Bill and Amanda were reaching that time of life, where they transition from workaday to leisure. Both have enjoyed full careers together, with Amanda getting ready to retire almost a full year before Bill. They had their nest egg where they needed it to be, to enjoy their autumn years. They were both finishing off their last couple years at work, as they prepared for their adventures, helping build homes with Habitat, traveling, exploring all those places they'd always wanted to see when they were younger, but never seemed able too.
Erica, Amanda's best friend and neighbor, wasn't the least bit surprised when they backed a brand new forty foot camper into their driveway. It was something they had talked about for years. She was happy for the two of them, to see that they had made that first step, in their carefully laid plans. Everything seemed to be going so perfectly for them, and in some ways Erica was jealous. Bill was everything in a husband, any woman could want. Kind, considerate, loving, a good provider, and if Amanda was to be believed, still damn good in bed, or anywhere for that matter. Amanda had once, over several glasses of wine, at a lingerie party they both went to, confessed that Bill enjoyed surprising her with titillating little things and even sex in all sorts of places, including once getting naked with her in a swimwear dressing room. Yes, Bill was everything she wished her ex had been and wasn't. So, she was happy for them, but also a little jealous.
That was two years ago. That jealousy was washed away in an instant, replaced with concern and sadness. Everything had seemed to be going exactly as they planned. Bill was out of town on business when it happened. It had fallen to her, to call him, knowing how devastating the news would be. But better from her, than some impersonal call from the police. At least she hadn't suffered. The EMT's said she probably didn't even know what had happened. She just sat down on the ground next to the car, the trunk still half full of groceries, and fell asleep one final time. The stroke was massive and unpredictable. They eventually learned she'd had a weak vessel in her brain that ruptured. It could have happened any time in her life. The hardest thing for Bill had been being unable to even say goodbye to the love of his life.
Since then, Erica had done everything she could to make life easier for Bill. She felt like she owed Amanda that, after all the years Bill and Amanda had been a ready hand when she needed it. If something broke, or the lawnmower refused to start, she knew Bill would be there to help. She hadn't even realized how much she had leaned on Amanda over the years until she was gone. She felt his loss in many ways, but she knew that hers could never match the intensity of the loss he felt.
It had been nearly two years and he was still deep within that shell he had quickly built around himself. Other than his adult children and their kids, he rarely let anyone in through that protective barrier. No matter how hard she tried, the most she could get from him was that he never wanted to love again. He never wanted to feel that pain again, or to cause anyone else that kind of pain. So, he closed himself off from life. Sometimes, it was even difficult for her to go over and see him like that; sitting, just waiting for his years to expire. It was a lonely way to live, but try as she might she just couldn't seem to break him free of it.
"Bill? You here?" He heard Erica call, from the usually unlocked back door.
"In here!" He called back from his recliner, the tv playing some old movie he wasn't even paying attention to, like most of his evenings. He turned and saw his neighbor walk in through the kitchen with a young woman in tow behind her.
"Bill, this is Tanya. She came over recently from Romania."
"Oh, hi," Bill mumbled, as he pushed himself out of the recliner, holding a hand out toward the young woman.
"I've brought Tanya by to start working tonight," Erica said, getting a curious look from him. "We talked about getting a maid service in to help you? Tanya's going to come by twice a week to clean for you."
"Oh, yeah. Sure," Bill answered, with a curt nod.
"Do you want to show her around?"
"Oh, yeah. Sure." Bill answered with a shrug. "You've seen the kitchen. This is the living room and down the hall here are the master bedroom, guest rooms and two bathrooms," he said, pointing down the hall.
"Men are hopeless!" Erica said, to Tanya. "Come on, I'll show you," she added, motioning for the young woman to follow her.
Bill dropped back into his chair and watched the two disappear down the hall. After the tour Erica left the young woman to work and Bill to watch his movie.
Bill couldn't help but notice, that Tanya was a very good looking, young woman, by anyone's standards. Long dark blonde hair down to the middle of her back, the golden mane tied in a long ponytail, green eyes that seemed to smile, as much as the seemingly permanent smile on her lips. She filled the t-shirt out nearly as much as Amanda had, with a figure that was every bit as enticing as Amanda's had been, when she was that age. Full, round butt, that seemed to wiggle while she worked and a slim waist. Her legs, completely bare from the micro shorts to the tops of her athletic shoes were lean and powerful looking. Yes, for someone twenty or thirty years younger than he was, she was one hell of a good- looking woman!
Bill watched her bustling around, moving with deliberate speed and purpose. In three hours, she had cleaned the kitchen and both bathrooms from top to bottom, leaving them cleaner than they had been since Amanda passed.
"I come tomorrow?" She asked, in heavily accented English.
"Sure, that'd be fine. What time do you want to come?" He answered.
"I come tomorrow?" She asked again, almost as if she were reading it off a cue card.
"You don't speak a lick of English, do you?"
"Yes, I come tomorrow?" She asked a third time.
Bill sighed and then chuckled. At least she wouldn't talk his ear off. "Yes, you come tomorrow!" He answered her.
"Good!" She said as she headed for the back door.
"Well, she cleans good!" He said to himself, as he followed her to the back door, looking around the kitchen at the neat, sparkling surfaces. "She must think I'm a real slob!" He said aloud, after closing the back door after her. He watched out the kitchen window, as she got into her little car and drove away.
Bill was still sitting at the kitchen table, just finishing off the TV dinner he had microwaved for himself, when her face appeared at the window in the back door. He got up and let her in.
"Hello, I clean now?" She asked, as she bustled past, with her bucket of cleaning supplies.
Bill chuckled to himself, as he watched her disappear from the kitchen. He sat down and finished the last few bites of food, dropped the fork in the sink and the plastic tray into the trash. He could hear the vacuum cleaner start running and decided to go see how she was doing. He didn't intentionally walk silently, but the carpet in the hall kept his steps more than quiet enough, that Tanya would never hear them over the vacuum. He stepped to the master bedroom door and stood watching, as she crawled around the foot of the bed, trying to vacuum under it.