Take a Seat

Take a Seat by Fayette Fox

The recliner was gone. I came down for breakfast and noticed right away. Even before I’d opened the blinds, I saw the empty spot on the hardwood floor. The floor next to the fireplace was shiny and bare. I dropped to my knees, running my hand across the woodgrain as though searching for clues. There was nothing there.

The night before, I’d sat in the chair briefly to read my mystery novel before making myself a cup of tea. I got distracted in the kitchen, organizing my spices in alphabetical order. I didn’t get back to my book that evening. But when I went upstairs to bed, the recliner was definitely still there. And now, it wasn’t. The ottoman was gone too. My book, however, was still on the coffee table where I’d left it.

Tingling all over, I opened the blinds, checked the doors and windows, and surveyed the house, running from room to room. It was cold and gray outside. The doors were deadbolted, the windows latched. I checked my jewelry box and the secret hiding place where I keep my passport and emergency cash. Nothing else appeared to be missing or out of place. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to slow my breathing.

I’d bought the white leather recliner from Specs, four years earlier. It was modern and—I thought—sophisticated. The armrests were brass with a padded, leather oval at the elbows. How does a recliner just disappear?

I made myself oatmeal with goji berries and pumpkin seeds. I allowed myself an extra spoonful of brown sugar to calm my nerves. But instead of mixing everything together like usual, I ate the berries and seeds off the top like a child or fussy cat, leaving the bulk of the oatmeal, heavy and steaming, untouched. I left the house in a hurry, forgetting to brush my teeth.

“Things aren’t usually gone forever,” my mom said. I was six and couldn’t find my stuffed frog, Calitha. “What was the last place you saw her?”

“I don’t know!” I wailed. “If I knew where she was, she wouldn’t be lost!”

She told me to calm down and we’d look together. Then my little brother, Isaac, came in crying with a skinned knee and I had to continue the hunt on my own. I eventually found Calitha squished behind the cushions of the big, orange armchair. I was pretty sure I hadn’t left her there. I squeezed her tightly. Then I followed the sound of crying to the upstairs bathroom. Our mom sat on the floor, cleaning my brother’s knee with the stinging stuff from the brown bottle.

“Did you take Calitha?” I pointed to Isaac. His face was red and teary. He was four and was always taking my things.

“No!” he sobbed.

“Then why was she squished into the chair?” I held the frog close to his face, staring him down. “She couldn’t breathe in there!”

“Rosemary, that’s enough,” my mom said. “This isn’t a good time.”

Things aren’t usually gone forever. But now, with the white, leather recliner, I didn’t know what to think.

My brother and I met for lunch at Slurp City, our favorite soup place. It’s halfway between our offices and they have a changing menu with three soups every day. There’s always one vegetarian soup which is what my brother gets. He’s not actually vegetarian. He’s just on this kick at the moment to eat less meat for environmental reasons. There are 21 meals in a week and he allows himself meat for six. Except beef. He says it’s “the worst offender” and only eats it once a month.

I chose the Italian wedding soup and he got the ginger carrot bisque. Every soup comes with crusty bread from a local bakery which Isaac says is a worker’s collective. We picked a seat by the window. The fog hadn’t lifted and we could see a flurry of bundled people on the street, hurrying to get their lunches. Perfect soup weather. Inside, it was cozy and warm.

My soup was flavorful and nourishing. I was hungry since I’d barely eaten any breakfast. I imagined being in a Tuscan village at a wedding in the 1920s. The groom, a pig farmer from the next village over, had a shy smile and looked surprisingly sharp in his three-piece suit. The bride played the violin and wore her hair in long braids, coiled around her head. Her grandma made a vat of soup (with help from her elderly neighbors) for all the guests.

Isaac and I chatted about our weekends. I’d had brunch with friends and reorganized my sweaters. He and my sister-in-law, Carla had volunteered in the community garden and went to a harvest-themed party. Carla dressed up as an ear of GMO corn. Isaac was a tractor.

“Have you ever woken up and discovered something was gone?” I asked Isaac.

“What, like your youth? Yeah, that happened to me a few years ago when my back started bothering me.”

“No, like … furniture.”

“You mean like, when you notice, for example, that your kitchen table is missing?”

“Um, yeah!” I said, not sure if he was messing with me. “Just like that, actually. Has that happened to you?”

“About a year-and-a-half ago,” he said, dipping his bread in soup. “I went downstairs for breakfast and the vase and fruit bowl were on the floor. Not broken or anything. Just on the floor, directly below where they’d been on the kitchen table. But the table was gone.”

“What do you think happened to it?”

“Who knows. At first, I thought someone had broken into our house and stolen it.”

“But the doors were locked?”

“Right. And why would anyone steal a table? It doesn’t really make sense.”

“What’d you do?”

“I ate breakfast at the counter instead.”

“But what’d you do about the table?”

Isaac shrugged, “We got another one. So it happened to you too?”

I nodded. “I lost my recliner.”

“The beat-up brown one with the stuffing coming out?” Isaac furrowed his brow.

“No, I got rid of that one years ago when I was still living with Nora.”

“Ah, I really liked that chair! Why’d you get rid of it?”

“It was super old and the stuffing was coming out?” I said. “Anyway, the one that disappeared was a nice, new one with white leather.”

“Okay, I remember that one. It looked expensive.”

“It was really well-designed,” I gazed into my empty soup bowl.

For several nights after work, I experimented with different relaxation spots. When I didn’t have company over, I had typically sat in the white recliner. With it gone, I tried my couch. I sat on both ends and in the middle. I lay down, stretching my body across all three cushions. It was nice, but it wasn’t my recliner. I tried reading my mystery at the kitchen table, on the steps, and in bed. The couch was by far the best option. Reading in bed just made me sleepy.

I thought about getting a new recliner, but my brother was right. It had been pretty pricey. I wasn’t quite ready to drop another $800 on a chair. I considered rearranging the living room furniture to obliterate the empty spot created by the recliner’s absence. But I needed help to move the couch so I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. It reminded me of when the apple tree in my backyard fell over suddenly, from some hidden blight in the trunk’s hollowed out core. It was surprising because the tree seemed so healthy. The leaves were lush and it was a prolific producer of apples. I called a landscaper with a chainsaw to haul it away. The empty spot in my yard was almost unbearable. Until, I got used to it.

Then one morning, about a week after the white recliner vanished, a new recliner appeared in its place. I noticed as soon as I came down for breakfast. I stared at the chair. It was large and comfortable-looking with cracked, brown, faux-leather. I circled it and sat down. I touched the spot in the seat where stuffing was coming out. My old housemate Nora always said she’d fix it but had never gotten around it. Her dog, Tatter loved pawing and pulling at the fluff.

I made myself oatmeal with bartlett pear, dates, and chopped walnuts. I ate sitting in the old recliner. The chair enveloped me. When Nora and I first found the chair on the street, we carried it nearly a mile back to our apartment. It was heavy and we put it down every few blocks to rest, taking turns sitting in it.

“It’s so comfy!” Nora squealed.

“It’s so ugly!” I laughed.

“Comfgly!” Nora said.

I fingered the place in the seat where the stuffing was escaping.

“I’ll patch it,” Nora promised.

After I finished my oatmeal I called my brother while I washed out the bowl.

“You said you got a new kitchen table after yours disappeared.”

“That’s right,” Isaac said.

“Do you mean you bought a new one?”

“No, a new one appeared about a week later.”

I put the pot in the sink to soak.

“Had you seen that table before?”

“Sure,” Isaac said. “It was the kitchen table from my first place in Austin, just after college.”

“How’d you know it was the same one?”

“It had the same scratch across the top.”

Nora came over for dinner. She brought a bottle of red wine and a roll of leather repair tape. I gave her a big hug. We hadn’t seen each other for over a year even though we still lived in the same city. She looked good in her chunky knit sweater and dangly earrings. It’s weird how someone can be such a huge part of your life, how you can literally see them every day, sharing milk and toothpaste, and then you move out and don’t see them for ages. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her until she was right there in front of me.

When she saw the brown recliner she laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. Then she threw herself into it, exhaling deeply, just like just she used to when she got home from work. We caught up over mushroom risotto with roasted acorn squash. Then we brought our glasses of wine into the living room and together, repaired the tear on the brown recliner.

In the morning, the recliner was gone.

A week later, a worn, orange armchair appeared in its place. I cocked my head looking at it. The chair seemed familiar but I couldn’t think where I’d seen it before. Was it from college? Study abroad in Florence? An old boyfriend’s apartment?

I made myself oatmeal with raisins and apple chunks. I sat in the armchair to eat. The fabric was nubby and soft. I felt safe and loved and… a little uncomfortable. Something was poking me. I put my oatmeal on the coffee table and reached under the cushion. I pulled out a stuffed frog.

Things aren’t usually gone forever.