You need more coffee?” Andrew Jackson stood at the kitchen counter, the coffee pot in his right hand, and a freshly filled mug in his left. He paused, waiting for an answer.
“I’m good!” Rose’s voice floated in from the sunroom across the hall.
Andrew slid the coffee pot back onto the warm element of the coffee maker, and headed towards the sunroom to join his wife. Once there, he seated himself in the Adirondack chair next to hers, set his coffee down on the chair’s wide flat wooden arm and heaved a contented sigh.
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Are we going to call this meeting to order or what?” Brady Jackson leaned back in his chair and looked…
“Sure is nice to be inside,” he said.
Rose nodded. “Pretty dang cold out there for March,” she said.
“There’s no such thing as a happy medium,” said Andrew. “It’s either cold or hot. No in-between.”
There was a brief silence while they stared out the window. A blue jay flitted across the yard and disappeared into the branches of an oak tree at the back of the yard and a few seconds later a second one followed. A gust of wind set the tree to swaying for a moment and both birds took off, flashes of blue against the white of the cloudy sky.
“It’ll be summer eventually,” said Rose. “It always is at some point.”
“I wouldn’t bet against it,” said Andrew, “although I wouldn’t put a lot of money on just when that might be.”
“Sometime before August,” said Rose.
“Speaking of August,” said Andrew, “are we gonna make a plan for another family holiday up at Victoria Beach?”
“I dunno,” said Rose. “I mean it’s awfully nice of Alan’s family to offer us their cottage every summer, but it’s also kind of weird, being that we really don’t know them at all. It’s just a tiny bit awkward.”
“Well, let’s just hope Jennifer and Alan don’t break up suddenly. THAT would make it awkward,” said Andrew.
Rose nodded. “Yeah, that would,” said Rose. “But I see no signs of that happening. They seem pretty solid.” She took a sip of coffee. “I wonder if they’ll get married?”
Andrew shrugged. “Maybe some day,” he said. “I said something about that to Jenn a little while ago and she just laughed. She said if they ever decide to we’ll be the first to know.”
“Well I should hope so,” said Rose. “Do you ever think about the fact that she’s your only hope to ever be the father of the bride?”
“Now that you mention it,” said Andrew, “nope.”
“Really?” said Rose.
“Really,” said Andrew. “That’s not a thing for me. I feel like I wouldn’t feel any different than I did when the boys got married.”
“I think you’re wrong,” said Rose.
“Well that wouldn’t be the first time,” said Andrew.
“How did you feel when the boys got married?” asked Rose.
“I felt like, boy I sure hope this works out,” said Andrew.
“Well, so far so good,” said Rose. “In both cases, it seems to be working out.”
Andrew looked thoughtful. “I wonder if it’s because we did something right?” he said. “And if so, what?”
“Good question,” said Rose. She pondered that for a moment. “We always fed them pretty well,” she said. “Maybe that helped.”
“Lots of meat and potatoes,” said Andrew. “That’s the foundation every marriage needs.”
“Not every marriage,” said Rose. “Some people are more into pasta and rice and whatnot.”
Andrew shook his head. “I don’t know how you could build a strong marriage on a foundation of vermicelli,” he said. “It doesn’t seem possible.”
“Well maybe not vermicelli,” said Rose. “You might need a more robust pasta. Cannelloni maybe, or rigatoni.”
“I don’t know what any of those things are,” said Andrew. “But I can identify a Prince Edward Island russet from a hundred yards.”
“That’s why I married you,” said Rose.
There was another brief silence.
“It probably wasn’t the meat and potatoes,” said Andrew, after a bit. “I mean I’m sure that didn’t hurt, but we must have done some other things right too.”
“I think we set a good example,” said Rose. “We were nice to each other almost all the time and we didn’t scream at each other and our arguments were always civilized and reasonably polite.”
“That’s true,” said Andrew. “Our arguments were just sort of like slightly more intense conversations.” He smiled. “And I don’t think I ever won one of those conversations,” he added.
“No you didn’t,” said Rose returning his smile. “And that,” she added, “is what you did right.”
