One Last Dance with Roberto

A tale of joy and sorrow

Gibberish: Flash Fiction Friday - Gone Home

March 14, 2025

Scoot’s Assignment: Write a short story about returning home, including uncanny familiarity, a character who can’t remember, and the sentence, “What else is left?”

Photo by Keith Martin on Unsplash

One Last Dance with Roberto

I don’t have much faith in doctors. I don’t know if it’s because I’m old or it’s just the way the clinics are run these days, but they never seem to pay attention to what you say. When Molly got sick, they kept telling her that she just had reflux, and that she should stop eating so much fried food. We kept explaining that Molly never eats the stuff because she hates fried food, but they wouldn’t listen. By the time they did listen, it was too late: Molly had stage four pancreatic cancer and two to six months left.

Molly was a simple soul. She didn’t have any bucket lists or anything, she just wanted to enjoy the little pleasures of life. So she got to have one last asparagus season, and the last harvests of early peas and radishes and strawberries. The kids came over and helped us put in the vegetable garden, with Molly sitting in a kitchen chair that we'd dragged outside for her, happily ordering us about like a queen.

One morning in late May, she excitedly called me to the kitchen, “Oh, Hall, it’s Alberto! Alberto’s come home from Mexico at last and is dancing in front of the window!” Normally, I might get jealous of some stranger doing a private dance for my wife, but not in this case: Alberto was a male ruby-throated hummingbird, who always danced for his nectar upon his return from his winter home down south. Roberto had been announcing his homecoming with a little dance at the kitchen window for the past three years, and his arrival always provoked fits of pure happiness in my Molly - the hummingbirds were her very favorite.

Molly was beginning to feel weaker, but Roberto’s performance inspired a flurry of joyful activity, as she busied herself preparing nectar for him and his compatriots.  Knowing that the disease and medications would soon affect her memory, she carefully showed me what to do, as she mixed up a four-to-one ratio of water and sugar and brought it to a boil, just long enough to dissolve the sugar. We filled all the feeders and sat out on the deck to watch the tiny feathered acrobats tumble and soar.

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Spring seemed to fly by and the summer days passed far too quickly, as the cancer laid claim to my Molly. As she feared, she began to forget; it seemed some days that she wasn't able to remember anything. She had no appetite, so the nurses gave her dope to help her keep the food down. I can still still hear Molly scolding me, “Oh, Hall, they don’t call it dope, it’s medicinal marijuana.” She was able to enjoy one last sweet corn feast with the kids in early August. Nothing beats freshly harvested sweet corn with nothing but salt and butter, with a raspberry cobbler for dessert. It was the last time I heard her laugh. Within two weeks, she was bedridden, sleeping morphine dreams. Another week later, she was gone.

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It’s late September. The air feels cooler, the days grow shorter, the flowers go to seed. Molly has been buried, the kids have all gone home, and I sit alone on the deck. Molly was all I had. I wonder what else is left for me to live for? I don't notice the tears rolling down my unshaven cheeks until a late season hummingbird flies over and begins to dance in the air, begging for my attention. I put out my hand and he alights,  perching on my outstretched finger. He looks at me, cocking his head to the side, in a way that is uncannily familiar, just the way Molly would sometimes look at me. Unbelieving, but desperately hoping it was real, I ask, "Molly?" The little bird gently lifts off to hover before my face, licking up my tears with his delicate, wee tongue. Then he flies in a circle about my head, once, twice, thrice, and then he's off. I smiled, wishing Roberto a safe trip south, and looking forward to his return in the spring, when we will once more share our love for my darling Molly.

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