped across the room to greet Ann as well. “Hey there, Belle!” Ann reached down and scratched at Belle’s ears. “How is my baby?”

  “I’m doing good, actually.” Greg interjected.

  “Funny guy, I meant this baby.” Ann mocked as she continued to run a hand through Belle’s obsidian fur. “But I’m nonetheless happy you’re doing good.”

  “Thank you.” Greg smiled. “How was your day?”

  “Well, your favorite patient came in today.”

  “No way.” Greg said, giddily. “The MK-Ultra lady?”

  “The very same.” Ann said as she shed her purse.

  Greg was fascinated with the woman Ann routinely treated. To him, she was a tall tale brought to life. “How many of her personalities did you talk to today?”

  “Only a few.” Ann crossed the room and greeted her husband with a kiss. “She or they or whatever were very cooperative. I mean, she typically is, so today was no different.”

  “That’s not very exciting.” Greg said.

  Ann scoffed. “Is a woman with 130-something personalities not good enough for you? Does she have to come in and go all Manchurian Candidate on me and the doctor for it to be exciting?”

  “I was just kidding.”
Greg held his palms up and out as if he were conceding. “I still think it’s a trip, her situation.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’d agree with you. Not everyone is more or less leased to the government as a child and experimented on with LSD and other unnamed horrors.” Ann quipped. Noticing the microwave, she asked, “What you cooking?”

  “Spaghetti. Always a favorite, right?”

  “Yes it is. Think you can handle it while I sit down for a second, take a load off?”

  “Handle getting everything out for later? You bet.”

  Ann laughed. “I’m not that hungry right now anyway. So yeah, we’ll start on it later.”

  Following her into the living room, Greg asked, “So was that the highlight of your day? That lady coming in again?”

  Sitting down on the sofa, Ann said, “Babe, the highlight of my day is clocking out and leaving that place. You have no idea the things I see every day. It’s disgusting.”

  “You’ve given me some examples before. The chlamydia is always a crowd-pleaser.”

  “If it wasn’t for these nasty patients and the drug-seekers that come through, thinking they can put one over on me, I might actually like working at this place. But then I get the patients who scream at me over the phone because their insurance won’t cover something—like that’s my fault—or their doctor wants them to come in for an appointment before giving them a refill—also not my fault—or they talk down to me because the shot hurts and their sister’s daughter’s best friend’s mom is a nurse and she would never hurt someone giving them a shot and I’m just the worst nurse there is.”

  Greg laughed. “What do you say to that?”

  “Things hurt when they puncture your skin! It’s actually a good sign that they feel a little pain. It would be weird if they thought it felt good.”

  Greg and Ann bantered for another moment about the clinic and the patients she had treated. In the past, Ann had voiced a mild displeasure with her career choice, but resigned herself as nursing was the reason she spent years attending college. While sitting with her on the couch, laughing at the stories she told, Greg wondered if she ever considered the same question that had fixed itself to his mind like a cobweb.

  “Well, I’m gonna get in the shower.” Noticing his gym clothes, Ann asked, “Did you work out or go for a run today? You don’t look sweaty at all.”

  “No,” Greg said. “I sort of took a nap.”

  “That is the complete opposite of working out.”

  “I don’t know what happened. I intended to. I sat down to put on my shoes and then woke up staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know I was that tired.”

  “Well, maybe we should go to bed a little early tonight. We have been staying up a little late these past couple days.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see how that works out.”

  Standing up, Ann kissed her husband and said, “We’ll start cooking after I get out. Are you hungry?”

  “Yeah,” Greg replied. “But I’m not starving or anything. Take your time.”

  “Okay. Love you.”

  “Love you too.” Greg watched his wife walk out of the room and smiled to himself. He knew he took her for granted. After two contentious years, mixed with self-induced distress and discourse, Greg tried to be cognizant of his direction. The following years were sporadically punctuated by quarrels, many of which Greg reacted to with immense hyperbole, but Greg knew his wife thought they were living the happiest years of their lives—quarrels be damned. This reflection reined in the vivid shadows of the dream Greg had of his run, replacing them with a warm effulgence of awe in his wife and in their partnership. As he quietly basked in his aura of gaiety, he noticed that Belle was staring at him, her treat positioned upward between her paws.

  Greg snickered. “What are you looking at, huh?” In reply, Belle turned her attention back to her nosh and resumed gnawing at it. Later, after Ann had completed her shower and the two had finished preparing their dinner, they sat down next to each other in the dining room. With steaming plates of spaghetti in front of them, sharing the space with savory slices of garlic bread, Greg led Ann in a quick and quiet prayer before beginning to eat.

  “Any reason for the prayer?” Ann asked. “I don’t think we’ve done that since last Thanksgiving.”

  Greg shrugged. “No reason. I guess I thought it just felt appropriate.”

  Ann seemed content with that reply until a moment later. “Today is the day, isn’t it? Paul?”

  Greg paused, his fork halfway to his lips, before lowering it back down to his plate. “Yeah. Today’s the day.”

  “You hadn’t said anything, but I thought I remembered seeing it on your calendar in the office. You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. It still feels fresh, you know? Even after all this time. I still can’t make sense of what happened to him, but I’m going to have to come to terms with it eventually. I honestly thought I already did, but this day in particular always brings it out of me.”

  “Brings what?” Ann asked.

  “Anger, mostly. I’m mad at the kid who killed him. I’m mad at Paul’s friends who were there and didn’t do anything. I’m mad at myself, which is illogical because I couldn’t have stopped it. But I miss him so much and the years that have gone by since haven’t healed as much as I would have thought. I…”

  The inner voice returned briefly. “I wish I could change it.”

  “I wish I knew he was all right.” Greg continued. “He was seventeen and probably scared and I don’t know or remember if it was quick or if he faded away from a coma or something, but…” Greg could feel a gentle burning in his eyes. “But he was pulverized that day. He had to have a closed-casket funeral, it was so bad. And he’s cremated, so I feel like I never got to say goodbye. I never got to look at him like I did my great-grandparents and feel that closure. With Paul, it’s like he was abducted. Just disappeared. MIA. And I just want to know that he is all right.”

  “I’m sure he is.” Ann reassured. “From what you have told me about him, he was a good kid who never did anything to deserve what happened to him. There’s a special place in Hell for the kid who killed him, but I know Paul is in a good place. I think you do, too.”

  Greg nodded. “I do. I want to believe. I just wish I knew, you know? I wish he could tell me, however briefly.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ann reached for her husband’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  Still staring blankly at his dinner as it sat steaming before him, an errant thought struck Greg like a wayward fly drunkenly meandering through the air. “You know one of the things he told me that fascinated him?”

  Ann looked at her distraught husband. “What?”

  Through the grief he could feel forming in his throat, Greg snickered. “He always thought ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ was the most duplicitous thing he had ever heard. He would say, for a hundred and fifty years, children have been singing the same short nursery rhyme without even thinking about the meaning behind the words they were saying. Just row your boat. Put on a stupid smile and row your boat along… because life is just a fanciful dream.”

  Staring at his dinner long enough for his vision to blur, Greg allowed only a short moment of silence to pass before pushing his angst away like a steeple of poker chips and changing the subject, speaking with Ann about an unrelated matter, the two continuing their dinner all the while. Barring his emotional confession, their dialogue over pasta was similar to every other they had at the dinner table. Meanwhile, Belle ate nearby from the cup of kibble Greg had poured into her bowl. Following dinner, Greg and Ann packed leftovers and began cleaning up the kitchen and their dishes. As they handled the final plate, Ann suggested she finish cleaning their flatware while Greg showered. Greg planted a kiss on Ann’s cheek before following her proposal, crossing the house and striding through the bedroom towards their shared bathroom. After disrobing and nudging the bathroom door enough to stand partially ajar behind him, Greg turned the shower knobs around and stepped in
to the hot stream. As he lathered and rinsed his body, Greg felt his mind wandering back to the words that still hung on him like a wraith.

  “Maybe there are some things I wish I could change,” Greg silently admitted. “But not out of some self-seeking yearning to walk a different road or to live a different life. I would do anything just to have Paul back.” He paused. “I think I would have joined the military sooner, too.”

  Greg’s disjointed thoughts jumped from his oath of enlistment at nineteen years old to his embarrassing escapade in front of the Navy recruiters at seventeen years old to his younger adolescence in grade school. Seemingly awakened by the rustling of memories, the voice returned. “Why do you care about those people?”

  “I don’t.” Greg replied. “I guess I just wish I had the opportunity to rub it in their faces, how successful I am now.”

  “They wouldn’t be impressed.” It flatly said. “Those were kids fed with silver spoons. Their family names were on buildings and parks around town. They had wealth and status. But you… you were the black sheep and they ostracized you for it.”

  “I don’t know if I remember it like that.”

  “Whether they’re children or adults, their arrogance is ingrained in them. Face it: you were the stereotypical outcast, jeered at for your faults and ignored when there wasn’t something they could make fun of you about. You used to imagine killing yourself, or at least faking it somehow, and wondering how they would all react.”

  Greg turned into the water, leaning into his hands as he held them against the wall, his head hung under the deluge pouring down from the shower head. Rivulets cascaded down in front of his eyes as a barrage of static images inundated his consciousness. These were things he had long ago forgotten about, the dust blown off of them by the faceless Voice seated deep within his mind.

  “You might have been eleven years old.” the Voice continued. “And you thought about ending your own life. Is there any wonder why introspections of that sort continued on for another ten years? Any wonder why they manifested the way that they did?”

  Greg withdrew a hand from the shower wall to examine his forearm. Below a black tattoo of a cross on his wrist, pale scars crisscrossed through his skin, an assemblage that was a permanent reminder of woeful nights alone with a knife as a young boy and his clouded, pubertal judgment. “I guess I was pretty messed up.”

  “And I would agree with you.” the Voice began. “However, you still had it made compared to the multitudes of children out there that didn’t have two parents who gave a shit about them, who tried their hardest to do right by them and provide for them. You used to sit in your room and cry and bask in your theatrical solitude like it was some fucking kind of cathartic therapy, but when you were caught, you played it like you were ashamed of yourself and mortified. But why else would you do it? To calm yourself down? To mute the chaotic torrent of voices and dam the stressors? To close and lock the door in the face of the outside world so it was just you, alone, with the searing pain of opened skin, the slow dribble of tepid blood on your arm, unreservedly surrounded by the silence and seclusion you swore you detested? Yeah, I would say you were pretty messed up, as well as thankless and narcissistic.”

  Greg abruptly turned the shower handles until the flow of water had ceased, punctuating his inward declamation with hushed silence that was only interrupted by the intervallic drops of water that fell from his naked frame.

  “Were.” Greg calmly emphasized. After reaching for a towel and drying himself, Greg pulled on the bathroom door and found Belle seated on the other side, staring up at him. Ann had adopted Belle at least a year before she had even met Greg, but the joke now was that Belle loved Greg more than Ann, the person who had initially rescued her. Greg smiled at the dog and quickly scratched at Belle’s ears as he stepped past her and into the bedroom. He dressed himself in pajama pants and a tank top, returned the towel to the bathroom and was followed by Belle as he joined Ann in the living room, who was seated at the couch. As he sat down beside her, Ann smiled at him and asked, “How was your shower? Did I leave enough hot water for you?”

  Temporarily forgetting his wet and quiet diatribe, Greg nodded and said, “Yeah, it was good. A nice way to wind down after a long day.” The couple remained on the couch a moment longer, watching television together, as the night dawdled onward. As the time crept past nine o’clock, Ann patted Greg on the shoulder and said, “Did you still want to go to bed a little early or stay up and watch this show?”

  Greg replied, “No, let’s go to bed. I’m no fan of falling asleep in the middle of the day at work and dreaming about all of the things I need to get done.” The young pair stood up off the couch, turned off the television and the lights, and headed for the bedroom and the attached bathroom. Greg and Ann started their preparations: they shared a sink as they brushed and flossed their teeth and as Ann brushed her hair for a moment, Greg checked their alarm clock to verify their early morning would at least be rudely and loudly interrupted as scheduled. While Ann maneuvered herself underneath the sheets, Belle followed suit and laid herself down atop a small pile of folded blankets in the corner of the bedroom. After giving the house a final onceover and verifying their doors were locked and home secured, Greg gave the bedroom light switch a quick flip and inundated the house in darkness. He navigated around the black silhouette of the bed before descending onto the mattress alongside his wife, pulling the sheets over him as he set his head down next to Ann’s on their pillows.

  “Anything big happening tomorrow?” Ann softly asked, her face shrouded in the gloom.

  “I don’t think so.” Greg replied. “Another day at the mines. You?”

  “Same. Looking forward to another nine hours of dealing with batshit-crazy.”

  Greg laughed. “At least we have each other.”

  Ann beamed, her obscured smile accompanied by a quiet hum of approval from her throat. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” Greg smiled back. “Are you really sleepy?” he asked, his finger brushing Ann’s leg under the blankets.

  “Why?” Ann asked coquettishly.

  His eyes adjusting to the murkiness around them, Greg could see Ann’s eyes—shadowy portals in the shade—searching for him. Finding her lips with his, Greg muttered, “Oh, I was just wondering,” before he renewed his marriage vows with her.