Friday, February 10^th, 2012: Morning

 

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
Ecclesiastes 3

Brenda Bailey Cunningham opened her eyes. The smell of morning coffee was what brought her out of her sleep. This was unusual for her because she was normally in charge of coffee detail in the mornings. Riley must have had to really pee bad this morning, she thought to herself. Not much else that would get him out from between the sheets this early. She looked to Riley's side of the bed as she lay there and thought, yeah that must have been it.

Regardless of why her husband had gotten an early start, she was glad that her first routine task of the day was over. Just getting downstairs after waking up was her worst time of the day. She always worried that her legs would give out while she tried to balance herself on the stairway. They had once, and she had come bouncing down butt first on at least half a dozen steps before finally grasping on to the handrails to stop.

She had just been clumsy and over stepped. As her weight came down on her right foot, her ankle pivoted because nothing was there to hold the ball of her foot and down she came. Her pride would never allow herself to think that the fall was her fault. No, she had been the victim of getting older. Getting older was something she accepted as a natural part of life so no blame was attached to it.

The coffee was already working to arouse her senses, so she swiveled her body, planted her feet on the floor, and took a deep breath inhaling additional coffee molecules that whiffed in from downstairs. Getting old, she thought to herself and then realized, Oh my God! It's Friday!

"It's my birthday, it's my birthday," she said aloud, embracing the event like a small child.

She did not mind getting older and even though today she was fifty-five; she did not feel like she was old. She certainly did not look it either. A couple of years ago, a question as to her age had been raised by an acquaintance and rather then tell them she was over fifty, she told them "Guess!"

When they suggested just over forty, Brenda had just beamed and said, "I wish".

Of course, she feared asking people to guess anymore. She was confident that no one would think she was as old as she was but they might start suggesting high forties.

The coffee smell was so enticing; she considered foregoing her other morning rituals but her bladder told her she needed to take care of personal morning business now. She washed up, splashed some water into her eyes and used her hands to comb out and organize her hair while blinking into the bathroom mirror to clear morning blurriness. She grabbed her housecoat from where she always placed it before retiring for the night and headed down the stairs.

Yes, the smell of coffee certainly does give me more confidence on these steps, she thought, still excited from realizing it was her birthday. She wondered if Riley would remember. He usually did not remember important dates like birthdays and anniversaries but sometimes he surprised her. She hoped he would remember but if he had not, she would forgive him. He was a busy man and as long as he remembered when the house payment was due, she would be happy.

Riley was a couple of years younger than she was, but he was definitely starting to show his age. His hair was not too bad yet but definitely thinner than it had been. A touch of grey here and there and he had sported a lot of grey in his beard when they took that three week vacation to Florida last year. He had decided that he was going to take a vacation from shaving as well as work. Brenda thought it was funny because the grey streaks bothered him a lot but she thought it made him look smarter.

"Coffee?" Riley said to her.

Brenda just looked at him with that expression on her face, the one she used that she assumed her meaning would be perfectly clear to him. "Yes".

Riley did not notice the look she gave him but he knew the answer anyway and placed a cup in front of her normal place at the kitchen table.

"This is my favorite day," Riley stated, as he sat down and sipped from his own cup.

Brenda's heart skipped a beat. "Oh you dear..." she thought, "you remembered."

But then Riley went on to clarify his words by saying "Fridays are so great because all I have to do is go to work, work my shift, and then I'm home for the weekend."

Brenda smiled anyway. After all, on Riley's own birthday last September, she had to remind him of it. If he cannot remember his own birthday, no reason to expect he will remember anyone else's.

"You did get the house payment mailed this week, right?" she asked.

"Of course I did" he laughed.

"Sorry," returned Brenda. She did not know why in the world she would have asked him that. "I'm glad you take care of things like that. We would probably have our house repossessed if it was up to me to pay the bills."

Riley arose from his seat and reached for the cupboard. "I didn't forget this either."

From inside the cupboard, he pulled out a small box, all glossy white, wrapped with a red ribbon and a bow attached to the top of it. He placed it near Brenda's coffee.

It really was a surprise to her and for a moment, she thought she would shed a tear but she brushed her cheek with her left hand while she reached for the present. Riley just smiled and returned to his seat and continued drinking his coffee.

Giving each other gifts was something Brenda and Riley rarely practiced, even at Christmas time. If either of them needed something, they went shopping for it themselves. They both agreed that money was better spent paying bills rather than buying more junk to clutter the fireplace mantel.

"It's not much Honey, but I saw it and I thought you would like it." He explained.

"What is it?" asked Brenda, as she examined it from several angles. It did not matter to her what it was. Riley had remembered and that was enough.

"Well, open it." Riley said a little impatiently, but still smiling. You never know about how someone will react to a gift but he really did think she would like this one.

"Ok, ok" Brenda replied, but she continued to twirl it around in her hand. It was so nicely wrapped; she hated to mess it up. She would have been happy just to have the box alone when it was wrapped this nicely. She knew Riley wanted to see her face when she opened it so she began to pick at the paper and ribbon to open it. She tried her best to keep the ribbon and bow intact. The ribbon was wound tightly around the box however. After struggling way too long as far as Riley was concerned, she just slipped a finger underneath the ribbon and gave it a quick yank.

With the ribbon and bow detached, she removed the wrapping paper and inside, she found a small box. She shook it, and heard it rattle, and she smiled at the sound. She removed the lid from the box and inside was some kind of jewelry. A silver necklace, with some charm-like objects connected to it. She emptied the box into her hand and she could see that the charms were three small letters, 'B B C'. It was Brenda's initials.

She clasped her hands around it and gave a loving smile to Riley who instantly broke out into a big grin of his own.

"You like it?" he asked, as if to get just one more confirmation that he had found a good gift.

Brenda opened her hands so that she could gaze at it again "Of course I do silly. Anything you get for me that is personalized like this; you know I'm going to treasure it." Riley smiled even more.

Then, a moment of concern and doubt entered his mind. He looked at the size of the bracelet, as it lay there in Brenda's hand, and realized that the circumference of the chain was a lot larger than he had remembered it to be when he purchased it.

"Hmm...," he mumbled, "I hope it isn't too big. If it is, maybe we can get it shrunk down somehow." Brenda looked down at it again to see what Riley was concerned about.

"I don't want you to lose it off your wrist." Riley cautioned. Brenda held it up to get a better look at the size and then it dawned on her.

"Oh, this isn't a bracelet for your wrist, this is an ankle bracelet," explained Brenda.

Riley was confused. "Ankle bracelet?" he asked. It is not that he had never heard of such a thing but to Riley, this just did not set right with him. Ankle bracelets were something he connected to people living in primitive villages out in the jungle somewhere. Of course, Riley never did understand anything about fashion. Rings, necklaces, and bracelets he understood. Ear things, he got them also but this was somehow, different.

"See?" Brenda declared, as she reached down and clicked the clasp together around her left ankle, "The bracelet is just the right size."

Riley looked down towards Brenda's feet and agreed that it fit, but he was less sure about how good a gift it was now. Brenda seemed just as pleased having it above her foot then she would be if it had been a perfect fit for her wrist so Riley began to accept it.

This was the end of the discussion about the bracelet that morning. Brenda would wear her new gift proudly all day. The couple returned to their normal morning chat subjects as they finished their coffee. Both knew that it was getting late and the boss would not like it if they were tardy. Both of them held office jobs, Brenda was a claims adjuster for an insurance company and Riley was an accountant working for city government.

"Are you stopping by BJs after work today to meet Lisa?" Riley asked.

Brenda chuckled, "You already said it is Friday, of course we are." Brenda and her best friend Lisa made it a regular date to meet after work on Friday afternoons and share some wine. They rarely missed a Friday. For them, it seemed like a great way to shake off the workweek and celebrate the weekend's arrival.

Riley never objected, besides he always worked after hours on Fridays anyway. He would rather stay late then have stuff left to do on Monday morning. For him, Monday morning at the office was his time to shift between work and play modes. He preferred his Mondays to be leisurely paced and to use the time to plan and gear up for the remainder of the week.