Every Other Tuesday

by J. M. Griffin

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asj/jmgriffin/tuesday.php
Summary: Surely Jack has a housekeeper

Lucinda knew Colonel O'Neill was a lonely man. She knew this because she cleaned his house every other Tuesday. Oddly enough, most of the time the house looked totally un-lived in, and though the colonel had pictures of a little boy on the mantle, there was no indication a child came to visit. There were some pictures of the colonel, the boy, and a woman who must have been the colonel's wife, in a box in study. Once when Lu came to clean, the box had lain open on the living room floor with the pictures strewn over the couch and coffee table. There had also been several empty beer bottles on the floor. Lu threw them out with a philosophic shrug. Perhaps the woman wouldn't allow the boy to visit his father, or - heaven help the man - perhaps the boy was no longer alive, because the picture on the mantle didn't change as the years passed.

Sometimes the house was very dusty, and Lu knew the colonel was away on his job. Like several of the men for whom she cleaned, he worked at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex for the federal government. She suspected Colonel O'Neill's job was top secret because, unlike some of the other officers whose homes she cleaned, he never left anything remotely resembling work lying about. Everything in the house was always in its place, never mussed, and rarely used. It made Lu worry about the man.

Things began to change one October when the spare bedroom began to be slept in. For several weeks, there were extra towels to be dried, and more food than usual in the cupboards. Lucinda was pleased someone had come to stay with the colonel. She didn't mind the extra work, and the colonel was always very good about starting the towels in the washer so they wouldn't mildew. The pieces of his chess set now showed a game in progress, and Lu was very careful not to disturb anything as she dusted them. The guest read magazines such as Archaeology Odyssey and Archaeology Today and obviously had a sinus problem. Still, he was polite about making sure he threw all his used tissues in the lined wastebasket in the bathroom, so Lu began to leave liners in all of the trash baskets.

The guest eventually left, which made Lu sad, and she thought the colonel must be sad too, because there were more beer bottles than usual in the trash she took out to the curb for pickup on Wednesday morning. But the guest obviously hadn't gone far because Lu often found stacks of his magazines on the floor by the couch. The name on the subscription label read D. Jackson, and the address was not the colonel's. So she thought perhaps the guest had an apartment of his own somewhere in town. But the guest came to visit on a regular basis and the colonel began stocking boxes of tissues and buying a new (better) brand of coffee. The coffee machine was often left to sit half full and Lu was always having to rinse it with vinegar to keep it clean.

One Tuesday there was a little note on the coffee maker that said, "thank you." It wasn't in the colonel's handwriting, and Lu thought it must have been written by his frequent guest. A nice young man with scrawly handwriting - he left notebooks filled with illegible handwriting in the spare bedroom. He drank a lot of coffee and used two towels when he showered - unlike the colonel who only used one. She made sure to collect the pens he left scattered about and put them in a container on the colonel's desk.

In time, more pictures appeared on the mantel. One was of a little girl with the wise eyes of an old soul; another showed the colonel, a lovely, blonde woman, a very imposing looking black man, and a slim, handsome man with brown hair and the bluest eyes Lu had ever seen. She liked to look at this picture - at the sly grin on the woman's face, the steel-straight posture of the black man, the bemused pout on the young man's lips, the colonel's lazy slouch. It made Lu think Colonel O'Neill was no longer such a lonely man.

One Tuesday morning a few days before Christmas, Lu found wrapping paper on the floor by the bed in the master bedroom. There was a new picture resting on the night stand - this one was of only the colonel and the young man. They stood side-by-side and the colonel was looking straight into the camera. He had an arm slung around the shoulder of his handsome friend, who was looking at the colonel through insanely long eyelashes. Though he was slightly turned away from the camera, Lu could see the surprised, happy expression on the younger man's face.

The card attached to the paper read, "Merry Christmas, Jack. Time to get a clue! Sam."

Lu wondered if the younger man with the full, lush lips was "Sam." She thought not, the name didn't suit him.

On the Tuesday after New Years, Lu decided it was once again time to change the bed sheets in the master bedroom. As she whisked the quilt off the queen sized bed with a single flip of her practiced wrist, a tube of lubricant fell to the floor along with the quilt. Now Lucinda was a practical woman, so she made sure to place the tube back under the pillow after she'd finished making the bed. She was a bit surprised to see the bathroom was strewn with clothing. She picked up the green fatigues she knew to be the colonel's and found them soiled with semen. Lu was not a squeamish woman; she couldn't be with her job, so she merely grabbed the laundry basket and tossed the pants and underwear in. The other clothes, a rather ugly plaid shirt and some chino's, were obviously not the colonel's and Lu thought perhaps they belonged to the house guest. She noticed the shirt had lost several of its buttons, and this made Lucinda nod her head knowingly.

While the clothes were being washed, Lu picked up the stack of magazines by the couch and arranged them in the magazine rack the colonel had acquired lately. Then she went to straightened the papers on the colonel's desk. There was a card lying open on the desk and Lu shamelessly picked it up and read it. The verse inside was nothing special - just a simple Christmas greeting, but it was signed, "Love, Daniel." Lu left it sitting up-right beside the computer monitor. Then she got the vacuum out of the hall closet and proceeded to finish her work.

Later, after she had put away her supplies and was preparing to leave, Lucinda stopped in the middle of the living room and took a good look around her. She gave a wide, pleased smile at what she saw. The colonel's house was no longer a hollow shell which held a lonely, dispirited man. Now it was a home for two who were deeply in love. With a satisfied sigh, Lu went out the door and locked it behind her.