Short Stories

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This short story was written for a contest in which the challenge was to write a poem or short story that began or ended with the phrase, 'My mind is filled with fireplaces.'

Grace and Thomas shared harmonious lives. Though they were different to an extreme, everything about them attracted them to one another. She was a surgical nurse, gentle and affectionate, and worked in a sterile environment. He was a mechanic who owned a fast-paced shop, always covered in oil and grease. Muscles that rippled across his abdomen were proof of his daily routine.
Thomas always headed directly for the shower when he came home. He’d quickly peck Grace and do his best to refrain from touching her in her whites. Seemed he never got his hair quite dry enough and they would sit down to eat together, water dripping from the ends of his uncombed hair. He couldn’t figure out what such an upstanding woman like her would want with a grease monkey like himself. But, the longer he knew Grace, the less it mattered. She changed in his arms. He knew a side of her nobody else could imagine. He knew from the first time he held her, there would never be another woman in his life.
She was often called in to work in the middle of the night. It amazed Grace that Thomas was never bothered by her dedication to her job. She’d always heard coworkers complain because their husbands could not handle their constantly changing shifts. He was so handsome. He could have had any girl he wanted. He’d chosen someone like her and she never understood why. She always hungered for him and even had to force herself into focusing on patients at times. How was it that one man could be so rugged and still so loving behind closed doors?
Their favorite place to spend evenings after dinner was on the huge fur rug that lay in front of the fireplace. There were times when Grace would lean back onto his chest and he’d wrap his arms around her waist. They’d sit for hours just looking into the fire. But, almost always, they’d share in moments of tender passion and marital bliss on the same rug. Thomas and Grace were married for thirty years and had changed homes three times. They’d insisted on living only in a home that had a fireplace. It was where they shared all their secret desires, their heartaches, their accomplishments, their defeats and, oftentimes, just quiet reflection.
It was there that she gave him the heartbreaking news. Her doctor had found ovarian tumors. The ovaries could not be saved. Thomas cried with her and promised her they would adopt someday. He had to remind her for many years afterward that it didn’t matter to him. It didn’t. But it mattered to her. For that, his heart broke daily. At one point, Grace had even made him promise her, sitting on the rug, that he’d remarry if anything were to happen to her.
After surgery and much chemotherapy, she seemed to be in the clear and their lives went on almost as normal. Thomas had been more supportive than she’d have expected of anyone. They’d come very close to adopting twice. Then, just two days after their thirtieth anniversary, Grace was called in to be informed that the cancer had returned and was spreading throughout the region of her tailbone.
She lived another eight months. For the last several weeks, Thomas never left her side. On January eight, he kissed her gently on the lips and left the hospital. He knew it would be the last time he’d see her big blue eyes. She died at just before midnight.
Two years had come and gone. Thomas poured himself into his job. He knew that grace had truly touched his life in the form of HIS Grace.
He sat on the sofa, staring down at the rug and the reflections of fire. He remembered the promise he’d made to her on the rug, that he would remarry if anything happened to her. As though going to meet her there, he walked to the rug and sat down. "Grace, my beautiful Grace, I can't. I know I promised, but I can't. My mind is filled with fireplaces."

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