All Ears

I woke at 3:40 AM from the sound of the train and the pollen. All of our windows are open.

Yesterday I went swimming. After a half hour, I was boiling hot. I stopped to cool off. I said hello to the woman prancing in the pool. We were the only ones there. The sun was shining through the windows.

I'm a retired nurse. I love taking care of people. I love bedside. I played tenor sax in the school band and worked more jobs and earned more money than my father, in high school, I grew up in a family where my parents were both alcoholics and they beat me. My four siblings had it worse they had verbal abuse. I'm in the middle. I ran away from Dedham to Boston and became a nurse and met my husband and we've been married 35 years. On our first date I got him drunk I tried my hardest to get him to beat me. He didn't. He didn't even even like to drink. He finally got drunk and handed me the car keys. I had to find out if he was ever going to be a mean drunk like my parents. He's a 6th grade science teacher and his whole family are teachers.

She had rosy cheeks and generous nostrils that tilted up at an angle like a miniature cow. I loved listening to her Boston accent.

I could talk your ear off, she said. I smiled.

I was enjoying her stories. I was curious about her siblings and how they have managed. I stood there listening for 45 minutes until I was freezing cold and had wrinkly blue fingertips.

Then I resumed swimming again and when I looked up she had vanished.