Till death do us part.
They had just finished breakfast, her young daughter needed to use the bathroom before they headed over to the museum. They had eaten in an old NYC diner, the red pleather seats of their booth taped together from years of use. There were two bathrooms by the entrance to the kitchens. Men far from home chatted as they washed dishes. She tried one door, it was locked, the other next to it was slightly ajar. She pushed it, and it bumped against the back of an old man already standing in there, stooped over the loo. She saw the flash of his green sweater before closing the door. She walked back a few steps and stood there waiting.
An old woman nudged past her. She feebly mumbled this was the line for the bathroom, but barely loud enough for even herself to hear. The woman went to the door ajar and peered inside,
“Are you ok ?” She asked. As she walked back past her, she apologized for the wait, noting that she could see how much her daughter needed to go. Two minutes later, the woman was back at the door, she spoke some more to him, then came and stood back in line. She tried to smile at the woman, but her eyes would not meet hers. A few minutes later, they watched as the man in the bathroom struggled out of the cubicle. Christ, he was old! White hair standing on end, skin like chocolate chip ice cream, eyes wide with confusion…baby steps.
“He peed,” the woman said out loud. Her accent was Eastern European. She assumed the woman was stating the obvious about his recent trip to the bathroom, but then she saw where she was looking. A dark patch was slowly growing around the crotch of his blue jeans. She glanced back at the woman. She saw the weight of controlled frustration escape from her lips. She went to touch her shoulders, a sorry of sorts, but stopped, offering instead mumbled stuttering’s as she pulled the words back while trying to think of others. Her fingers drummed in midair, lost without shoulders to comfort.
Meanwhile, the waiters were using knives of various sizes to break open the other bathroom door, which had locked itself shut. Fearing that pee might be all over the seat of the recently vacated bathroom, they waited for this one. Once open, it was too small for her to squash in with her daughter, so she waited outside and leaned against the grimy wall of the neon-lit corridor. She looked towards the memory of where she had last seen the old couple and shivered, till death do us part, leaving her with the heavy weight of anxiety.