I sat back on my knees and thought, tinny. That was the best I could come up with. My mind was so muddled from the recent state of affairs that clear thinking, much less accurate description was a degree of okay at best.
For the better part of a week I’d been going through a house that suddenly belonged to me. It was someone’s will – a neighbor who I affectionately remembered from my very young childhood – that bequeathed me her house. She, as I recalled, wore what they used to call a house dress every single day. Never pants, but in that time no self-respecting woman ever did wear pants. I looked down at my by now filthy jeans and thought an apology to her. Her name was Virginia, though she had allowed me to call her Ginn because at age three one syllable was easier for me than three.
She was short and wrinkled and smoked one cigar every evening. She always had sugar cookies in a jar on her kitchen counter. Her house was, even then, weathered: a white clapboard with green trim and a front porch with a swing that held two or three depending on the size of a person.
I wandered over most days, walked in uninvited, and she would peek her head out of the kitchen door with two cookies in her hand (one for me and one for herself) and a small glass of lemonade like she’d been expecting 
me. We would enjoy the snack at the kitchen table, then move outside and sit on the porch swing.
Our topics of conversation varied wildly from fire engines to flowers, Harpo Marx to heaven. Harpo, Ginn had commented, wasn’t as quiet as everyone thought. She’d met him when she was a performer within the entertainment community. When she talked about him, my three-year old self wondered if he might have been an unrequited crush, but all she would conclude is that after he died, his wife had donated his harps to Israel. Anytime conversation wandered to Harpo, we’d sit in silence for awhile so she could, I suppose, let memory have its way. Or maybe not. My three-year-old self knew less than nothing about such things. Maybe she was waiting for me to leave so she could eat another cookie.
But besides harps and fire engines, we did, I think, have some philosophical heart-to-hearts. For instance, one time I’d been recounting a disappointment and seemingly out of the blue Ginn had remarked, “Sometimes a person would rather hide who she is. It’s easier.” She bit her lip, then looked down at me, “But easier isn’t necessarily the best choice. You understand?” I’d nodded, though my comprehension of her comment was surface at best.
My family had moved when I was six. I’d gone next door for one more wild chat and stayed until sunset. I’d hugged her tight and she’d hugged me tighter. That was the last I saw of her. I’d asked my mother one time if we could go back to visit Ginn, but she said she couldn’t imagine why and that was that. I did not argue because arguments with my mother always ended in me losing and feeling as though I should apologize, though to this day, I don’t know why. So I chose what was easier and didn’t argue.
After high school, I took a filing job at the courthouse downtown. Then I moved, went to college, and became a kindergarten teacher. Sometimes I thought about Ginn and how small I must have seemed to her even up until the time my family moved away. I sent a few cards to her address, but they were returned. Then one summer, I decided to find out why my cards had been returned and what had happened to Ginn.
to be continued . . .
Image: considerate-agency-Mb1wyoOquSg-unsplash-scaled.jpg; pexels-kate-l-2149358429-31116128-1-scaled.jpg; any; this story is fictional and any resemblance to an even or character living or dead is coincidental.
containing vitamins and minerals, parts of the dandelion help support our liver, digestion, and blood sugar levels as well as lowering cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Whaddaya know?
small hole in the push button. The next time I examined it, the hole had grown along with the ding dong ding dong ding dong which stopped every time I placed my hand on the doorknob. Of course it did. Any movement on my part probably sounded like it was coming through a bullhorn to the bird who could hear the little sounds of insects
That afternoon I took a walk around the neighborhood and nonchalantly (and in my mind surreptitiously) tossed some blueberries toward my neighbor’s latest sign. When I got back home I made a little trail of berries from below my doorbell over as far as I dared to my neighbor’s yard. I thought maybe I spied Woody (as I’d begun to think of him) hopping around them, but I couldn’t be certain. The bird seemed to make a game of evading me.
birdseed on one. If I was a sports announcer, I would’ve called my pitch high and wide; but I got better with each toss. Don’t judge. It isn’t littering when it’s nature.
showing varying degrees of weathering. But it was through the quiet site to the hill beyond it that he ventured. He descended a steep embankment and came to a stream recently released from the restrictions of ice and snow as it rushed and gurgled over cold rocks and downed branches.
his hand, then yanked it out
Five years. That’s how long she’d been out of high school. She did the college thing and graduated a year early while watching friends pair up and marry. She’d gone to weddings, even been in a few, and dined and danced and celebrated. Then she had gone home alone.
sincerely Christian and his being sincerely nothing. She might’ve made an attempt, but knew it would’ve ended up with compromised faith and relationship, both. And the others – she couldn’t explain other than to say any connection was partial at best.
Twenty years. It was okay. Really. She found an out-of-the-way table at the back of the coffee shop and settled into a predictably semi-comfortable chair. Valentine’s decore framed the large front windows with pinks and reds. Ah yes. The time of year for couples or coupling, but not singles. Some would make an evening of trying with someone new. She didn’t. It seemed false.