A Painful Encounter

Today I did something I've been dreading. I went to the dry cleaners after work. Ever since I realized that I'd have to get my black funeral dress dry cleaned, it hit me that I'd have to tell the dry cleaner that Rick is dead.

Rick had been going to the same dry cleaner for decades. The owner knew him and talked to him every Saturday when Rick took his dress shirts in like clockwork. When you see someone every week for years and years, you learn snippets of existence. You exchange real smiles. You become part of each other's lives.

7 years ago, on one of his weekly stops at the dry cleaners, Rick told the owner that he was in love. He told the owner that he was getting married. He was happy and the dry cleaner was happy. The dry cleaner was excited for Rick, knowing that Rick had been alone for so many years. Rick told him about me, that I was younger, that I was funny, that I was cute.

The dry cleaner heard about me weekly. He saw Rick smile more.

Rick and I got married. The dry cleaner congratulated him. Rick showed him my photo.

Then one Saturday, shortly after we were married, Rick was getting a haircut and I went to the dry cleaners instead. Holding Rick's ticket, I entered. I approached the counter. The owner took the ticket, read it, and threw up his hands, beaming at me. "It's Mrs. Bair!" he yelled excitedly. "Mrs. Bair!" He shook my hand. He called all the employees forward from the back of the store. "It's Mrs. Bair!" He was so excited to finally meet Rick's wife. He told me Rick talked about me all the time.

After that, every time I'd run errands with Rick, the owner would look behind Rick through the glass and wave to me where I waited in the car. He always had a huge smile. If I went in for Rick's clothes, he would joke with me about Rick being lucky or tell me he liked it better when I came in instead of Rick. It was like a game of banter he had with Rick. The owner knew that I would tell Rick what he said and then Rick would call him out on it the next time he stopped in. They'd laugh. Rick would often come home and tell me.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I knew this day would come. I knew that eventually I'd have to take my funeral dress to the cleaners and tell the owner Rick was dead. It hurt just thinking about it.

On my way there, I found myself behind a white car with a New Hampshire license plate. The license plate said: MR & MRS on it. It made the pit in my stomach lurch. My funeral dress swung in the backseat as I turned into the parking lot.

As I walked in, the owner recognized me right away and grinned as usual. He pointed at me over a customer's head and mouthed, "Mrs. Bair!"

When the woman ahead of me finished, the owner happily asked how I was. I passed him my dress and said with eyes full of tears, "Rick died."

He just stared at me. "What?" he said, not understanding.

"Rick is dead," I told him.

"No!" he said, his face falling. He held my hand over the counter. "I'm so sorry, "he said. "He was such a nice man."

I cried for several seconds in silence, trying to regain my composure.

"When?" he asked. I told him it was just over 2 weeks ago. He replied, "I had just seen him."

He took my dress, gave me a ticket, and the look on his face just made him appear a completely different person from the man I thought of as a grinning maniac. "You take care," he told me. I nodded and left. There was nothing more to say.

I cried for a minute in my mom's car where she was waiting. Then we went to a store for a few minutes. I couldn't focus. She went home in her car and I went home in mine. And...2 stops and 30 minutes later, I found myself behind the same white New Hampshire car with the MR & MRS license plate. I blinked back tears and verified that I was miraculously again behind the same car on a different road.

The first time, it was a painful reminder. It made me sad. The second time, it was a message. It doesn't matter what day it is, what year it is, or who's here and who's not. We'll always be MR & MRS Bair.