Marna Czerkowski gently shut the green, hollow door with her right hand. The brass of her worn wedding ring clicked against the brass of the door knob. The ring, now almost fused to her bony finger, had been getting loose lately. Her left hand met her left brown with relief. It didn't help the ache behind her eyes any more though.
She paused, facing the door. As Marna exhaled, she blew a green paint chip onto the bare, blond floor. She flipped off the light switch; up for off, down for on, an oddity George had always found endearing and American about their home. With the gray December afternoon light flooding the kitchen and keeping her company, Marna picked - one by one - the pound cake crumbs off her formica table, the color of salted pistachios. She brushed them from her hands into Norma's tea cup. A few crumbs stuck to her hands. She wiped them carefully on her clean, white-with-red-stitch apron. Those crumbs mostly fell into the apron's pocket that Marna had sewn onto it before the Christmas dinner she and George had hosted in 1953.
The clanking of the pink plates and the tea cups and the polite tea spoons all made Marna cringe; so she quickly placed them in the sink with minimal splash and went into her and George's bedroom. She put on her mother's tan tweed jacket, relishing the touch of the rich navy silk lining on her dry, December skin. The smell of George's cigars puffed off the coat as she settled it on her broad shoulders. Marna buttoned the coat up and noticed her hands. She quickly fled the thought and scurried around their neatly-kept bed to the window.
Parade — Hoboken, New Jersey. Robert Frank. 1958.
She threw it open.
The air assaulted her.
She was grateful. Marna stood at the window with her eyes closed, smelling tweed and cigars and the bite of the air. The wind silently commanded Norma's flag against Marna's window. Norma had always been a fine neighbor. Marna qualified her bossiness as concern, but not without reserve. Marna took in the cold until she could feel it in her teeth and her toenails. Then, she returned to the kitchen to finish tidying. The cold followed.
As Marna finished the dishes - the three plates, the two tea cups, - she noticed the steam where the cold air met the hot, hot sink. As the dish water drained, she was sad to see it go, leaving only suds. Marna wiped her hands clean on the red (now practically pink) dish towel she always kept hanging on the oven door. With a few drops of dish water lingering on her hands, Marna undid the tie to her apron and let it hang from her long neck. Minding her carefully-pinned "blonde" hair, Marna slipped the apron over her head and placed it on the table to rest.
She looks up.
The flag flaps against the window in the bedroom behind her. She turns to return to her and George's room, instead finding her hand on the only other door knob in the apartment. Marna tiptoes into the third room, carpeted for quiet, and finds herself perched on the other well-kept bed in the apartment. Not a wrinkle in it, in 20 years. She stares across the room out the closed window, listening to the flag flapping in the other room. Marna closes her eyes again, as her left hand returns to her left brow.