My husband booked my yearly checkup for 9:40 Monday, and he sat out in the truck while my doctor asked me why I’d been hitting him.
“He’s been in twice this summer with bruises,” she said, real careful. “He says it’s you, and he wants me to sign something.”
Then she turned a form around on the exam table, and under my name were four words I had to read twice.
Petition for Appointment of Guardian.
My name was typed on the top line, spelled right, middle initial and all.
I’d have laughed if my hands weren’t shaking.
Everybody in Sparks calls me Miss Ro. Thirty-one years I dished up tater tots at the elementary school on Prater Way. No first grader alive can holler “Rosemary” across a lunchroom.
I’m seventy-five, and I still drive. I still keep the books for our Thursday bowling league. The Raley’s ad is folded by my kitchen phone right now, with the coupons circled.
And my husband of fifty-one years was telling my doctor I’d gone mean in the head.
“I didn’t sign this,” the doctor said. “I told him I’d need to see you. Alone.”
That’s why the nurse stopped Ronnie at the front desk that morning. “Just the patient today, sir,” she’d said, and he’d gone out to the truck, red in the face. In fifty-one years that man never once let me see a doctor without him.
“Ro, I have to ask,” the doctor said. “Are you safe at home?”
“I’m safe,” I said. “I don’t know about him. I’m about to find out.”
She did the memory test anyway, for my chart. I got every question right, even the one where you draw the clock.
Then she said the part that about put me on the floor.
“He also told me you’ve stolen before. From the school.”
I sat there on that crinkly paper and felt my face go hot. Because I had.
In 1986 the railroad laid Ronnie off at the Sparks yard, and we were two payments behind on the house. I took $740 out of the lunch money box, a little at a time, over one bad month. I paid it back ten and twenty dollars a week for a year, out of my own check. Nobody ever knew but Ronnie. He held my hand that whole year and said, “We’ll get through it, Ro.”
Now he’d handed it to my doctor like a receipt.
“I did take it,” I told her. “I paid back every penny, and I’d do it again to keep the lights on.”
She nodded like she’d heard worse. Then she told me about the bruises. One in June, on his forearm, and one in August, on his hip. Ronnie’s on a heart pill that makes him bruise if you look at him hard. The June one was the step stool, cleaning the gutters on the new roof we put on in 2015. I iced it myself. The August one was the truck door at the Nugget, on buffet day.
Every Tuesday for three years, Ronnie and his buddy Gil have gone to the buffet at the Nugget. Gil’s wife, Patsy, and I joke that it’s the only date either man keeps. “Prime rib Tuesday,” he calls it, and he comes home smelling like cigarettes and quarters.
I walked out of that office with a copy of the petition folded small in my purse. Ronnie had the ball game on the radio. “Everything okay?” he asked. “What’d she say?” “She says I’m fit as a fiddle,” I said. He didn’t look relieved. He looked like somebody had moved his chair.
That night I called our daughter, Terri, in Elko, and told her all of it. She was quiet a long time. “Mom, don’t go after Dad,” she finally said. “If you fight him, he’ll tell everybody we know about that school money.” “Honey, that was forty years ago.” “People won’t care. They’ll say you’re just after the house.” The house is half mine, and it has been since 1975.
I didn’t sleep. I sat at the kitchen table with that petition in front of me. Maybe Terri was right, and I’d look like a thief fighting over a house. Maybe it was easier to keep my mouth shut, like I did in 1986. Then I thought, no. In 1986 I kept my mouth shut to save this house. I wasn’t about to lose it keeping my mouth shut now.
Tuesday morning Ronnie put on his good shirt. “Back by four,” he said, and kissed the top of my head like always. At noon I called Gil’s house, and Patsy answered. I asked her to put Ronnie on. “Ronnie?” she said. “Hon, Gil hasn’t been to prime rib in six months, not since his gallbladder.”
I hung up and sat real still. Six months of Tuesdays.
At 4:10 his truck pulled in. I had the petition flat on the kitchen table, next to his coffee cup. He saw it from the doorway and stopped with one boot on the mat.
“Ro,” he said. “Let me explain.”
“Fifty-one years,” I said. “You told my doctor I hit you, and you told her I’m a thief. And Gil hasn’t been to that buffet in six months.”
He sat down heavy, and all at once he looked old. He rubbed the bruise on his arm and looked at the floor.
“I didn’t want you finding out from the bank, Ro,” he said, “but the house is… behind. Three payments. I took a loan against it in March.”
The room went very quiet. The refrigerator hummed.
“Where’d the money go, Ronnie?”
He didn’t answer. He reached into his pocket and set something on the table. A handful of quarters. They rolled a little and settled against the petition.
“The Nugget,” he whispered. “After Gil quit coming, I kept going. Just the slots. Just Tuesdays, I told myself. Then Tuesdays and Thursdays. I thought I could win it back before you noticed.”
I looked at the quarters. Cigarettes and quarters. For three years I’d smelled it on him and told myself it was the buffet.
“You tried to have me declared incompetent,” I said, “so you could sign for the house without me.”
“I panicked,” he said. “The bank sent a letter. I thought if I had guardianship, I could fix it quiet. Ro, I was going to fix it.”
“In 1986,” I said, “I stole $740 to save this house. And I paid back every penny. You’re lying to lose it.”
He cried then. Not loud. Just sat there leaking at my kitchen table, a seventy-eight-year-old man with quarters in his pocket.
I called Terri back that night and told her everything. She wanted to drive over from Elko. “I’ve got this,” I told her. “I drew the clock, remember?”
The next morning, I drove myself to the bank. I’m seventy-five, and I still drive. I sat down with a loan officer half my age and laid it all out. We worked out a plan to fold the March loan back into the mortgage. It’ll cost us, but the house stays. Then I drove home and took the checkbook out of Ronnie’s desk drawer.
“You don’t touch the accounts anymore,” I told him. “I keep the books for the bowling league. I can keep ours.”
“What about the petition?” he asked.
“You’re going to call your lawyer and withdraw it. Today. And then you’re going to call Dr. Simmons’ office and tell them you lied.”
“Ro—”
“Or I’ll do it for you. And I’ll bring the quarters.”
He made both calls that afternoon. I stood in the doorway and listened. His voice shook on the second one.
That evening, Patsy called. “You okay, hon?” she asked. “Gil told me about the gallbladder thing. I’m sorry I was the one who told you.” “Don’t be,” I said. “Somebody had to.”
Tuesday came around again. Ronnie put on his good shirt out of habit, then stood in the bedroom doorway looking lost.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Nowhere, I guess.”
“Good,” I said. “Sit down. I’ll make coffee.”
He sat. I kept the petition copy. It’s in my purse, folded small, next to the Raley’s coupons.
In case he ever forgets who I am again.
This is a fictional story. The characters and events are imaginary. The text was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
