Refresh, refresh again.  Why is it that WebEx always freezes right before he’s supposed to start the meeting?  Does it ever happen to anyone else?

Mike feels that familiar flutter in his chest again and takes a deep breath.  If that doesn’t stop it, he’ll cough it away, a trick he remembers from a co-worker in Atlanta.  The guy had issues with rapid heartbeat and would excuse himself from meetings to go cough in the hall.  He explained that the imposed reflex re-sets the heart’s rhythm.

Come to think of it, the poor fellow was later diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.  Ended up having some sort of procedure to correct it.  Except it didn’t.

Mike shakes his head.  Back to the problem at hand, this web meeting with the regional IT leads on the Patient Safety Initiative.  Refresh once more, and…aha! There it is! He is in, his initials MF, prominent in the box.

Mike pauses a moment before enabling video.  He’s not too keen on seeing himself on camera again.  Last WebEx, he couldn’t believe his onscreen image, crooked lower teeth turned into a jumble of Chiclets for all the world to see.  Mike didn’t smile the entire meeting, could feel his lips tighten over his teeth, embarrassment turning into severity.

Mike has never been vain. If he has ever thought about his looks, it was only in passing, in combing his hair, slapping on cologne to win some girl.  Once he got the girl in 1990, Fairfax, he simply wanted to be presentable, that’s all, unobjectionable.  And healthy, of course.

Mike’s heart skips a beat again.  Damn it.  The healthy part has been on the back burner lately.  Well, more than lately.  It’s been a long time since he’s seen a doctor.  Heck, he hasn’t had a check-up since they lived in Atlanta. His family moved to Jacksonville, Fairfax got sick, and Mike was not about to go looking for trouble in some doctor’s office.  So, that’s how many years?

Four.  A long time.

The irony is he works for Florida’s biggest health care company.  Mike is knee deep in medical issues every day.  That’s another reason he’s stayed away from doctors, come to think of it.  Healthcare day in and day out.  He’s tired of it.

He sighs.  Okay, time to click on the damn video icon.  As expected, once the thumbnail screen appears, his visage is a shock.

Man! The circles under his eyes look like tattoos.  Mike sees new gray hair gleaming from his temples.  Nothing like seeing yourself on camera to show you that you are growing old.

Well, he and Fairfax were almost fifty, so what did he think was going to happen?  Forty-eight he’d be at this next birthday in a handful of months. The number itself doesn’t bother Mike.  No, he considers them both lucky (saved, even) to be able to anticipate the half-century mark together.  Especially, his wife.  For Fairfax’s birthday, they will have a blow-out party.  Not his thing, but definitely hers.

Fairfax deserves to be celebrated. Every single day.  Let her continue on her manic path of renovation; the kitchen still isn’t usable, but Mike keeps his mouth shut. As long as his wife is able to indulge her passion, design to wow the crowd she loves, he’ll keep working to foot the bill.

Fairfax’s happiness is worth it.

This past year they had the worry about her anemia, which finally seems to be under control, thank God.  And her cancer—well, its continued remission, which is a good thing, but always in the back of their minds.  Absence is always a presence, as they say in data communities.  A void to be filled.  Nature abhors a vacuum.

Okay, enough.  Mind on the meeting now. Bob Santiago has joined.  Good guy, Bob, IT engineer from Miami. Actually lives in Buena Vista, not far from where Mike grew up.

That old falling-down house.  His brother Max was supposed to start repairing it, shore it up against time and decay.  He had been living there with their mother, Lucinda, and the old aunts.  And, for a short while, their grandfather, Buck, before he passed away in January.  Crazy old guy, hooked on cigarettes, which led to the lung and heart failure which killed him.  Mike had to hand it to Max, he had stepped up and helped with Buck, or PawPaw as they used to call him on infrequent visits.  Redneck curmudgeon if ever there was one.  Born and bred in South Florida and resented anyone who wasn’t, even his own Cuban wife, long dead.

Lucinda had needed all the help she could get with her sick father—she could barely stand to be in the same room with him. Mike wonders now if it was because his mother couldn’t take any more of her father’s bigotry, or because she couldn’t stand to see the person who gave her life die.  Maybe it was a little of both.

Mike sighs.  Last word from Luce was that Max had hit the road again.  On his motorcycle, headed north, she thought.  Could be he was headed to Jacksonville, she said, then asked how Fairfax was doing.  Did his wife need some help?  Lucinda was willing and able to fly up at a moment’s notice and cook meals.  Please, Miguel, she’d begged.

Well, Mike put the kibosh on that notion.  After all, they had no kitchen.  How could she cook? Talk about creating chaos! His mother in the middle of their renovation, stirring up both dust and a bad mood in his wife.  Besides, Luce’s desire to come to Jacksonville had nothing to do with cooking, and everything to do with her youngest son.  She knew Max had a crush on Fairfax’s friend and wanted to be around for all the “romantic excitement.”

“Well, too bad there, bro,” Mike said to the air in his office.  “She’s finally got a boyfriend.”

“What?” a voice chimed from the screen.

“Whoops, sorry, Bob.   Just thinking aloud.  We’ll start in…” Mike checks his watch, eyes flicking to the bottom corner of his monitor and back.  “Three minutes.”

Yep, someone had finally captured Nancy.  Capture might be too strong of a verb for how Dr. Peter Redmond had started out with Nancy, but, that’s how it seemed to Mike anyway.  Here is this girl, well, woman, who has never been married, didn’t date anymore, according to Fairfax.  Had men falling over her (his own brother compared her to a Da Vinci painting), and she simply floated on past them, oblivious to the adoration.  Uncatchable, unattainable.  A prize out of reach.

Except for his wife.  Nancy was very present in Fairfax’s life.  They had been childhood friends and rekindled this connection when they met again on Mallory Street two years ago.  Nancy was to Fairfax what she couldn’t be with a man, it seemed to Mike.  That is, romantic factors aside, simply a dependable, steady presence in another’s life. In fact, he’s said as much to Fairfax right before they found out Nancy and Peter were a couple.

“Give her time, Fig,” Fairfax had replied, using her favorite nickname for him.  “She’s been hurt.”

“By whom?” He’s asked.  “That Adam guy? What’s his last name? Starts with an ‘A.’”

“Ainsley,” his wife had replied as she rubbed lotion into the beds of her fingernails.  She was obsessive about moisturizing herself.  “And yes, him, but there’ve been others.”

“Really?” Mike had wanted to know more, but his Fairfax said nothing else and he soon forgot about it, because Peter came on the scene, dog in tow.  You’ve got to give the guy credit, buying a dog just to get a woman.  Nancy was so taken with that goofy-named canine of hers that Redmond knew a fellow dog lover would have an edge over any competition.

Mike had told Fairfax about the doctor’s strategy, and she’d laughed then scoffed, saying Peter would never do that.  Use an animal as bait for a woman.  It pleased Mike maybe a little more than it should’ve that he was able to burst her bubble about her beloved hematologist.

“He did, Fairfax.  He told me, I swear.”

His wife had looked at him. “I don’t believe it,” she’d said.  “Even if he told you that, I still don’t believe he would do that.”

So, Mike had let the conversation drop.  What did it matter anyway?  Peter and Nancy were together now and seemed happy.  They certainly enjoyed walking their dogs every day, were even talking about breeding a litter of Cavalier King whatevers when Peter’s female got older.

So, if Max shows up on Mallory Street, he will be in for a rude surprise.  His “Da Vinci Lady with an Ermine” has found herself a man with one.

“Mike, you there?” A female voice floats from his PC, and, for a second, Mike thinks it’s Nancy Plumb on the conference call, so familiar is the tone.  Smooth, calm.  He glances at the screen and sees it’s a minute past 11 a.m.  Oops.  The participant list is almost fully populated with initials.  GP is the one asking the question.

“Yes, I’m here, Gwen.”  Mike clears his throat.  Gwen Patrick, another good worker, an IT packhorse.  From over Panhandle way. “We’re starting now. First, let me ask, how is Panama City?”

“Frightened, I’m afraid, Mike. Of Michael.” Her voice cuts off at the end.  She says something else, but it sputters out, becomes nothing.

“Hey, Gwen, you’re going in and out.  Refresh your screen.” There is silence, and Mike decides to wait a minute longer, willing his colleague’s voice back from the audio void.

Absence is always presence.

His heart trips over a beat, then recovers in a rhythm of five.  Mike coughs, but his heart scampers on.  He coughs again, then a third and fourth time.

“You okay?” Bob Santiago asks.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” Mike replies as his heartbeat returns to normal. “Just a touch of cold, I think,” he adds in a quick white lie.  “You know how these things are always going around.”