Becoming Mona Lisa Read Free

it. Neither of us did. We pleaded the fifth, at every opportunity, for the fifth consecutive year. It had to stop.
    I heard him on the porch, and I ran to the foyer and opened the door he'd just closed.
    “Tom?” I whispered, and he turned, his eyes registering surprise.
    “What?”
    “Will you hug me?” I asked, willing myself not to cry.
    “Why?”
    “There doesn't have to be a reason. I'd like you to hug me.”
    He did.
    He felt familiar, and stood stiller than a cadaver. It was like being hugged by a third cousin, twice removed, who'd flown in from Wisconsin for a once-a-decade Siggs reunion.
    The embrace was obligatory, almost cold.
    I felt worse. “Thanks,” I mumbled.
    “No problem,” he said.
    He strolled down the sidewalk, his right hand in his pocket, his eyes registering shame as they made contact with the asinine car in our driveway.
    When Tom wasn't holed up in rural hell with his unhappy wife, he was serving time as a salesman for the Bucks County Auto Super Store. The automobile outside our house was their pride and joy. It was ridiculous, but appropriate. The vehicle was a late model Toyota, replete with a deer head – sporting over-sized resin antlers – attached to the roof, above the windshield. A bushy white tail was adhered above the lock on the trunk.
    Plastic legs protruded from the front and rear bumpers. It was supposed to look like a majestic creature prancing along the roads of Bucks County. It didn't.
    Tom's professional life had come full circle. He was just as emasculated by this job as he'd been in high school, when he'd danced around in August heat, in a chicken costume, advertising the local barbeque, until he fainted and was rescued by two pedestrians in their
    mid eighties.
    The chicken costume was long since retired, set aside with all the dreams my husband once had for his life. He wanted to do more, be more, and once, long ago, we'd snuggled in bed and talked of the things we'd be. We were none of those things, and I sighed deeply, and wondered what the hell happened.
    I returned to the kitchen, refilled my coffee mug, thrust two slices of limp, white bread into the old toaster, and forced its plug into the grimy outlet. The toaster shook, the bread shot out like a cannon, and flames leaped from the left slot.
    “Jesus,” I said, as the toaster vibrated, launching crumbs from its bowels, like bits of confetti. I wrapped my hand in a stained dishtowel, whispered a quick goodbye to those I loved, and unplugged the Westinghouse fire trap.
    It was moments like this when I wished my dad was still close by.
    He wasn't.
    He and my mother lived in a retirement community ten miles outside Miami, Florida.
    Dad had been a music teacher, who was basically tone deaf. What he could do was fix stuff.
    One could give my father a rusty pile of junk, and George Harrison, who resembled the legendary Beatle in face, not talent, would turn it into a rocket ship. I missed him. A lot.
    I dropped the towel on the table, and looked out the dirty window at small-town America. Despite the horrendous condition of my old house, it was, in a sense, what I had always wanted. There was a certain sweetness to the slowness of small-town living, and Oxford Valley, Pennsylvania, the place I called home, was no different.
    It was autumn in Pennsylvania, my favorite time of year. Trees bared in preparation for winter, and a spring of new growth. It was quiet, and gradual, and it should have brought me peace. Instead, it made me wistful. I closed my eyes and imagined the smell of autumn.
    In reality, all I could smell was burning toaster, but the symbolism was nice.
    Something moved, catching my attention. Thurman was back. I sipped the steaming liquid in my cup and spied on my neighbor. Thurman spotted a piece of paper in his side yard. He picked it up, wadded it in his fist, and turned toward my house.
    What the hell is he doing? Oh, my God, he's not coming over, is he?
    He toddled toward the road and tossed