Read Online The Sweet by and By by Todd Johnson - Free Book Online Page A

time to use scissors, my fingers don’t go into the handles the way they’re sup- posed to. I know how scissors are supposed to feel. Something’s wrong with these. It’s good for me to move my hands; if I don’t, arthritis is going to take over completely and then I won’t even be able to write my name. Bernice is making small hearts out of paper lace and gluing them onto f lowerpots with tulips in them. I don’t know where they got tulips this time of year. They don’t look that healthy but any kind of fresh f lower is nice. I have never been someone who liked silk f lowers. Part of the whole reason for f lowers is not just the way they look, it’s bringing the outside inside, the smell, even the occasional bug that comes in with them. I’ve never seen Bernice so focused on anything, she is taking her time, cutting the shapes perfectly, putting just the right amount of glue on, and lining the hearts up evenly all around the outside of the pots. It makes me think that she must have kept a beautiful house when she was able. Her work is so neat it makes mine look like a five-year-old’s. Ada Everett asked me to help with the Valentine’s decorations and I said no, I was sure I didn’t have anything to offer, but she told me Bernice was helping, and
    I thought if Bernice is doing something then I have no excuse.
    Candy hearts on the table say things like “Be Mine” and “Hot Stuff.” Neither of these sayings speaks to me. I’m past both of them, for different reasons. There are also ones that say “Cutie-Pie” and “Kiss Me,” both of which are truly wishful thinking in this place. I would love to find one that said, “Massage My Feet” or “Hot Soup.” Those are some meaningful messages. I tried to eat one of them, but they’re too hard. They don’t taste good enough to suck on, and if you try to chew one you’ll break a tooth or a denture or make your gums bleed. Ada Everett ought to know better than to give us this kind of candy when we’d be better off with a coconut chew.
    Bernice has changed projects and is making a heart that has tiny cutouts in the shapes of diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades. It’s like a Las Vegas valentine.
    “Why are you doing those shapes, honey?” I ask.
    “Anybody in here like to play poker?” she holds the nearly com- pleted heart up to her face and peeks one eye through a club-shaped cutout.
    “Not with you they don’t because you always win.” “Alvin taught me real good. I can teach you.”
    “The only time I see Alvin is when one of the nurses is looking for him to do something that he was already supposed to have done. I guess now I know where he spends his free time.”
    “Alvin’s real good at cards,” Bernice goes on undeterred. “Evidently.”
    “Have you got some valentines?” Bernice asks with her eyebrows raised, looking over at my pitiful pile of work.
    “I’m sorry to say I’ve only got five, and only four usable.” One of them is shaped more like a potato than a heart.
    “No. Real valentines,” Bernice giggles. “Sweethearts.” “You’re my only valentine, Bernice, you know that.”
    “Well that’s sad then because a valentine is somebody you hold in your heart. That’s why I’m making hearts. I’ve got lots of hearts.”
    She is pushing for something and I don’t know what. I search for what to say. My husband was a good man. I did not love him, but he was good. I reckon I was waiting for a real valentine, and what I found was Charles Clayton. We married; that’s what a person did. And we made a life together, that’s also what people did. My heart never changed, but it did soften, with time, and I found some room for him in it that I didn’t know I had. I don’t really feel like talking to Bernice in one of her crazy spells right now.
    “Won’t you be my valentine? I will be your valentine.” Bernice is singing to herself a tune that sounds vaguely like “Old Dan Tucker.” She sings the same two lines over