Abel in Paris by Jeffrey Allen Whte (distant reading .TXT) 📖

Abel in Paris
By Jeffrey Allen White

Chapter 1

It was a cool, October day, the kind of day you would expect to have if you lived on the Eastern Coast of the United States. However, this was Northwestern Coast, Seattle, Washington, the Emerald City, home of the Seattle Seahawks and Mount St. Helens. Unlike May of 1980, the day Mount St. Helens blew its top off, the air today was crisp with the brisk chill of the approaching winter. There was a fresh cap of new-fallen snow up in the Cascade Mountains to the east. You could see the white peaks on the mountain range on days like this when the air was clear. Not a cloud in the sky to hold back the rays of the morning sun.

Abel McCormick, a tall, handsome man of 35, stood on his open balcony overlooking the new day, sipping his cup of coffee, his third if you were counting. He had taken to drinking coffee this past summer. He had been a health nut his wife Nina would say. They both were, with Nina leading the lead. Nina always told everyone, who would listen to her that coffee was toxic and could kill you. He had not thought of that since Nina died. He took another sip careful not to drip it on him.

Could it be only thirteen months since Nina died? Sometimes it seemed like years, other days it was just as if she were still alive laughing, baking or just being there telling him to take out the garbage or to order some more confectioners sugar or to just hold him and kiss and then gone again, suddenly, without warning. There were warnings though, his eyes squinting in the morning sun, blinding him for a second. Abel remembered the constant, agonizing headaches, the irritability, and the slow loss of memory. Simple things at first, then times when she forgot to eat, sleeping either longer than usual or shorter, the numbness in her arms and legs, the name of your own child or…

Abel’s thoughts drifted off into another time, a moment before when everything was great, and Nina was great, their restaurant was great and their lives, his life, was great. Were they that long ago? How happy they both were, having a beautiful wife, a great business and…, “Damn”, he said wiping a drop of coffee off the cuff of his shirt. “Hope that drip doesn’t leave a spot. “ Abel held his arm into the morning light to inspect for stains. Seeing no damage, he thought of Nina again. He smiled a big smile. Just the thought of her could make him smile. Nina could always make Abel laugh anytime she wanted. She just had that way about her. Even the worst of days she could light up his world with her presence. Just walking into a room, he would greet her with a huge grin. Abel laughed softly. He looked around thinking how foolish he looked laughing all by himself. However, Nina was like that. She could make him smile, grin or laugh. Like the time when she showed up at the cafe dressed as a gorilla in a brightly colored yellow poker dot hat to advertise their new banana pies. Abel even took a pie in the face once from a hysterically laughing Nina. They both laughed for hours. He found himself smiling again.

Nina was 32 years old but looked as if she were just a girl out of high school. Just thinking of boys, her hair and makeup, proms, taking tests, school and the fun parties they all had as teens. Her face filled his mind’s eye. He thought of her perfect nose, healthy, glowing skin, her long blonde hair pulled into one of those plastic loops that you would see on late night television infomercials right between Hair Club for Men and the Shark Steamer Cleaner, Always put together, always as lovely as the day he had first met her. Nina was the best to him and to their daughter, Sandy.

“Mommy, Mommy, I did it, I got an A on my world history essay.” Sandy was just ten and she had her father’s features more than her mom’s. Nina had always hoped she would resemble Abel as she thought that he was the most handsome man she had ever seen, other than Nina’s father, who reminded her of Abel with his kind, caring ways, and the tone of his voice even when he spoke loudly. Sandy has her father Abel’s thick, brown hair and his dimples, on either side of his wide smile and perfect teeth. She had the same dimpled smile but not pronounced and her light blue eyes sparkled with the blue of summer skies. When she laughed or smiled, his dimples would deepen, making him look even more handsome. Abel always hated his chimp dimps, as he called them, until their Sandy was born. Abel thought they made him look like a clown but after he saw Sandy, seconds old, he cried. That was the first time Nina had ever seen Abel cry, and through his tears of joy, she watched him when their newborn had smiled, mirroring Abel. She was their miracle of love. Nina was happy to know that their child would look like Abel. Nevertheless, Sandy also looks like her mother with the same curve of her cheeks and chin and the tiny beauty mark just above her left cheek. An angel’s kiss, her mother said whom like her daughter, Nina, was always right on everything. Abel smiled again and it faded as he thought about that awful day, which would change his and Sandy’s life forever.

Nina was startled when Sandy had entered, “Slow down, Pumpkin… Where is the fire?” Nina was just putting the groceries on the counter, since she had just come home from the market. Nina always tried to make sure she would be there before Sandy came home on the three days a week she managed to get away the café.

Sandy twirled with a paper in her outstretched hands and still, out of breath from running, excitedly said, “Mom. Look! I aced it. An A of my essay that I did yesterday.” Sandy took a gulp of air, “Mrs. Graham said it was one of the best papers she had ever seen… ever!” Jumping up on the stool beside the counter Sandy tossed her hair back and brought her paper up close for inspection. “Mrs. Graham said I would make a great writer… when I was older of course.” Sandy was smiling from ear to ear, her dimples making her think of Abel.

“Well, that is just wonderful, Sandy. Here, let me see your paper.” Nina sat down at the round kitchen table, which Abel found at a flea market. The chair that needed a little gluing, she reminded herself. Nina looked at the paper closely but really more through it. She could not focus her eyes on the huge red A that Mrs. Graham marked on it. Her head throbbed and she felt a little nauseated. It had started earlier when she was driving home from the market. “Another headache,” she uttered under her breath. Nina had hoped it would not last for long. She was about to get up to go into the bathroom off the kitchen to get a couple of extra-strength Excedrins, when without any warning, she collapsed onto the kitchen floor.

“Mommy, Mommy,” cried a hysterical Sandy. Nina’s arms went flailing about, her head rocking and shaking from side to side. Nina’s eyes, now wide open, were fixed and dilated. As she drifted into unconsciousness, all Nina could do was to stare blankly up at her crying child. Sandy held onto her mother who by then, was sprawled on the floor, having slid off from the chair that needed gluing. Her body went numb. Nina’s arms and legs were shaking less violently now and all the time Sandy was holding onto her mother as she had been held so many times before. Nina would die like this, on the kitchen floor with her daughter sobbing hysterically.

This was how Abel found both of them. His beautiful wife of twelve years, curled into a fetal position on the kitchen floor. The cool air rushed in from the open back door, making the kitchen colder than usual. A jar of marmalade, the kind Abel loved, was broken beside her, spilling its sweet contents all over the floor making it sticky and slippery. Along with the scattered cans and plastic bottles, broken glass and the now hardening of the marmalade, Abel went on his knees to his wife and daughter who was just sitting next her mother, rocking her back and forth in absolute silence. Sandy sat there shivering with her eyes closed amid the disarray of groceries, not even noticing that her father had come home. Exhausted from sobbing, Sandy cried herself to sleep. She sat there numb to the world. Abel’s mind grasped for explanation, “How did this happen? How could this happen?” Sandy had obviously witnessed a major seizure or something else that Nina had suffered.

Abel kicked the back door with his foot as he tried to revive Nina, grabbing her from Sandy who did not even react, her eyes still closed and slowly rocking her mother. There were trickles of blood coming out of Nina’s ears and nose. A brain aneurysm, the doctors would say, had burst in the front part of Nina’s brain. She had died almost before she had hit the floor. The doctors would say it was quick and the pain was over as her life left her body.

It took a while to pry a grieving Sandy away who still held onto Nina’s motionless arm. Sandy was now crying softly and shaking more, but she let Abel pull her away from Nina’s lifeless body. Abel held her. How awful it was for his little girl to witness such a terrible thing and for Nina to die right in front of their only daughter. Abel held Sandy tightly in his arms, wiping away the blood, which had dried his wife’s upper lip, mouth and cheek. He took off Nina’s scarf that she had worn to help keep her warm in the cool October air. Abel used it to wipe her chin and tried to clean her ears. Looking at his wife and wiping the stray hair that covered her angelic face, he knew his own life was over. Moreover, Sandy would never see her mother again. He knew he somehow called 911 on his cell phone after kicking the back door closed, but he did not remember making the call. All Abel could think of was his little girl and the lifeless body that once was his loving Nina. Had he been alone when this happened he would have sobbed openly but somehow managed to stay in control until the paramedics came and took over.

Tears were rolling down his face onto Nina’s very