A Little Favor

Laurie sat on the couch in the dim living room, still in her pajamas, staring at nothing in particular. These days, she never looked at much of anything, or thought about much of anything. She mostly sat. Friends and family would call or visit, encouraging her to eat, to go out and do something, to let herself “heal.”

Of course, no two people had the same definition of healing. Her mother wanted her to go to church, or at least talk to a priest. Her father wanted to take her fishing. Janice, her college roommate and best friend, said what she really needed was a night on the town. Her sister, Marie, insisted they go on a shopping spree.

But Laurie didn’t understand how. How could life continue? How could she pretend she didn’t feel confused, lost, and hopeless?

Mark would have been able to tell her. He would have said something that sounded like common sense that would stick in her head for weeks until she was convinced it was the most profound thing she had ever heard, and that he was a genius. That was the problem, wasn’t it? He wasn’t just a solution; he was the solution. He was the only person who could help her, and he was gone.

The worst part, the thing that made her weep for hours, that made her cry more than when she stood beside his closed coffin last Thursday, was remembering the last time she talked to him. Sunday afternoon, Mark was exhausted from overtime at the office and all the odds and ends she had wanted him to take care of around the house. He asked her, in his soft, kind voice, if she would help him out with one little thing.


“Laurie, love of my life, can I ask you to do a tiny little favor for me?” He stood behind her as she typed away at the computer. She was in the middle of writing the chapter that had been blocked for weeks.

“That’s going to depend on what it is, sweetheart.” She didn’t look away from the screen or stop typing.

“Well, beautiful, the grass hasn’t been cut in almost a week. I know it needs to be done today or there won’t be time until Friday. I don’t want to complain, honey, but it would be the most wonderful thing if you could take an hour or so to mow the lawn.” As he said this, he rubbed her shoulders and stroked her hair. When he finished talking, she stopped typing.

She turned around and looked up at him like he had asked her to fix the transmission on their truck, or replace the processor in the computer. “Mark, you know I’ve never mowed a lawn in my life. You know, in fact, that it is the one task I dread more than any other household chore. I refuse. The grass will have to wait. What do I care if the front yard looks like a rainforest? It’s not like I ever get the time to go out there and enjoy it anyway.” She turned back to the computer and resumed typing her chapter.

“Okay, I’m sorry I asked, sweetie. I didn’t want to upset you. I’ll just try to come home early tomorrow and do it then.” She didn’t answer him. He stood in the doorway for a minute or two before leaving.

She had worked on her book late into the night and gotten to bed after Mark was asleep. When he left for work the next morning, she didn’t hear him get up. That afternoon, she was typing frantically when her mother-in-law called.

“Laurie…” Joan’s soft tone was so out of character that it took Laurie a moment to recognize her voice. “Dear, Mark’s been in an accident. He crashed the car. Honey, he died.” Laurie had nothing to say, so she waited quietly as Joan told her where his body had been taken, and then hung up.


She tried to steer her mind away from the picture of his cold body, his clothes still on it and covered in blood and sparkling slivers of glass. She focused on the point where her eyes had been aimlessly pointed for so long and saw the yard through the front window. The grass that hadn’t been cut for almost two weeks was longer than it had ever gotten in the four years she and Mark had lived in that little house.

After staring at the yard for a while, she got up and put on jeans and an old sweatshirt. She tied up her hair into a ponytail and put on some worn-out tennis shoes before heading to the shed. She opened the doors, pulled out the old mower with some trouble, and then stood looking at it, with no idea what to do next.