Ad Nauseam - By C. W. LaSart Page 0,20
wake. Smartly dressed in a peach blazer and skirt with her gray hair perfectly coiffed atop her head in a twist, she was ready for her day as a personal banker, the job she’d held since their kids had all started school.
“Hmmph.” William grunted, glancing at his wife, then returning his eyes to the clock.
“Oh William, really. Are you going to mope around here forever? How are you going to handle retirement if you can’t even find something to do for the summer? You’re used to having summers off.” Kristi pulled out a chair and perched lightly on the edge, grabbing his hand in her own and frowning. “Have you been taking those pills the doctor gave you?”
“I’m not depressed.” William also frowned, but it felt diluted in comparison to his wife’s stern countenance. Everything about her personality had always been more forceful, more vibrant. He had no delusions about who ran their household. “I’m just bored.”
“You know what you need, William?” Kristi’s favorite pastime had always been telling William what he needed. “You need a hobby. Rachel’s husband builds model cars and Ralph across the street does all that woodworking.”
“Those are old man hobbies.”
“We aren’t getting any younger, dear.” She patted his hand affectionately, but he pulled his own back.
“I’m not that old.” The whiny tone in his voice made him feel like a petulant child.
“Really, William? So what is this? Sitting around in your shorts all day feeling sorry for yourself? I swear, the least you can do is go out and get rid of that damned squirrel.”
“Squirrel?”
“Yeah. The squirrel that’s on the roof making Devon bark. Can’t you hear him? Or are you going deaf too?” Kristi stood and retrieved her purse, her back stiff and her chin raised in anger. With her hand on the doorknob she turned slightly, her eyes narrowed as she spoke. “You need to do something with yourself, William. I will not spend the next thirty years watching you give up and rot in that chair.”
William watched the door slam behind her. Standing to take a shower, he paused when he heard Devon begin to bay in the backyard.
He does sound upset about something, he thought, opting to forego the shower and just get dressed so he could investigate.
On his way to the door, William tripped over something, nearly falling on his face. He heard things go flying, and to his dismay, realized he had knocked over Kristi’s massive sewing kit, spilling about a hundred spools of thread.
Even when she’s not here she is making my life hell! Why does one woman need that much thread, anyways? Gathering together the spools, Devon’s baying continued, now louder and longer.
Devon wagged his tail in greeting and William rubbed the hound dog’s graying muzzle.
“Just you and me now, old boy. Two old hounds with nothing to do.” William went to the garage and got the dog’s food bowl, filling it from a bag on the shelf. There was a time when he just left the bowl out, feeding Devon whenever it ran empty, but the vet said he was getting fat. The weight wasn’t good for his heart.
William’s doctor had said the same thing about him.
Leaving Devon to his meal, William went back into the garage to get the lawnmower. It was still clean and shiny, a self-propelled model that his three grown children had pitched in for an early Father’s Day gift. The old mower had worked just fine, but they worried he was getting too old to push the heavy thing around the yard.
I’m not old, he thought, never been sick a day in my life. I’m still useful.
William was halfway through mowing before Devon began to bark again, sitting on his haunches under the eave that jutted above the back porch. Usually the dog was timid around the lawnmower, but he refused to budge when William came near, forcing him to kill the mower. Devon’s attention remained on the roof, his bark sounding vicious and the hair standing up on his back.
“What is it, pal? What are you barking at?” William shaded his eyes with one hand and looked up. Devon barked again, and he gently placed his other hand on the dog’s head to quiet him. After a moment of mostly silence, filled only with the annoying buzz of cicadas in the trees, he heard it. The high-pitched, distant chittering of a squirrel. A fuzzy red plume of tail appeared, zigzagging across the roof.
“Hey squirrel!” William didn’t actually expect the rodent