“So you are a widow, living at this retirement center—what happened to your husband?” My question spilled out with unexpected bluntness.
“Oh, he was a doctor—a pulmonologist. He died in a mine.”
“In a mine?” I puzzled. The irony of a pulmonologist dying in a mining accident was inescapable. Was he researching black lung disease?
Carol cackled. “No! He didn’t die in a MINE! He died in oh-nine! As in 2009!”
I scrambled for cover.
Fresh from a Netflix docudrama about Ann Boleyn, I decided to up the ante of our breakfast chitchat and impress upon her my fresh-from-TV insights. But she soon left me in the dust, rattling off 200 years of English monarchy melodrama.
Checkmate. Nothing to do but retreat to, “umm-hmm’s,” and “ah-ha’s.”
Eager for a change of subject, I inquired about her education. “Double major in history and art,” she replied.
No wonder. She wisely avoided pressing me about my own educational pedigree.
She had called Boise home, but after her son-in-law’s fatal heart attack, she moved to be closer to her daughter. “In warm weather when they visited me, he would literally run up the nearby ski slopes for exercise. His death—well, it was totally unexpected.”
I asked Carol about her current art interest. “Being an artist can be a very lonely life,” she explained. “It’s only you and your art. That’s not enough for me. I need other people.”
I have never seen Carol without a hat, or sunglasses, or both. This art major, in her element with pastels and a sketchpad, lives in a dimly-lit world. A medical condition has rendered her eyes so sensitive that light pains her. In her apartment, drapes are drawn, the light nearly non-existent. Artwork hangs on the walls about her, barely visible. These days, this aficionado of form and color craves near-total darkness.
Carol abruptly excused herself. “Gotta go! Today’s New York Times didn’t arrive before I left for breakfast. Time for my crossword puzzle!”
Of course. The New York Times crossword puzzle. She has worked them for decades.
Watch out, art and history categories—Carol’s on the loose.