NO PROBLEM

He turned up missing after meeting one day, as husbands are sometimes apt to do.  Not a particularly unusual occurrence, since cornets have to be put away, and a thousand other little things need to be tended to before the corps closes for the day on Sunday.    

As usual, I spent some extra time gabbing in the hallway with friends and the kids were off on their own post-meeting missions.  At some point, I noticed the conspicuous absence of my beloved by my side, and sent out an “all points bulletin” via the children, to go find dad.     

It was when they couldn’t find him that I went on a husband hunt.  I searched the corps high and low, but came up empty-handed.  Ah, well, I figured we’d just wait in the van and he’d turn up eventually….    

I walked out the door, and there, on the concrete, knelt my husband with one of the neighborhood kids, pumping up a flat bicycle tire.  I just stood for a minute and soaked it in…the crisp blue uniform and dress shoes next to the jeans and sneakers, the cornet case on the ground next to the up-ended bicycle…the two heads, both tousled unruly waves almost touching, intent upon the task at hand.      

“Thanks, Mister.”    

“No problem.”    

My husband waved to the boy, gathered up his stuff, and still unaware of being observed , without a backward glance, chucked everything in the trunk.

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