Free Finding My Thunder by Diane Munier

eyes. “He’s no good.”
    Naomi
looked at me. She said, “Come on out in the hall a minute.”
    I
followed her out to the hallway, waited while she spoke to an old man moving
slow on a walker. You couldn’t go anywhere with Naomi she didn’t know everybody
and their Mama.
    “The
x-ray showed how advanced. The doctor asked to use it at a convention. It is
all throughout her Lymph System. It will be two, three weeks…or days,” she said
to me with a sigh.
    We
kept walking toward a waiting room at the end of the hall.
    “Does
she know?” I said.
    “I
believe she does, Hilly. She knows she is dying.”
    We
could go no further and stood side by side at a picture window that looked onto
a small patch of grass and some bushes.
    I
had a flash in my mind of when I was young and Mama had good times, strong
times where she wore pretty aprons and I could smell the Breck shampoo in her thick shiny hair.
    She
was trying then, the last drop of hope had not left her yet…or maybe it
had…maybe she got broke around the time Naomi’s husband died. Maybe they all
did and I was just seeing the residue of what Mama could have been…what she was
once.
    “How
old was she when she worked at the dimestore ?”
    Naomi
looked at me. “I don’t remember. About your age when she started maybe…fifteen.”
    “They
told her she had talent. Artistic talent the way she set up the windows,” I
said. “She was proud of that.”
    We
stood there quiet.
    “Why
you think she married him?” I asked.
    “Guess
she thought she loved him.”
    “She
said he looked handsome in his uniform,” I said.
    “He
did. He cut a fine figure. They didn’t have much time before he went to war.”
    “Did
she really know him?”
    “I
suppose she did. Well she had lost your Granma…and she was so lonely in that
big house…and she had a girlfriend…and that one’s boyfriend was getting ready
to go to the war…and he had a friend…it was Mr. Lonnie. And he was older than
her…so that’s how it started.”
    Mama
had told me this, but I did not know she had been lonely then, too. But I did
know she accused Lonnie of being after her money. Not that she had any now. But
the big house must of fooled him.
    “The
war was hard on folks. People don’t come back the same.” Naomi said this last
part low. I felt us walking on new ground together.
    “Was
she ever happy?”
    She
looked at me now and I saw the feeling there, always the sadness in her eyes. “How
could she have such a daughter and not know happiness?”
    If
that was true, if I was the one supposed to have made her happy…then I knew
firsthand I had failed. There were times when I was small…moments…seconds…but
no, not happiness.
    “You
remember Lonnie much before he went to war?”
    “Some.”
    “What
was he like then?”
    She
shrugged. “He kept to himself. He fixed radios.”
    “He
did?”
    “They
didn’t have long…not even a year before he left. They hardly had any time.”
    “Were
they happy? Like…in love?”
    “ Renata …she was always quiet. But after he left…she…she was
lonely again. He…she had quit her job…he didn’t want her to work.”
    “So
what did she do all day?”
    “She…I
don’t know. It’s so long ago. She…she gardened some. She…painted.”
    “Painted?”
    “You
ain’t seen her paintings? I don’t know what she done with them all. It’s so
long ago.”
    She
was agitated, straightening up the waiting room. “I’m going to have to go for a
bit. We are planning a service for the baby…and I got to rest.”
    “You
don’t have to come back today. I’ll call you,” I said.
    Danny
had told me to come to the parking lot when he got off of work. He said he
wasn’t much good inside hospitals but he was great in parking lots. I smiled to
myself remembering his words. And I told him he didn’t have to do that, he’d
done too much already, but he ignored that and said he’d be round at five
o’clock.
    And
I sat with Mama and she was