Phyllis had never been to the zoo.
Her mother had been an alcoholic, and though her father had once been a kind man, he had become bitter with years of Veraās drinking and handling the busy hardware store on his own. Nobody had time or interest in taking her to the zoo. There was a period of Phyllisās childhood, from about the ages of seven to ten, that she spent summers with an aunt and uncle at their cabin outside the city.
Every morning, she woke to the smell of bacon and eggs cooking on her auntās electric skillet. Her aunt Edna would brown a piece of toast, slather it in butter and jelly, and cut it in half ā diagonally, the way Phyllis liked. Then sheād make a smiley face on Phyllisās plate ā the triangles of toast for eyes, an egg for the nose, and a greasy bacon smile.
After breakfast, her uncle Tom would take her out fishing on the lake in the jon boat, or maybe theyād pick up sticks for firewood. Some mornings theyād drive to the filling station in town for fuel and the newspaper, and uncle Tom would give her a nickel for the gumball machine. Phyllis remembered many evenings spent around the fire listening to the crickets and frogs in the woods, counting the stars that peaked through the canopy of trees, and roasting marshmallows. Sometimes Phyllis liked to catch the marshmallows on fire, let the outside burn to a black crisp, and then peel the burnt shell off to enjoy the warm gooey marshmallow within. Other times, she would hold them high above the flames so that they wouldnāt brown but would be hot on the outside while still cool on the inside.
During the final weeks of summer as Labor Day approached heralding the return to school ā and to life with her parents ā Phyllisās despair would mount with each passing day. It was March of 4th grade, just as the crocuses were in bloom and the trees were starting to green and the days beginning to warm, that the news came of her aunt and uncleās death in a tragic accident. The local fire chief suspected that a windy March night had blown embers in through the open kitchen window, setting their home aflame.
As Phyllis grieved that summer for the loss of her aunt and uncle, she did her best to stay out of her fatherās way and to avoid her motherās drunken fits. She tried making bacon and eggs with butter jelly toast the way her aunt Edna had, but the eggs were runny, the bacon burned, and her father never bought any jelly.
When she was seventeen, a young man named Jack started delivering supplies to her fatherās hardware store. At the behest of her fatherās constant prodding and persuasion, Phyllis and Jack were married shortly thereafter. She didnāt realize it at the time, but her father had been eager to have someone else ātake care ofā Phyllis ā her mother had passed when she was 15 from cirrhosis of the liver, and the hospital bills and funeral costs had nearly drained the family of any savings. Marrying her off had allowed her father to sell the house and save himself from complete financial ruin; for a few years after, he used the back office of the store as his lodgings and ate one meal a day from the diner down the street.
Phyllis and Jackās marriage was happy enough ā they took the car for rides on Sundays, and would sometimes go see a picture together. Jack would say things that made Phyllis laugh, and somehow, against all odds, Phyllis became quite a good cook for Jack. Phyllis had decided there wasnāt much passion or romantic love in their relationship, but more of a friendship ā a partner, someone to work through the hardships of life together, to keep one anotherās company and stave off the loneliness, and that was enough for her. They both took it pretty hard when they were unable to conceive after years of trying, hoping, but resolved to live out their days together in the good way that they got along, regardless of the unusual circumstances of their coming together.
When Jack passed unexpectedly of an early morning heart attack at the age of 73, Phyllis struggled at first with living alone. She realized she had never actually been alone in all her life, even if, at times, those that kept her company were disinterested in her and aloof. She eventually fell into a new swing of things, though, and did her best to keep busy. She got a kitten the following spring from a neighbor whose cat had born a litterĀ ā a pretty little calico with fluffy cheeks and a bushy tail. āKittenā was her name, even as she became a full-grown cat, and Kitten would keep Phyllis company while she tended her garden until her knees and back became too bad to bear the work anymore. The arthritis in her hands eventually made her put down her knitting needles, and when she fell in the bathroom, she finally conceded to herself that maybe it was time to sell the house and move into āan old peopleās home.ā
Phyllis told me all of this after shuffling over to the bench to sit next to me in front of the lions at the Bronx Zoo. She had quite a stooping posture, but with the help of her walker, she seemed to be fairly steady on her feet. She told me that her assisted living home had planned an outing to the zoo that day, and she was not going to miss it for anything. She had just left the area where they kept the hippos, and was surprised to find out that hippo teeth donāt look like marshmallows after all, like they always did in the cartoons she watched as a kid. That was okay though, sheād told me ā she really just wanted to see a great big lion open its great big mouth in a great big yawn, and sheād be happy. They held a yoga class once a week at her home, and sheād learned the ālionās breathā technique. āHow neat itād be to do a lionās breath with a real lion,ā she had said.
I found out that Phyllisās home was not far from the pastry shop where I worked, so Iād stop in to visit her once a week and bring her a baked treat. I never said much during our visits ā Phyllis did most of the talking ā but I was okay with that. I got the feeling that Phyllis hadnāt talked much during her life and maybe needed to get some things out.
Eventually, I started to notice that Phyllis didnāt seem to be doing as well as when I had met her, and I feared she was truly going downhill. I stopped in one day, and Phyllis was lying in bed. She told me she didnāt feel like getting up that day, and sheād never spent a single day of her life relaxing in bed before, so by god she was going to do it today. She lay on her side with the pillow crammed between her arm and her head. She turned her eyes to me, and I swear she looked straight into my soul with those dark brown eyes when she said, āLife is strange. You gotta make the best of it. And that means different things to different people.ā I gave her hand a gentle squeeze, smiled, and said, āThatās really nice, Phyllis. Thank you.ā
We had been sitting quietly for a while when Phyllis finally spoke. āGet in my desk over there for me. In the top drawer on the right. Thereās something in there I want you to have.ā I opened the drawer, and there, on top of a stack of old postcards, lay a Christmas ornament. She had bought it from the gift shop at the zoo the day of the zoo outing. It was a ceramic purple hippo wearing a Santa hat, mouth wide open revealing the perfect dentition within ā perfectly white, perfectly round, perfectly marshmallow-shaped teeth.
She passed away eight days later. The nurses told me she suffered very little, which I was thankful for. More than all, I was thankful that Phyllis chose to sit at the bench outside the lion den, thankful that I was sitting at that very same bench at that very same moment, thankful to have made her acquaintance and have her friendship. Because of her and the life wisdom she imparted upon me, I took a chance on myself and auditioned for a part in a Broadway play. I got the part. My acting career blossomed from there, and I quit my job at the pastry shop. Phyllisās purple hippo hangs from the rearview mirror in my car, and I think of her every day when I look in my mirror at the mother behind me screaming at her kids in the backseat, or the construction worker munching on a sandwich on his way back to the job site ā all just everyday people making the best of their lives in the whatever way means the most to them.
My nephew Ben visits me for a couple weeks every summer. I make him bacon and eggs and butter jelly toast, except he likes the toast cut horizontally into two rectangles. Every night, we cook a few marshmallows on the stove ā some of them we burn to a crisp, and some of them we hold high up over the flames so theyāre hot on the outside and cool on the inside. We clink our marshmallows together in a toast to Phyllis. Although Ben was confused at first and didnāt know who Phyllis was, he now joins in wholeheartedly as we pay nightly homage to the woman who helped me become who I am.
āTo Phyllis!ā he says.
I smile and say, āYes. To Phyllis.ā
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