Chapter Text
It started with a cough. The cough was persistent, annoying, and enough to make Ned worry. Its very presence forced him to start hinting and prodding and poking at Edna until she was forced to pat him upon the head and call him ridiculous. He was the one who made the appointment, who dragged her down to the doctor, and who sat anxiously outside the office until she emerged with a cotton ball taped to the inside of her elbow.
“All I needed was a blood test,” she sighed. “I told you you were scared about nothing.”
“Sorry, Edna – it’s hard for me to stop being a nervous Nedarino around you.”
They had gone on happily enough until the phone rang. The call led to more tests, to exploratory surgery, and to a final diagnosis – terminal lung cancer, totally inoperable. Six months left to live.
Enda handled it by going into denial – and smoking even more, to Ned’s dismay. She went on writing out her fall lesson plan and taking the boys to their CCD classes. She occasionally burst forth with fantastic ideas: maybe they should empty out the bank, go off on a trip around the world with the boys just like she used to dream about when she was a teenager. But mostly it was business as usual; Ned could do nothing but try to live their life as normally as he could and run the Leftorium kiosk, raise the boys and pray.
He did pray constantly – for guidance, for peace, having not the courage to ask God to spare this woman’s life. But there wasn’t any answer coming forth from God at the moment. He could only let Edna go on living at her own pace.
A pace that, he knew with great trepadacion – would soon be abrupted.
****
“Bart, are you sure you’re all right?”
Only Lisa would ask him something so completely dumb. “Duh. I’m cool as a cumber, man.”
Lisa frowned. “Everybody’s talking about what happened this morning, and if you need to talk to somebody, I’m here…”
“Eew, Lisa, who wants to talk? Talking’s for lamewads!”
“Nuh uh!”
“Yeah huh!”
“Kids,” came their mother’s voice over the cacophony of the argument, “nobody in this car is a wad. Got it?”
“Got it,” they echoed in return. A moment later, the car pulled into the driveway and the kids took a mass exodus through the front door. As always, Marge lagged behind with a grunt of disgust, taking the baby and a large sack of groceries with her toward the back door.
Over the hedge, she spied Ned pacing and – well, she didn’t mean to pry – but he seemed to need guidance. Marge, being nothing but helpful at heart, headed over to her neighbor and spoke tentatively. “Ned, is everything okay?”
He gave her an awkward smile. “Fine and dandy, Marge,” he said. “Edna’s feeling a lot better after her little dizzy spell.”
“Are you sure you don’t need anything? I can come cook,” she offered. “Or I could look after the boys for the night.”
He shook his head. “The boys are gonna find out what’s wrong one way or another, and we’re gonna break it to ‘em in the most God-friendly way possible.”
“All right, Ned, if you’re sure.” She turned toward the house, groceries in hand. She’d have to see if Bart wanted to talk about what happened.
***
Ned, meanwhile, found Edna lounging upon the couch with a mug of coffee, with both boys staring at her worriedly. “I’m not going to explode, kids.”
“But teacher said you fell down in class,” said Rod.
“All I did was trip,” Edna soothed. “I’ll be fine. Can you just go get me another cold compress?”
Both boys rushed off to refresh Edna’s towel, leaving Ned to nudge his way onto the sofa. “We’re gonna have to tell them sometime soon, Edna. I hope you know what you’re doing, making ‘em
“I’m going to handle this in my own way, in my own time,” Edna explained. “When I absolutely have to. Those kids of ours will worry themselves to death if we let them in on it right away.”
“So we’re going to lie?”
“Don’t be so negative about it. Back in my class,” Edna said, “we would call that ‘creative truthing’.”
“That’s the kind of talk that gives the devil a little too much elbow room,” Ned shuddered.
“I promise he won’t get his claws in me,” Edna patronized him, rising from the sofa. Ned’s arms shot out to catch her, just on the offchance that she might fall backward, but she walked steadily off to the bathroom.
“There goes an original angel,” Ned said to himself.
He prayed that he’d have a few more months with her.
***
No one felt much like eating, but the Flanders ate anyway – Edna a bit more heartily than usual. Once it was over they curled up and watched some gold old fashioned PBBN. Rod and Todd sang along with the hymns and ran tiny plastic sheep across the shag carpet lawn as Edna sipped her late-evening coffee and watched them, for once not resist the sweet homilies belching forth from the television. It was cool and mild that night; spring was just a promise, and the sunset was edged with pink like a baby’s nightgown.
Edna’s fingers squeezed his fingertips in rhythm to the organ’s high notes and he squeezed back, echoing those signals. Trying not to think of the future, of the inevitable, of the chilling prospect of letting go.
***
One door down, a little boy lay in his bed and stared at his Krusty alarm clock, hypnotizing himself back to sleep.
He promised himself he wouldn’t think of the sight of his teacher lying curled upon the classroom floor. A mighty enemy vanquished by illness.
He turned over and denied to himself that he felt any worry. Tomorrow was the last day of school before the summer break, he told himself as he drifted off to sleep. And everything would be the same as it always was