By Anne Petersen
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Thelma Fletcher knew that this was one of her best shopping trips yet. Not because she literally knew it, but because she could feel it in her bones. Unless that was osteoporosis. She was also a little concerned about that. But unless she was suffering from some medical condition, Thelma knew that she had saved more money than she ever had before. And she was very proud of herself for that.
She opened her large plaid green tote bag, which was filled to the brim with coupons ordered neatly by product: cheeses, milk, bread, freezer pizzas . . . the list went on. And that was just her bag of food coupons. She gave an approving grunt and closed the bag, taking it along with her first round of groceries up her little mauve porch. She was able to use no less than twenty coupons on this trip and had only made a small indent in her bag. So, she had quite a few left over to share with her elderly friends at her local gardening club. There was little else Thelma enjoyed in life except for gardening and saving money. And helping others to save, too. She was kind in that way. She had become widely regarded as “the little old coupon lady on the corner of 5th Avenue,” and her neighbors had begun to appreciate her tenacity even more with the current state of the country.
Thelma laboriously unloaded the back of her little Beetle. She didn’t use a cane, and she didn’t use help, either. Even when one of her younger neighbors passed, offering it, as per usual. Thelma stubbornly but politely declined. For if there was anything she feared, it was becoming useless.
After Thelma had finished, she put a pot of coffee to brew (which she had gotten completely for free) and sat down in her wicker rocking chair. She sighed and thought about her day. It had gone just as planned, a perfectly normal Tuesday. Absolutely nothing strange or out of the ordinary had happened. Thelma liked her days how she liked her coffee: somewhat bland and always the same.
Just as Thelma thought that nothing in her life could be going better, there was a loud rapping on her door. Thelma thought that it was her neighbor coming to ask if she had any barbecue coupons again, until she peered through the glass and saw the troubled face of her son George.
Thelma opened the door, her face becoming as worried as her son’s. “George, dear, what are you doing here?"
George didn’t seem to have heard her, and if he did, he ignored it. He stumbled right past Thelma, dragging a big black suitcase.
Thelma shut the door with a thud. “George Cornelius Fletcher. I asked you what you were doing here.”
George flinched at the tone of Thelma’s voice, but he knew better than to avoid the question. “Well, I might have . . . um . . .”
“Spit it out George.”
George fidgeted nervously. “I lost my job. And—”
“You lost your construction job! Oh my, how did that happen?"
“Well, you know how people are getting laid off?”
“Of course, George dear.”
“Since people aren’t getting new homes—”
“You don’t have a job to do and they laid you off. I see, I see,” Thelma interrupted. “Then get another job George. And I think you need a better reason than that for barging into my house with no warning.”
“I lost my job a few months ago, so—”
“George, why didn’t you tell me? You know that’s a big deal, losing your job?”
George shook his head. “Mom, it doesn’t matter. My point is I lost my house, too.”
Thelma gasped. “Your house? George!”
George shrugged, avoiding his mother’s eyes, lost for words.
George wasn’t the only one lost for words. Thelma put her hands on her hips. She didn’t feel like there was anything she could have said. Losing his job! Not only that, but not telling her for months! And then barging into her house after losing his house too, it was simply too much for Thelma to comprehend. She began to question if this man was really her offspring.
After an agonizingly long silence, Thelma said, “You don’t think you’re going to live with me now, do you?”
George didn’t say anything, because that was exactly his plan.
Thelma grabbed George’s oversized suitcase and pulled it out the door.
“Hey!” George said, lunging after it.
Thelma rolled it all the way up to his car, George delayed from having accidentally tripped over her petunias. “George, why didn’t you tell me? This is nonsense!”
George dusted grass and dirt off of his clothes, standing up. “Well, I didn’t think you would care very much. Like you said, you would have just told me to get another job.”
“And did you try to get one?”
George sighed. “Yeah, of course. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I wasn’t able to get one soon enough.”
“Hm.” Thelma said.
George hesitated before saying anything else. “Look mom, I really don’t have anywhere else to go. And would you really want me to live in a homeless shelter?”
Thelma had to admit he had a point. She wasn’t sure if he had really tried hard enough to save his house, or if there was another job he could have taken somewhere, but in this situation, she probably wouldn’t be able to live with herself knowing her son was living in a homeless shelter when she had a spare room in the basement. She gestured that he could come in, and returned into her house without looking back.
Dinner at Thelma Fletcher’s house wasn’t much different except that the silence that usually filled her dining room was a little more uncomfortable. Thelma sat across from George, both of them eating turkey sandwiches. Thelma had started to regret how quickly she had thrown her son out of the house. She realized that she was more generous to her neighbors than her own son, and she hated herself for that. The thought provoked her to talk.
“George, do you have any idea of what you’re going to do now?”
George grimaced slightly. “Not exactly. Because of the crash last year, I lost quite a bit of cash. You know how I liked to invest how I wanted.”
Thelma sighed knowingly. “Yes, dear. I was always telling you that was a bad idea.”
“Well,” George said, rubbing his neck, “you were right I guess.”
Thelma took another bite of her sandwich, not breaking eye contact.
“Um . . . yeah,” George continued, “so I lost the money, and I was just down to paying my bills. And honestly, that was going pretty well until I got laid off. You know the story. But you don’t know how I tried to make money in the meantime.”
“Yes?”
“Well, of course I started out trying to find more construction jobs. There just didn’t seem to be any openings, which makes sense in hindsight. Then I started looking for bus driver jobs. I managed to get onto this little gig where I was driving three days a week, nine to five. I was making about fourteen bucks an hour, and if you do the math I was making about $330 bucks a week. It was just enough to scrape by. That worked out until I lost that job too. Bus driving wasn’t the best job to pick, looking back. Then I had to find another job within a month. Well, it wasn’t easy to find one that paid well with only my high school diploma. You know how that is.
“And you didn’t find a job?”
“Yep. And then when I finally got to the point of not being able to pay the bills, that’s when the bank took the house.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Thelma asked bluntly, as was her nature.
“I guess I’ll try to get another job.”
“Where?”
George’s eyebrows went up. “Well, I don’t know. Somewhere.”
“I think you’d better figure that out.”
“I suppose so,” George said, pushing his chair in. “Well, I’ll be in the basement.”
“Not yet,” Thelma insisted. “Sit down.”
George groaned. It was a strange thing to see a man in his early fifties groan. But he did as she asked.
“What sorts of jobs are out there that you could get started in?” Thelma prodded.
George rubbed his chin. “Well, I was thinking about getting restarted in construction."
“George, didn’t you just say that was a bad idea?” Thelma asked incredulously.
“Well . . . maybe.” George said grouchily.
“Why don’t you try a job that is doing well right now? You like building and fixing
things. Remember how you were always fixing the old car? You could go work in the auto repair shop downtown. When I was getting my oil changed a couple weeks ago the man there told me they desperately needed more help.”
George’s eyes widened, and he looked hopeful for the first time. “Well, maybe."
They worked together to figure out how to apply for auto repair, and lo and behold, you only needed a high school diploma. After George sent in his preliminary application and went to the basement, Thelma heated up her bland coffee in the microwave for exactly fifty-four seconds and sat back down in her wicker rocking chair. Finally, everything was back to normal. At least, mostly normal.
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