The delivery man had the recliner tipped almost completely on its side when he stopped.
“Ma’am?”
I was standing at the kitchen counter signing the delivery paperwork, so I looked up and said, “Yeah?”
He didn’t answer right away.
That got my attention.
The other guy was still holding the front end of the chair, looking mildly annoyed because recliners are heavy and nobody enjoys standing in somebody else’s hallway holding one sideways.
The first man, his name was Luis according to the patch on his shirt, crouched beside the bottom of the chair.
“Ma’am,” he said again, quieter this time. “I think you need to see this.”
I walked over.
The old chair was Daniel’s pride and joy.
If you could call a 12-year-old brown leather recliner with a permanent dent in the seat something to be proud of.
My husband had spent more hours in that thing than I cared to calculate.
Football games.
Golf.
Evening news.
Sunday naps.
He ate popcorn in it.
Read sales reports in it.
And once slept in it until two in the morning because he insisted he was “resting his eyes.”
I’d been trying to replace it for two years.
Daniel always refused.
“That thing’s got another 10 years in it,” he’d say.
“So does a lawn mower if you ignore the smoke,” I told him once.
He didn’t appreciate that.
But the week he left for a business trip to Dallas, the footrest finally started sticking halfway up.
He complained about it Sunday afternoon while packing.
“Piece of junk nearly took my ankle off.”
I remember looking at him and saying:
“That sounded suspiciously like permission to replace it.”
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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