Old Age Ain't for Sissies

By Barry Rachin

At two a.m., sixty-eight year-old Jack Monahan got a visit from his neighbor's wife. Dilshad – the name means 'joyful' in Persian - is having a panic attack and wants to run away from home. Or, perhaps, she just needs Jack's help resurrecting her 'joyless' marriage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barry Rachin
• Release date: Aug 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463942093

Barry Rachin

About the AuthorBorn in Boston, Massachusetts, Barry Rachin spent several years stationed in Yokuska, Japan as a Navy medic caring for casualties during the Vietnam War. He has studied at the University of Jerusalem, lived on a kibbutz for a year and holds a degree in clinical counseling from Simmons College. A self-taught woodworker, he presently lives in Attleboro, Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters.

Book preview

At two a.m. the door bell clattered with abrasive insistence. Stumbling from bed, Jack Monahan shuffled to the door in bare feet, his bifocals askew on the tip of his nose. Nesting his eye up against the peephole, he recognized Dilshad Peterson, a neighbor from the third floor, hovering in the hallway. The woman was alone, the condominium complex silent as a tomb.

Jack swung the door wide open, scanning the hallway and adjacent stairwell. What’s the matter?

I just, I just... The woman burst into hysterical sobs.

At two hundred pounds on a five foot three-inch torso one might argue that the sixty-eight year-old woman was more than just pleasingly plump. Her body lacked definition; fleshy hips merged with a protuberant waist in an unencumbered straight line, which wandered mercilessly across a pair of flabby shoulders.

Once at a dinner party, Dilshad mentioned that her parents emigrated from Tehran in the early days of the Iranian revolution. In keeping with her exotic ancestry, the lips were full, the nose wide and fleshy, while the jet black hair was close-cropped complementing the dark olive skin tones. I was having an anxiety attack, she finally cobbled together her fractured thoughts, and didn’t know where to turn.

Ushering Dilshad into the apartment, he asked. Where’s your husband?

Upstairs snoring away... he doesn’t know what happened.

I’ll go tell him you’re all right. Jack made a motion toward the door, but the woman held up a cautionary hand.

We haven’t been getting along lately. He’s the reason I’m here. Grabbing a napkin from the metal holder she dabbed at her blotchy eyes.

Jack glanced at the woman. Despite the weight, Dilshad Peterson