Story Draft #2

As Marie sat in her old, comfortable chair watching another one of those commercials selling machines that turn fruit into juice on the shopping channel, she realized she hadn’t gotten the paper off of the porch yet. She pushed the pink and red afghan from her lap to the broad arm of the chair and slowly pushed herself to her slippered feet. She sat the remote control she held in her hand on the tidy little lamp table next to her chair. She stretched her aching back and shoulders and walked toward the front door slowly. Had she fallen asleep watching infomercials?
The shadows thrown against the walls told her that it must be later in the evening than she had realized, and she was so glad to have her slippers on to keep her feet warm. The days were getting warmer, but the evenings and nights were still cold enough to make her joints ache. The light from the television and the lamp next to her chair lit the area she sat in, but that small circle of light seemed to make the rest of her home seem even darker. As she walked through the dining room toward the front door, she paused to turn on the light. She turned toward the door, and saw the empty dining table. She considered how long it had been since she served a meal to her family at this table. Surely fifteen years had passed since Gerald and Celia insisted on serving their own holiday meal at their home. Then she wondered if she had eaten dinner yet. Oh, she thought, the paper would be there in the morning. She turned to the kitchen to make herself a can of soup.
She woke up after a restless night to a beautiful morning. She always had a hard time sleeping when she napped late into the evening. The phone was ringing, which seemed to be becoming an increasingly random occurrence, as she didn’t have many friends and her only son called rather infrequently. Who would be calling? Penny, maybe. If not Penny, her son Gerald or his wife, Celia. They called, and every once in a while, asked her to move in with them. It was Celia. She asked how Marie was doing, and if she needed anything. It was always the same conversation. “I’m fine. I have all that I need. No, I’m sure.” It was always the same.
“Marie? Do you have any plans for Saturday?”
Do I have any plans, Marie thought. When do I ever have plans? “No, I’ll be home all day.”
“We want to come for a visit. No. That’s not right. Marie, we’ve decided it’s time you come home with us. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but we aren’t asking anymore. Everything is all set; you just need to pack.”

After the phone call with Celia, she called Penny. Marie would have to get her hair curled before the visit. Penny lived down the road and was Marie’s closest neighbor; not only her closest neighbor, but her closest friend. Penny had been there for her when her husband had passed away. Sure she had Gerald and Celia, then she had even had the grandchildren comforting her, but Penny was her rock. Penny got her through that, and they had grown closer and closer. Friendships have ups and downs, and they were drifting apart. They talked, but it just wasn’t the same these days.
Marie went out the back screened door, and glanced around at her flower beds. Over the years, she had found just the right mix of flowers for her yard. Petunias, marigolds, and tulips looked the best in her yard. She had the biggest roses on the biggest rose bushes in town. It wasn’t late enough in the season for her to have many blooms, but the flowers that were in bloom were beautiful. Even the plants that had no blooms yet were green and beautiful. Her flower beds were neat and tidy. Her vegetable garden was tilled and planted. She had planted each of those tiny seeds in the straight, neat rows herself. She paid the boy from down the road to till the dirt, but she had done the rest. Her back had ached, her neck was stiffer than ever after the few days it took her to plant, but she had done it all herself. When Gerald sees her garden, he would know he should leave her be. She would not be going home with them.


“Marie, keep your head straight.” Penny was trimming the hair around Marie’s ears. She had already put the pink curlers all over Marie’s head. Her hair was so white and thin now, that her scalp was clearly visible. Penny could see her scalp getting pink and then pinker from how tight the curlers were pulling her hair. Marie insisted on Penny doing her hair every time her son would come to visit.
“Do you think they’ll stay for dinner this time? I don’t even know what I would make. You’ll have to take me to the market, Penny.” Marie was excited; excited, but nervous. Her son’s visits have spread farther apart the past few years. He had children of his own now, and with that, responsibilities. His oldest had just moved into an apartment, and Gerald had helped paint the rooms. His son was 16, and they were working together on a car for him to have when he got his license. Celia had told her all of these things, not Gerald. What does it mean when your son’s wife is your only source of communication? Of course he’s busy, but too busy to talk to his mother?
“I can make some time in the morning, but I’ll want to be home by lunch time. How about pork chops? Everyone likes pork chops. And if they can’t stay, you could freeze them. You know, one at a time, for dinners.” Penny was spraying her hair. “I can come by in the morning, and take these curlers out. Then, we can drive to town to do your shopping. Do you need to go to the bank first?”
Of course Marie had to go to the bank. Penny knew she didn’t keep any cash. And would she really think Marie would want to sleep with these hard curlers on her head all night? She would have to take them out tonight, and Marie would sleep in her recliner, so she didn’t flatten her curls.
“What we women go through for beauty,” was all she could say. Marie would sleep sitting up, because she wanted to look nice, but how much sleep would she get? She had arthritis and a bad back, yet she planned to sleep sitting up. Penny certainly knew better than to try to convince Marie that she’d regret it by the next day. “Do you have any potatoes? Pork chops and mashed potatoes would be good.”
Penny walked to the pantry door, and opened it. She reached into the dark, found the string hanging by the door, and pulled it. The single light bulb was dull, but bright enough to show the contents of the shelves; three canisters of oatmeal, a few boxes of noodles, a dozen or so cans of soups, and a bag of onions. It always irritated Marie when Penny walked through her house as though it were her own. “No, I don’t have any potatoes. I’ll need flour for the gravy, too. Get out of my pantry! You don’t see me poking around your house, do you?” Marie had grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. She was slowly, neatly jotting down the things she would need to buy.
Penny smiled. “When would you be over poking around? You never come to my house anymore.” She closed the pantry door, and then took her time looking through the kitchen cabinets. “I guess it is time to go to the market. You don’t have much around here. Any coffee? Sugar? Tea bags? Do you have any toothpaste, Marie?”
“Get out of my cabinets, you busybody! Course I have toothpaste! And I just used the last of the coffee this morning. Or yesterday. Doesn’t matter, I don’t live on coffee.”
Penny sat back at the kitchen table in the old chair. The seat was padded, and the vinyl cover was cracked with small wisps of the padding material poking through. The cracked vinyl scarped her thigh as she sat down. She looked around. Marie always kept her house pretty clean. She might have to convince her to get different light bulbs, because all of the lights seemed too dim. Well, she’d try to convince Marie if Gerald didn’t really make her move in with him. It was also a bit dusty above her refrigerator and the tops of her cabinet doors. She grabbed a kitchen towel, got it damp, and ran her finger over the dust. Marie was still writing her list, seeming not to be paying any attention.
“Want to run the vacuum, too? Would save me some time.”
“Nah, getting late. I’m ready for bed.” Penny walked over to Marie. She picked up the scissors she had used to trim Marie’s hair, and dropped them in her purse. She started pulling the pins from the pink curlers and putting them in a little pile. After pulling out all of the pins, she started pulling out the curlers. “You call me when you’re ready to go shopping tomorrow. We’ll have to plan on getting you some aspirin while we’re out. You are going to have a sore neck if you really plan on sleeping in that chair.”

After a second restless night, Marie was up early. Her neck ached. Her back ached. Her shoulders, even her legs, ached. Why did she insist on sleeping in the recliner? Was it Penny’s suggestion? It must have been. Marie would have known how uncomfortable that chair would be to sleep in. Her curls had survived the night, and in a sense, it was worth it. Penny always put her curls in just the right spot. Her curls weren’t too tight and never too loose.

Gerald and Celia were later than Celia had said they would be. They all sat in the living room together. Celia seemed preoccupied, nervous even. She was pleasant enough, but she avoided looking Marie in the eyes. “Have you packed yet?” Gerald said as he got up and seemed to be looking for something.
He walked back to her, kneeled down in front of her, and took her hands. “Mom, you remember what we talked about? You haven’t packed. Would you like Celia and me to help you?”
Marie looked at her son and a few tears slipped down her cheek. How could he say these things to her? She could take care of herself just fine. She was happy. They didn’t really want her to live with them. If they really wanted that, why didn’t they ever come to visit her? She wouldn’t be leaving now. “I don’t want to abandon my garden. I put so much time into it. Don’t you care what I want?”
“You can put in a garden at our house. We want you with us. You need to be with us.” Celia insisted. They packed her clothes. They boxed her things and stacked those boxes on the dining room table before packing them all in the back of their van.
Marie reluctantly got in the van. She didn’t hear what Celia was saying to her, but stared out the window instead. She saw the grass her husband had mowed for all those years, the rose bushes they had planted together, the garden patch. The garden patch hadn’t been tilled in years; weeds sticking up through the grass that had taken over. The sad flower beds full of weeds and tulips. She stared at these things as her son drove her away from her home, away from her memories. Her memories were so vivid that she didn’t realize they were the past, but relived them day after day.