Patiently, John asked, “How about a picture?”
Irene was very hard of hearing. As a young woman she’d followed her older sister Gladys, by taking a cannery job after graduating from high school. Gladys had been regional manager at Hurling Canned Goods in Lincoln, Nebraska for little over a year when she offered Irene a job working on the assembly line. Irene hated the work, but soon fell in love with her coworker Steven, who was recently divorced and who worked across from Irene on the assembly line. At the age of 20 and still living at home, Irene lived for her 10-hour shift at a job she despised just so she could watch Steven casually load and unload the lid trays. Steven was always pleasant with Irene, but never knew of his heightened position inside her mind. She never got the opportunity to tell him as the plant closed some 64 years after having opened, and some 9 years into Irene’s career.
Love wasn’t the only thing lost after those 9 long years. Having worked so close to the pressing machine, and refusing to wear earplugs because she “didn’t want him (Steven) to see me with little things in my ears,” Irene was close to devastation when she learned that she’d lost 20% of her hearing. This resulted in an annoying habit of having to ask people to repeat themselves.
Irene had learned to live with this condition, but never got over the constant reminder that her hearing loss presented: She’d become nearly deaf for a man she never confessed her love to. It wasn’t her loss of hearing that caused Irene to sink into depression; it was the eternal reminder of what could have been. This endless possibility forced Irene’s imagination to run wild, and she began eating to help ease the pain. She gained 89 pounds over a 4-month stretch and would often turn down invitations from her friends to play Bingo at the Presbyterian Church on Hillcrest and Lafayette. After a while Irene stopped getting the invitation.
Although she’d considered her life a failure (living with your parents until you're 38 will cause such thoughts to surface), Irene found comfort in the bond that she shared with her sister Gladys. Gladys had been happily married until her husband Richard ran off to Puerto Vallarta with a woman he’d met in the frozen food section at the Lincoln Super Wal-Mart. This twist of fate left Gladys to care after their only son John, and forced her to abandon men all together. John loathed his father after he left, but would sometimes miss him when driving past the Dairy Queen they used to frequent after little league games when he was a child.
John never really got over his abandonment issues and turned to drugs for alleviation. A decade of hard drug use caused John’s face to age prematurely, and his speech to become slurred. It wasn’t until he permanently injured his leg while jumping from the back of a moving truck to escape arrest that he finally swore off drugs. The incident resulted in a 2-week hospital stay, a 6-month jail sentence, and necessitated the use of a cane for simple mobility. After his release he moved to Gurnee, Illinois to live with his mother and took a job stocking shelves at the corner grocery.
Irene always adored John, who in her eyes could do no wrong. As the son to her best friend and only sibling, John would often receive gift baskets from his Aunt by mail which would often, but not always contain a box of Lemon Heads; a favorite of John’s growing up. John had since disliked Lemon Heads to the point of detesting them, but never had the heart to tell his Aunt.
Still living in Lincoln, Irene had not seen Gladys or John in close to a year. She invited herself to Gurnee, to which both Gladys and John accepted with eager anticipation. After having spent 2 days catching up while playing endless games of backgammon, and having spent a day at the famed Gurnee Mills mall, they decided to take a drive into the big city.
Irene had never been to the Windy City. She found the Chicago Dogs to be delectable, the parking to be irritating, the wind to be bearable, and the company to be unforgettable. She had thought of suggesting a carriage ride down Michigan Ave, but ultimately decided against it. The reunion was both well timed and memorable. So much so that it prompted Gladys to duck into a Walgreens to purchase a disposable camera to commemorate their time with a frozen moment. Knocking his cane against his boots and gazing up at the Chicago skyline, John expressed to his Aunt the beauty that can be found among man’s architectural achievements. “What’s that dear?” Replied Irene to John’s murmur. Gladys chimed in, “This would be a good place for a photo.” “You’re what now?” Irene inquired. Patiently, John asked, “How about a picture?”
