He could hear vague, bubbly rumblings with his ear against her bare belly, her heartbeat a distant drumming. They had both worked up a sweat; it had been some time since they last had some “private time,” as it had come to be known once they became parents, years ago. His ear made a funny, cupping sound, and he chuckled.
“What?” she asked, one hand reaching for her iPhone, the other stroking his scalp.
“No,” he said. “Nothing.”
He tried to be still, listening to the sounds of his wife’s body, of the air and blood rushing through her.
Her fingers moved across his scalp, nails gently tracing designs that made him think of figure skaters, filmed from above. The sensation the perfect complement to the ecstatic heights he’d just visited. There was something about how distractedly she performed the act, most of her attention on whatever was happening on the screen she held in her other hand, that made it even more enjoyable for him.
He sighed, closed his eyes, and invited sleep. Instead, a memory came:
A salt and pepper sofa in the paneled den of his childhood home, where a large, boxy television set presided in the darkness, emitting dreams in the form of movie starlets, handsome heroes, and bargains too good to pass up. He is 7 years old, stretched out on the couch, a mohair throw keeping him warm, his head in his mother’s lap. Something on the TV makes her laugh, but he’s watching her, not the show. Smoke, colored blue by the cathode glow of the set, streams out of her nose, and the familiar, comforting smell makes its way down to him. When she takes her glass up to her lips, he can hear the ice cubes clinking, and he sees more smoke escaping into the glass as she finishes her sip.
“Mommy?” he says, near sleep now.
“Uh-huh?”
“This,” he says, finding her hand with his, and placing it on his head, then pulling her fingers through his wild hair like a comb, “do this.”
She laughs again, not at the television show, but at this familiar refrain. She knew it was coming and that she would comply, stroking the boy’s hair until she feels the familiar rise and fall of sleep.
“I have a strange request,” he told her.
With her eyes still on her phone, she said, “What has gotten into you?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. I just — I don’t want to be morbid…”
She put down her phone and turned her full attention to her husband, whose head still rested below her left breast.
“What?”
“When I’m old, when I’m very old, if you find yourself with a group of our loved ones, around my bed, saying goodbye…”
“Go on,” she said.
“Can you please make sure someone is doing this?”
He took her hand that was tracing shapes on his scalp and moved it with her.
She was quiet for a moment and then said, “Of course, my darling. Of course.”
Dan Fuchs’ short fiction has appeared in several publications. His story, “Dr. Muller’s Next Move,” won a gold award at the 2022 Royal Palm Literary Awards for Best Published Short Story, and his novel, “Sergio the Ninja,” won silver for Best Unpublished Young Adult Novel. He received an additional Royal Palm silver award in 2023 for Best Published Short Story for his piece titled “The Perfect Friend,” which appeared in Volume 7 of Press Pause Press.
Patreon keeps us going. You can be part of that.