The Mislaid Words of Gladys Prose
– Fiction by Dorothy Henderson –
Featured in issue 14 of Dreamers Magazine and first place winner of the 2023 Sense of Place & Home Contest
Purchase issue 14 of Dreamers Magazine in digital or print here
In the months after Walter retired, Gladys began to pray to St. Anthony. She wasn’t a religious person, in fact, she wasn’t even Catholic but her neighbour was, and it was she who told Gladys about St. Anthony. He had prayed about a lost psalter and voila! It was found. He became the go-to saint for lost things. When Gladys heard this small story, she began to pray with almost desperate fervor: Please, St. Anthony, help me find my words.
Gladys didn’t talk about this to anyone, certainly not her husband. After all, her words were as private to her as the sweet, soft spots of her body. Her inner voice was her companion, her comfort, her delight, although she confessed to herself that the words that bubbled up inside her had sometimes been a puzzlement and a frustration, too. Why was it so difficult to find the exact words needed to describe a beauty that leaves you breathless?
One June morning, in the garden, kneeling on the damp grass, she gazed into the heart of an iris bloom—one of her favourites called Light of Heart. My words fail me, she mourned. How she yearned to unearth a language to express the ribbons of majestic royal purple, the nutmeg lavender- pink, sweet violet and Mediterranean blue. How can my insufficient, ordinary words express the breath-taking beauty of the chocolate brown throat with its fanning golden rays, she sighed. She wondered if, perhaps, the fault lay in the English language itself. She had read that the Inuit have over fifty words to describe “snow.” How many words in the English language might describe the colour blue? Azure, navy, cobalt, cerulean, indigo, sapphire. It was all she could remember. A
paltry six, she sighed.
Once, before she had learned to protect her words in a private place within herself, she had attempted to explain to Walter how the words bubbled up as she did her housework. She had been taking the laundry off the clothesline. She paused, pressing a pink bath towel against her face.
“It’s as if you could sip the smell of cut grass. It’s like your skin is infused with the wood musk from the floor of the hardwood bush. Fresh laundry after a day in the sun is like a crisp fresh slice of cucumber.”
She inhaled deeply until Walter interrupted, “Bah. Everyone knows that line-drying produces aldehydes and ketones. That’s what you’re noticing.”
There are certain things that husbands and wives never notice about each other until they have to spend too much time together. The way his jaw cracked when he chewed, the way he grunted when he bent over to tie his shoes, the way he talked back to the television. Why does he talk incessantly? Gladys wondered. He had always been a talkative man but now she felt trapped in the house with him all day. Why does he feel the need to correct me on the most mundane of household chores?
“You know,” he declared, “if you peel the potatoes in a bowl, you wouldn’t waste so much water at the sink,” or he
proclaimed, “There’s no need to vacuum the living room twice a week. Once is enough.”
His words swirled around her, filling the corners of their small house. The more he talked, the less Gladys did.
Until Walter retired, Gladys had loved the order of her routines: a day dedicated to laundry, another for baking, one for scrubbing. A day for gardening and then came dusting. She was a woman content with quiet. She was never lonely or bored or terribly unhappy. Her floating inner dialogue, her private words that drifted and bloomed and scattered in her mind, were constant and faithful. Her tidy bungalow with its undemanding veneer, seemed wrapped around its yeasty aroma of lemon poppy seed cake and the velvet clarity of furniture polish.
On Saturday, Peter, their only son who had become an orthodontist, drove north from Waterloo for a quick visit—he was always busy. As she made tea, she overheard Walter complain, “This retirement business is for the birds. Your mother is not very good company. I can’t even have a decent conversation with her.”
She paused, poised over the steaming tea kettle, holding her breath, wondering how Peter would respond. To her surprise,
their son defended her, reminding Walter that Gladys had her routines, her housework, cooking and gardening. Why didn’t he find some new hobbies, Peter asked, go fishing, or join a woodworking class, maybe do some volunteer work, deliver Meals on Wheels.
Although neither of them realized that retirement would happen so soon, she recalled, in hind-sight, strange new words creeping into Walter’s narration of his day, words that she did not understand: columbarium walls, infrastructure, e-procurement. His long-established work in the Palmerston Public Works department had involved the care of the local cemetery. Now though, dizzying change unsettled him, making him irritable. Smaller communities had amalgamated to form a new town called Minto. He was given more responsibility, the oversight of thirty-five acres of burial grounds in three sites.
“Don’t they know how much work that is?” he complained to Gladys. “The grass cutting, those overgrown cedars that need
trimming every year, all those flower beds to plant and water, those urns and hanging baskets. By God, I had to dig almost one hundred graves last year with the backhoe and haul away the dirt and fill the graves when it’s all over.”
Gladys listened to the barrage of words from her husband, these new words that seemed to make his face flushed and swollen.
One evening, slumped over his late supper of pot roast and boiled carrots and potatoes, still smelling of diesel fuel after long hours on his riding mower, Walter told her that there had been a meeting that afternoon.
“Now they’ve added something new to my job,” he muttered. “I have to improve public communication and my duties will be
expanded to include celebrations of Minto’s historic cemetery resources.”
She watched him, lost for words, as he pulled apart strings of roasted beef, then nodded and patted his hand.
Neither of them had seen this coming. The Town, Walter soon learned, had now decided to contract out the mowing and planting, the trimming and digging of flower beds and graves. He was, of course, given a choice: retire two years early with a “package” or move to another position. From his mouth poured words that Gladys had never heard: defenestration, restructuring, efficiency redundancy but really, Walter fumed, what they meant was the golden handshake, the buyout, the old heave-ho.
Somehow the days inched by, flavoured now with Walter’s couped-up bitterness and Gladys’ mute acceptance of his persistent talk and presence. When the mild weather returned, to her relief, he began to take a morning walk, over to the cemetery she assumed. One morning, as she was sliding an apple pie into the oven, her old black kitchen phone jangled.
“Gladys? Is this Gladys Prose?”
She inhaled sharply, immediately flooded with apprehension. She recognized the voice at once—their family doctor, calling from Palmerton Hospital.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he said. “Are you sitting down?”
Walter, he told her, had been found in the cemetery, slumped against a tombstone. After the ambulance had rushed him to the emergency room, he had been pronounced dead. “We believe it was either a massive stroke or heart attack,” the doctor continued. “I’m so very sorry, Gladys. This must be a terrible shock. Is there someone you can call to be with you?” The blur of weeks that followed left her numb and more mute than ever. Neighbours dropped in. Casseroles moldered in the refrigerator. Peter slipped in to check on her. Days followed nights and nights melted into daylight. Nothing seemed quite right. It was as though she was living in a heavy fog and could not see what was around the corner. Some days, she sat on the back porch in her old wicker rocker, sat in silence and forgot to do anything.
Some weeks later, when Peter explained that she should be getting over things, he made a startling announcement. “I’ve purchased a condo for you in Waterloo. It’s only a five-minute drive to our house. We all think you need to be around family.” Gladys, whose mind seemed sticky and slow, wondered who he was referring to when he said “we.”
Nothing had prepared her for condo living, twelve floors above the trees. Everything was grey and white, white upon white, stainless steel. Peter led her from room to room pointing out features: the cupboards that slid closed on their own, a dishwasher which she had never had, a stacking washer and dryer in a small closet. Her mind drifted to her bungalow in Palmerston with its dancing clothes line, swinging out over the tidy rows of carrots and beets. Those were halcyon days when something as simple as words could bring her comfort.
When Peter left, she sat on the new white sofa, staring at the off-white walls, sorry that she had not expressed more gratitude. How much would a place like this cost? she wondered, fretting that he would think her ungrateful. I’ll send him a card—
I am overwhelmed with the generosity of your gift. I am touched by the support you give me. My heart is smiling.
But even as she went searching for a pen and note card, she knew that she would not write it. Her words had abandoned her. They lay interred somewhere deep within, someplace inaccessible in this lofty place of white and steel.
On Thanksgiving weekend, Peter came to pick her up. “Stay where you are, Ma,” he instructed as he pulled into the circular driveway in front of their home in River Oak Drive Estates. “I’ll help you out.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. On the few occasions when she and Walter had visited, she had been overwhelmed— awed by the cathedral entrance, glossy with marble, the endless hallways leading here and there, lost in the double kitchen with its built-in wine cooler, the maze of bedrooms and bathrooms. Peter, she sensed, was a little embarrassed to have them as houseguests—his unsophisticated parents who rarely left Palmerston, his father who talked incessantly of graveyards and backhoes, his mother, her
cardigan sweater pulled tightly over her print dress, mutely withdrawn, her words frozen in her throat. How had their worlds become so unspeakably different?
In her condo building there were features that Peter called “amenities.” Exercise room, a swimming pool, library, craft room. He urged her to use them, to get out a bit, but they still frightened her. Daily, though, she put on her shoes and took the elevator to the main floor to check her mailbox. After she became comfortable with this new routine, she was surprised to discover a small alcove near the front door, tucked into a corner, a private place to read or think. It became her habit to pick up her mail and linger there,
reading the Minto Express, the pizza flyer, the utility bill. It surprised her that people could come and go through the front door and never notice her, but she could hear their conversation.
“He never wants to eat one thing I prepare.”
“I give up. I just give up. I don’t know why we bother.” “He was twice as miserable today as he was yesterday. Do you think we should report him?”
Gladys peeked out from the alcove and saw two young women who came each day, dressed in pale blue smocks with a logo on the pocket. They were, she supposed, caregivers for someone in the building.
The following day, something compelled her to go down earlier for the mail. When the women arrived, she followed them into the elevator.
“I wonder what mood he’ll be in today,” one said. “Don’t count on it being better than yesterday, the old coot.”
They laughed and when they got out on the sixth floor, Gladys followed them at a distance, then noted the number of the suite they entered: 607. Something—some inexplicable urging that she couldn’t understand at all— propelled her into action. She sensed that something to do with her future happiness lay behind the condo door to unit 607.
She waited until mid-afternoon, to be sure the bluesmocked women had gone, then knocked on the door of the condo superintendent. “I’m afraid I have a little problem,” she explained. “My friend in unit 607 asked me to pick up his mail but when I knock on his door, he doesn’t answer.”
“Oh, yes. Mr. Steckly. Sometimes he can’t get his wheelchair to the door in time.”
“Could you possibly let me in?”
When she entered the room she saw a frail, elderly man who had, she thought, been drowsing. When he heard her steps, his head snapped up.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “From the Agency, I suppose. Thank God, they sent me someone of a sensible age. I can’t stand those girls, laughing and talking all the time. Blah, blah, blah. A man needs a little peace and quiet.”
He paused, appraising her. “You brought mail? I don’t suppose you could read me something from that magazine?”
“First, I’ll make some tea. I brought a fresh lemon poppy seed cake.”
When they had sipped their tea and eaten their cake in silence, she picked up the magazine which had been in her box—a seed catalogue, the first of the season—and began to read aloud:
Lavender cauliflower presents unique and dense domes. Add a splash of colour to your next veggie tray.
Sweetie snack pepper mix, a glorious medley of red, orange, purple and yellow. Plant on your patio and pluck a pepper on your way out the door.
Tropical sunset tomatoes, golden yellow with streams of pink. Are these tomatoes or candy?
On and on the words poured out as she read through the green beans, the cucumbers, the beets and corn, on and on until the words perfumed the air around them with sweetness, allure, espresso, peaches and cream.
“Mr. Steckly?”
He had nodded off again, she saw. She smiled, her soul tender as she looked at the old man who seemed as vulnerable as she felt. She was ambivalent about what she had just done, but she suddenly felt content. She could feel her words beginning to swell and press, sprouting once again within her. Something had loosened. Something had sprung free. Something had been found. She gathered up the plates and mugs, humming as she walked to the kitchen, feeling a small sweet kernel of possibility
About the Author – Dorothy Henderson
Dorothy Brown Henderson lives in Waterloo, Ontario, with her husband, John Henderson. She has enjoyed a variety of careers: music teacher, mental health worker, writer, Christian educator and leadership developer and, before retirement, the minister of Caven Presbyterian Church in Exeter, Ontario.
Henderson holds an ARCT in piano (University of Toronto), a BA in Religious Studies (University of Waterloo), an MA in Religion and Culture (Wilfried Laurier University) and an MRE (Master of Religious Education, (University of Toronto.) She also holds a three-year diploma in Christian Education from Ewart College, Toronto. In 2006, Henderson received the Educator of the Year award from the North American Association of Presbyterian Church Educators.
Henderson enjoys spending time with her three grown children and their spouses and her four grandchildren. She also loves time at the family cottage on Lake Huron, writing, reading, cooking and growing plants of all sizes and shapes. After retirement, Henderson decided to become a full-time writer.
She is the author of a cookbook, Loving it Local: Preparing Delicious Fresh Local Food (2014) and four novels: The Season for Strawberries (2018), Happy are those (2019), Dr. Bloom’s Event (2020), and Dreaming in Grey (2022).
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