Beep beep beep from the from the life machine in the cramped bedroom that smelled like Lysol disinfectant spray with a mix of Ben-Gay and dying dreams.
Marlene’s voice was starting to sound like a broken accordion, each breath a small victory against cancer.
“Tommy,” she wheezed, her voice strong enough to be heard through the hum of the oxygen concentrator. “Come here, baby.”
Tommy walked over from the window where he’d been watching some kids hanging on the street corner horse-playing from the fourth floor of there condominium. Thirty years in this neighborhood, and some things never changed. He took her hand in his, feeling how cold she’d gotten.
“What you need, Mar?”
Her eyes, still sharp despite everything she was going through, looking him in his eyes. “Top drawer in the closet. There’s a key in there.”
“Keys to what?”
“Just… get ’em.” Another cough with specks of blood in the white napkin.
Tommy look in the closet and found the keys buried under old photos and some old paid bills. Two small brass keys together on a key ring.
“Now what?” He says.
Marlene pointed her finger toward the corner where an mini-fridge hummed quietly, the same one they’d found on a trash pile outside someone home and took home cleaned it plugged it up and it’s working ever since.
“Open it.” Marlene says.
The lock was so small Tommy almost missed it. Inside, the fridge was mostly empty except for two browning bananas and a shoebox stuffed with folded bills. Twenties, fifties, even some hundreds. More money than he’d seen since his college days…
“Mar, what the hell is this?” Tommy voice a little louder than usual
She made a weak smile.
“Thirty years we been together, Tommy.”
“Yeah, so?” Tommy replied.
Marlene: (well here go) “Every time I was unfaithful to you…” She paused, gathering strength. “I put a banana in that box.”
Tommy stared at the two bananas, his mind still processing what she just said. Beep, beep, beep from machines and it just kept beeping. In the building in the hallway you can hear someone arguing in Spanish about dinero.
“Twice,” he said finally. “Damn you cheated on me two times.”
She nodded, with a single tear mixing with the medication rolled down on her cheek.
“I can live with that. But Mar…” He held up a handful of twenties. “What’s up with all this money?”
Marlene was trying to laugh but it turned into another coughing session, but her eyes held that same mischievous glint that had gotten them both in trouble more times than he could count.
“Baby,” she said, holding his hand with what little strength she had left. “Every time I got a dozen bananas, I sold them.”
The room went quiet except form the beeps from machines and the closing doors in the building. Tommy pulled his hand away from his wife and looked at his dying wife, at the money, at the two lonely bananas, and despite everything – despite thirty years of struggling and putting up with your shit to scraping and trying to make ends meet.
Tommy looked backed at his wife.
You not dead yet?– he started to laugh.
And in that small room that smell of dying dreams had died out. Tommy kissed his wife’s forehead and held her hand while the machine made a endless beep.