ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife

Book One, Part Two, Chapter 65: Peace of Mind

I call Joshua.

“What’s up?” he asks. His voice is like a bullet.

“You sound irritated.”

“I can’t find the last photos I took of Daddy. I took them with my old cell phone. I took out the disc — it’s about a quarter the size of a penny — and now I can’t find it.”

“Those photos you took the last days of his stay at the Indianapolis hospital?”

“Yes.”

“They wouldn’t be pleasant to look at.”

“I don’t want to talk about anything emotional. That just makes me angry.”

Loud screams erupt in the background. Is Christy back from her boat trip? Is she screaming at Joshua? A few seconds pass. “Are you still there, Joshua?”

“I’m still here. It’s my neighbors. He’s really going after her. A huge fight.” The screams stop. “They’ve gone inside now.”

“I guess that’s what’s called acting out,” I say.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Lately, I’ve been reading books on emotional connection. “Feel your anger, Joshua, and it will dissipate. Recognize it, face it, feel it, and let it dissipate.”

What do I know?

“Maybe so,” Joshua says.

A short while later, he calls back. “It’s good that I got angry. I dumped everything in the drawer onto the floor, and I found the disc. I looked in this drawer before, but it must’ve been caught up in something. I feel better now.”

“What made you remember the disc?”

“Every now and then, I take inventory. I realized I didn’t know where it was. I’ve been looking for it for the past hour.”

Inventory. How about looking for peace of mind? Ernie was always looking for that. In the end, he said: “Maybe peace of mind is just being free from pain.”

I’m looking for peace of mind, too.