Fallen

In a crumpled pile they lay together--on the pavement--in the parking lot. The door of the grocery store was less than fifty feet away. First Joe tripped. Then Margie fell over him. She tried to stand to help her 86-year-old husband to his feet, but he was too tall and she was too small. His legs were twisted from arthritis so he couldn't stand up on his own, not from the ground.

They hadn't always been this old.

When they met Joe had been seventeen and Margie was sixteen. They were at a pie supper. She had made an apple pie and had taken it to the schoolhouse where the young men of the community would bid on pies. It was a cultural thing, a country expectation. She didn't want to go, but her mother had insisted. She was sixteen, after all, and time was running out for marriage proposals. Her mom had said she could find suitors there. Young girls did that. Young men paid the price for a pie they chose and hoped the anonymous baker would be the girl they liked. The highest bidder would win the pie. After that, the girl would be revealed and the two would eat the pie together. It was a ritual of meeting; a dance of the young, in a different era.

Joe fell in love that night. Margie wasn't that easy. It took her two years to fall in love. And two years later, they married.

They fell in love with the house they bought. Their four children fell regularly and often needed their help--to get back on their feet. Joe had fallen from grace when he left Margie for another. Margie had fallen again for his brown eyes when she agreed to take him back.

After a year or two, Joe and Margie fell deeper in love. She fell into a new job. He fell out of a job he’d had for 20 years. Margie became sick with with cancer. He took care of her and fell to his knees in prayer--regularly.

 Now in a parking lot, they had fallen to the pavement together. A woman and her adult daughter appeared out of nowhere to help them.

"My man fell and I tripped over him," Margie said, "I can't get him up. I don't have the strength."

The other woman knelt with her daughter and they tried to lift him. Margie sat on the ground watching. But it was too difficult. Joe was too heavy for the two of them. "I'll call 911," the older woman said.

Before she found her cell phone, another woman with blond curly hair appeared. She was smaller than the first two women. "Let me help you," she said, kneeling to the ground. She scooped her arm through one of Joe's. The other two women did the same with his other arm. Gently, they pulled him to his twisted feet.

"Are you ok?" the blond woman said first to Joe and then to Margie.

"Yes, I think so. I was helping him into the store and then he tripped and down he went. He took me down too," she laughed, gently, "I shouldn't have brought him out without help. I don't know what I was thinking."

Joe grinned, saying nothing.

"Do you need a chair for him?" the blond lady said.

"No, I'm taking him home. I shouldn't have brought him here, he's too weak. I thought it would be good for him, for me, to get out of the house, but I shouldn't have. I'm taking him back home."

"Why don't you go get your car," she said, "We'll help you get him in.”

Margie walked to a car only ten feet away and fell in the front seat. She rested her head on the steering wheel before she started the car, backed it out and pulled in next to her husband.

A fourth woman, who had joined the group, opened the car door and held it while the others helped Joe inside in the car.

"Thank you,  all of you for your help. I couldn't have gotten him back on his feet by myself," she said, "We weren't always this old."

The fourth woman closed the door. "Take care," she said.  They all waved as the car pulled out into traffic.