The irreplaceable one

A Story by Anagha

A handsome black vintage car pulled into the front yard of the house.

The thumping horn had awakened every tiny cell of Mrs.Wallace who hurried to the window.The car door sprung open and a tall middle-aged man turned up.Slightly tilting his hat he gave a brief smile to himself from the corner of his lips,still looking at the ground.He could feel her looking at him from the window.She checked her outline in the mirror and adjusted her tresses.Smacking her lips from putting the red lip color,she hurried down to the door.She opened the door with the grace of a ballerina.The whirling winds and snow settled on her hair like pixie dust.

“Blue orchids! As I had promised”,he said excitedly dusting the snow off them.He mounted his Burberry hat on her snow-studded head mocking to be swearing her as the queen.Rolling her eyes and laughing she wondered if the snow had turned her cold or the other way round.Meanwhile,he stepped in gingerly enough not to wet the floor,which he eventually did and disappeared into the wash area.She walked up to the mirror and canonized her old crown which read Mr.Wallace.She had gifted it to him on their first anniversary.But now it had lost all its charm just like Mrs.Wallace’s life.She had turned vulnerable and stone-still.The brewing coffee aroma transported her back to her senses.He appeared from the wash dripping the floor wet and humming her favorite song.She poured it in two white mugs and they both savored the stuff.The mugs had their pictures on it.She watched with utmost interest as he and his tee drank the coffee.Lying lazily on the couch he shuffled tv channels abruptly.Then all of a sudden he switched it off and sat up in a jiffy.Turning to her he began,”Do you know the shop on that old street?”Reading her blank face he prompted,”The Seamsons?” She nodded.

“They don’t sell blue orchids”,he began endlessly,”So I landed up at Joyce corner only to discover they were closed today.Then my mind caught hold of that shop we never visited which lies in that far alley.Nevertheless,i headed up there and got these.”She loved to listen to him even more than he loved to blabber.

He rose from the couch and went about stretching to the bedroom.On his way he picked up an English novel she had been insisting him to read.Not quite surprisingly,he ended up jamming the music in his room after reading mere few lines from it.She loved his playlist.He had the same volumes on it since university days.She knew which song would follow the earlier one and which he would put on on a loop.She cooked supper tapping one foot,leaning on the other.He loved kidney beans since the first day she made them.Supper was done by half past ten;the way it had been always.Her post dinner chores began and he went about doing his leftovers on his work sheet.An hour later she came up to his room only to find that he was dozing off on the book with papers all over the bed and a few in love with the floor.Dressing up the mess,she opened her diary and jotted the day events and let out a sigh of relief.

She slid into the armchair and stared at the scraped ceiling with thoughts higher than it.Moving her vision onto the wall she came upon a photograph of her husband.It said,’James Alistair Wallace (1892-1932)’ followed by ‘Forever in our hearts’ and a happy smiling Mr.Wallace above it.He had been killed in a car accident years ago.She met a look-alike on a tour few months ago and they immediately stroke a chord.He eventually fell for her but couldn’t gain her interest for the obvious reasons.She declined initially but her never ending crave for her dead husband rose above everything else.The guy loved the widow and the widow loved his replica.He knew they wont get married and have a family.All he knew was he could her beside him if he stepped into her husband’s shoes all his life.He knew her husband was the irreplaceable one.

She smiled at the photograph with a sense of belief while the guy smiled to himself for a job done well and again pretended to doze off.