Anthony and Carmella

Anthony graduated from State with a Chemical Engineering degree and a very average 3.2 GPA. After he got out, he did what lots of kids back then did and meant to spend a year in Europe, mostly on a motorcycle. He got to Germany, bought an older BMW R50 and was halfway through the Rhine Valley, right between Koblenz and Bingen, when one piston shot through the seat of the bike and the adventure was over, partly because his mortality had suddenly become precisely real and otherwise because his supply of cash was to tight to account and correct for this development. He came home and soon got a job with Meridian, working on a new kind of cleaning compound.

Carmella didn’t graduate, wanted to, meant to and never could get back to it. She did well while she was in school. She loved biological processes. Her own biology interfered through three children over nine years. It was enough time for her to get back to work but not really enough to be taken too seriously at Meridian. After John Jr., her youngest, got into middle school, what with Michael in High School and Thomas weeks away from graduating, she began to feel as if she were floating, without purpose. She called Amy Miller who had started at Meridian the first summer after High School and now was in charge of HR. They had kept in fairly close touch over the years and while not the closest of friends, they were sometime-shopping buddies and talked at least once a week on the phone. Amy had no problem letting Carmella visit with the head of R&D who happened to be looking for an FDA compliance Q.C. person and was willing to train someone new as long as they had some of the procedural background and, well, Carmella actually fit the bill.

Carmella showed up at Meridian on the following Monday and by the end of that morning, had job in hand. She asked to start the following Monday so that she could get Mike into the routine of picking up his little brother and getting the dinner started and so that they would both be sure to take care of their respective homeworks.

Just after the sun had come up the following Monday, she was on her way to the plant, brand-new insulated mug in hand, lab-safe shoes on her feet and a spring in her step to match. This would be an adventure, she was sure.

As fall slipped into winter and spring came to wake everything up, she had studied for and passed her Six Sigma certification, a record turnaround in the company and she had passed her FDA certification. She had thrown herself completely into her work. The kids were okay, she thought when she worked late and, they were. Micheal turned out to be a pretty good manager of the household and even his older brother had come to rely on his organizational skills. She was proud of them all and of herself, too.

But she also recognized that Tony had helped her by mentoring her without stop. It was as if he was obsessed with her success. While he was very nice, he was never anything less than professional and was a gentle teacher and thorough coach.

And Tony loved her so. He could find no way to express his admiration other than by putting everything he had into helping to mold and shine her talent.

She left the company to get away from their sadness, her sadness. But she left a star. Meridian’s president met with her twice, hoping that he could somehow induce her to stay. She thanked him and quietly left on a Friday, almost eleven years to the day after starting there.

Tony was stoic but internally inconsolable. He hadn’t mowed his lawn in weeks and a neighbor came by one Saturday to see if he was okay. He greeted the neighbor in his boxers, black socks and shoes and not much else.

Every Friday, he would send her an e-mail. He once said forever, etc. And what was written there was only three words: “Forever? And ever.” And every Friday, without fail, an e-mail would come back from Carmella, “In my heart and in my soul, always and forever.”

After a year of this, he decided it was time to try and reopen the lines of communication again. He broke from the routine message they had pledged as a monument to their time together and wrote her a rather involved love letter. There was no response. The following week, he sent the traditional message and she did respond in kind. He interpreted this to mean that she was not going to retrace broken ground, that if he should want to have at least that leverl of contact with her that he shoudl stick to the  script.

One summer day, Anthony got a call from his doctor’s office. They told him that the doctor wabted him to come in on Friday morning to talk about his most recent and routine tests. What the doctor had to say made Tony weak in the arms and legs with fear. It was certain and it was final. “I’m sorry,” said the doctor, who had no doubt said the same sort of thing dozens of times before,”but the outcome is doubtful. We’ll do all we can.”

For the next few months, all that could be done was done. At first, the tumor seemed to grow very slowly and then, like a snowball at the pinnacle of a hill, gained momentum and size as it plummets toward the valley. He couldn’t leave one thing undone.

He came to the beige house on Sometree Drive, parking out front. He walked slowly to the door, feeling a little dizzy. Shortly after he finished knocking, the door opned and a tall man, perhaps thirty or so, greeted him. “Hello . . .”

Oh, I see, he said. Mom said you might just give up after a time. What do you mean? Where is your mother? I have some bad news, Mr. C. Mom died last February. He turned white. She didn’t want to break you heart again, she said and asked that we leave her e-mail on auto-repsonder. Every time it sees your address and that subject line, it responds. No, no, it can’t bev.