She crossed that bright and sunny living room, all with its gloriously stained carpets, into the kitchen to clean off her plate. “Yeah, it’s got dustandrust. You know you can’t drive well since your stroke.”
“I wanna help you though.”
“I know.” She smiled again. “But you helped me for like a decade. You’ve done enough.”
He busted out laughing in that old, dried-up tone. “You’re making me feel like a calendar.”
She put a hand on her hip, and her big brown eyes glistened. “And why’s that?”
“‘Cause you’re all grown up and making me feel dated.”
She giggled at the corny joke. “Always keeping me on my toes.”
“I can’t tell you how much I’m gonna miss having you here.”
She reached for her ceramic white tea kettle. It was one that her mother left her before she passed away, a gift from her Swedish great-grandmother. The flowers were all red and blue, and pops of yellow danced in their black stems and leaves. The phrase “a watched pot never boils” was hand-painted in beautiful old English font, but it was written in Swedish.
“I’m gonna miss being there too, but I had to get out on my own. Live my own life. You know?”
“You sure did! And you’re going to do great!”
“Did you need anything?”
“Nope,” he said while the TV in his background blared the local news station. “Only to hear the sound of your voice. But come get your crap, ‘cause I wanna put my pool table in here and need room for a stripper pole.”
His humor caught her off-guard again, and she laughed until her face hurt. Their goodbyes followed, and she hung up.
Wait, why am I boiling water for tea? I have my milk and leftover cookies in the living room. She stopped and looked around. “Wait, Ifinished my cookies.” She watched the kettle smoking, and soon it would give its screeching whistle. She shrugged. “Oh well. Tea sounds nice anyway.”
She went back into the living room and sat on the couch and looked at her teacup and then her leftover milk in the glass. She dumped the hot tea into the milk and drank.
It was the dumbest idea she’d ever had. It tasted awful.
With the movie over and the dishes done and on the drying rack, she turned and leaned against the counter to take in her pride and joy.
Her new home.
Not any home. It wasn’t an apartment or anything.
It was her own house!
Who cared if she had to buy a little baker’s rack to put next to that old and dated, small and white stove with its crusted burners so that she could store her microwave, a few bottles of wine, and her favorite coffee cup? Who cared if the walls in that kitchen were sprawling with yellow-tainted wallpaper that had its glorious ears of corn and random sketches of chickens on them? She sure didn’t. It also didn’t matter if the one cupboard didn’t close properly and slightly hung off its hinges either.
It was all hers.
She smiled and walked over to the refrigerator to think about dinner and as usual spoke out loud to herself, not realizing she did so out of loneliness. “It’s been a long day, but a casserole is what I need!”
Halfway through the prepping, her body started to hurt and tire. Her back screamed at her for rest. She put the chopped-up onions and prepped chicken in storage containers destined for the fridge and called for pizza.
Later on, she walked into her room and opened the window to enjoy a forgiving summer breeze and the sounds of the frogs that rang like a melodious country choir. She fashioned the pillows to sit upright in bed and relished in the beauty of the fireflies in her back yard. Although it was muggy, the breeze was too cool and cleansing to ignore. She ate her pizza and smiled.
How the humidity of that Missouri air filled her nose with the thick scent of wet grass. It was so fragrant she even believed that if green had a smell, it would be that. It wasn’t quite harvesting season. She lovedlooking out across her front porch to watch the farmers plow the corn and soybean fields at night. For some reason, their little halos of lights and the sound of the machine chunking away far off made her feel like even if she lived in the country, she wasn’t alone.
Maybe she missed her pawpaw more than she realized.
She rolled over and cuddled up with that flattened floral pillow, looking out into the peaceful night, where all she could see was the dark tree line thirty feet away from her house. The breeze came again. An owl called outside near her window.
Stillness. Quietness. Her pawpaw was not there to need her anymore, not entirely. She no longer had the hum of his old Western movies to hear while she cooked dinner. She no longer had the dumb jokes to make her laugh even when she wanted to scream. The thoughts tumbled in her spastic brain, and she rolled onto her back. Somehow an hour had gone by. And another.
