Reunion3

She accepts and puts her snow shovel and a broom away. He offers her his arm, on their way they pass big grey mansion to the main entrance.
"What is your name?" she asks.
He answers, but she doesn't hear it and doesn't want to ask again.
"What is yours?"
"I am Margaret."
Again something stirs the old man memory.
"My wife's name was Margaret. We called her Margie."
They enter the hallway of the big house cluttered with gardening tools, pots, broken furniture, working bench, even a saw and piles of the wood.
"Nobody comes here anymore," he apologises and leads her to the kitchen. She sits at the rectangular table covered with red and white checkered plastic table cloth.
He brings two bowls of hot vegetable soup on the table. She is looking at the white bowls with a blue rim and remembers:
"We had a whole complete set of them with cups, saucers, even a turin. It was my wedding gift."
They eat quietly soup and bread. Then he brings coffee.
"Do you have a family?"
No. I don't remember."
"What about children?"
"Yes, I had three children. It was long time ago."
"I had three children!"
"Boys, girls?", she asks.
"Two boys and one girl. What about you?"
"I had the same. What are their names?"
"Danny, Scott and Angela."
"What a coincidence! My children have the same names."
He is looking at her left hand with a wedding band.
"Are you married? What is your last name?"
"My name is Donegal, Margaret Donegal."
"I am also Donegal."
A light of recognition comes into the old woman's eyes.
"Tom, is it you?"
Their hands meet on the table.
"When we got separated?" he asks.

The end.

Copyright (c) Marie Neumann
Pottsville, 11/21/2011