Myrtle and Pearl: a story for your amusement.

Elena Tucker
5 min readFeb 12, 2020
by pasja1000 on Pixabay

Myrtle sat down on the wooden bench, in the middle of the park. Late November wasn’t the best time for being on that bench, in the middle of the park, in upstate New York, but Myrtle loved fall and winter, had a super thick down coat, warm hat and gloves, two pairs of woolen socks in waterproof boots. And that’s not counting her sweater over a long-sleeve shirt, and fleece-lined jeans.

Myrtle knew she was lucky — a lot of people reached the age of 73 and didn’t have a lot of money. She wasn’t just well-off, she was wealthy. A few good investments, and Marty’s military pension and her social security, good insurance, plus a job she liked, a part-time barista at a local coffee shop. Two jobs, if you count her side hustle, and in this gig economy she most certainly did count it.

Myrtle and Marty — there wasn’t a day, or even an hour when she didn’t miss him. He had been gone for four years now. For the first two years, Myrtle barely could get out of bed. Thank goodness for her grandchildren. They not only visited her every other day, there were times they camped out in her apartment. They talked to her, sang to her, coaxed her to eat a little soup, hugged her a lot. And when she asked them to help her stay busier, they talked her into taking a new job. Not only that, they’ve included her best friend, Pearl, who really needed the money.

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Elena Tucker

Writer and storyteller, immigrant, wife, mom, knitter, collector of jokes, lover of cheap, sweet wine.