Kay-Kay could be a little lax about the dishes sometimes. . . .
For a moment, I was back in the kitchen. My kitchen. I was home, and I could clean up the dishes myself. . . .
The door opened, the sound forcing me back to the nursing center. Claude came in with a new supply of pushpins. He raised the blind and secured the string to the wall again, carefully pressing in the pins. “Gret’s picture fell off the bulletin board, so these wasn’t bein’ used.” He sat back and again admired his work. “Reckon she’ll notice?”
I imagined Gretchen’s picture in the dusty crevice behind the CPR chart. It was a wickedly pleasant thought.
Glancing over his shoulder at me, Claude blinked in surprise. “Why, Birdie. I think you’re smilin’. ’Course, that out there’s somethin’ to smile about. Hear all them birds singing? Every bird in the air’s come down to join the choir.”
I breathed deeply of the new day and listened to the birdsong in the Bradford pear trees outside. My mind slowed, my body relaxed, and the tightness Betty had left behind ebbed away.
“Silver linings.” Claude leaned forward to take in more of the sky. “Normally, it’d be red sky in the morning, sailor take warning , but I seen mares’ tails out there last night, and there’s even a few this mornin’.” He pointed out the window, but my view was limited. “See them high, thin ones that start at a little tip and whisk upward into the last of the pink? Mares’ tails. The mares are runnin’ happy this mornin’. They got their tails flying up in the wind. Farmers know what that means. When the mares’ tails point down, watch out, but when they’re runnin’ up, good day ahead. My pappy always watched the mares’ tails.” Rolling his chair back, he turned to me. “Why, Birdie, I believe you got the prettiest smile I ever seen.”
Dimly, I could feel movement tickling my lips. I wondered if Claude was flirting with me, but the thought seemed foolish, considering our present situation. Aside from that, he had to be well over eighty, far older than me, and I was a married woman.
Claude swiveled the wheelchair and returned to contemplating the sky. “My pappy believed in working smart and working hard.” He paused to take a hankie from his pocket and wipe a disemboweled fly from the window glass. “He was forty-eight years old when I was born. My folks’d long since give up on ever having kids before they had me and my twin sister. My mama nearly didn’t make it through the birth, and the doctors thought we wouldn’t make it, either. Back then, they didn’t have all the medicine like they do now.” A chuckle slipped past his lips and he patted his stomach, which was thin and sunken like the rest of him. “As boy children go, I was a pretty poor disappointment, kinda scrawny, but my pappy never let me know it. He loved us both, just like we was strappin’ and perfect.”
Claude went on with the story about the farm where he grew up. I heard it only dimly. I was thinking of Edward, and what a good father he’d been to Teddy. He’d never made Teddy feel any less than perfect. It was sad that Rebecca didn’t know that part of her father. I’d so tried to discourage him from giving her up to her mother, but he let it happen out of guilt, as a form of penance for leaving Marilyn. There was so much Rebecca didn’t know, so much she didn’t understand about her father and the events of that year.
Claude was rambling on about the trains when Ifeoma walked in. I was glad it was she and not Betty who discovered him. Ifeoma must have been working an extra shift, which she often did. As far as I could tell, she was a single gal with no family to go home to. I supposed she needed the money additional work could provide. Perhaps she sent it back to someone in Ghana.
Bracing her hands on her hips, she frowned, towering over Claude like a parent correcting an errant child. “You are not to be here, Mr. Fisher.”
Claude smiled
For a moment, I was back in the kitchen. My kitchen. I was home, and I could clean up the dishes myself. . . .
The door opened, the sound forcing me back to the nursing center. Claude came in with a new supply of pushpins. He raised the blind and secured the string to the wall again, carefully pressing in the pins. “Gret’s picture fell off the bulletin board, so these wasn’t bein’ used.” He sat back and again admired his work. “Reckon she’ll notice?”
I imagined Gretchen’s picture in the dusty crevice behind the CPR chart. It was a wickedly pleasant thought.
Glancing over his shoulder at me, Claude blinked in surprise. “Why, Birdie. I think you’re smilin’. ’Course, that out there’s somethin’ to smile about. Hear all them birds singing? Every bird in the air’s come down to join the choir.”
I breathed deeply of the new day and listened to the birdsong in the Bradford pear trees outside. My mind slowed, my body relaxed, and the tightness Betty had left behind ebbed away.
“Silver linings.” Claude leaned forward to take in more of the sky. “Normally, it’d be red sky in the morning, sailor take warning , but I seen mares’ tails out there last night, and there’s even a few this mornin’.” He pointed out the window, but my view was limited. “See them high, thin ones that start at a little tip and whisk upward into the last of the pink? Mares’ tails. The mares are runnin’ happy this mornin’. They got their tails flying up in the wind. Farmers know what that means. When the mares’ tails point down, watch out, but when they’re runnin’ up, good day ahead. My pappy always watched the mares’ tails.” Rolling his chair back, he turned to me. “Why, Birdie, I believe you got the prettiest smile I ever seen.”
Dimly, I could feel movement tickling my lips. I wondered if Claude was flirting with me, but the thought seemed foolish, considering our present situation. Aside from that, he had to be well over eighty, far older than me, and I was a married woman.
Claude swiveled the wheelchair and returned to contemplating the sky. “My pappy believed in working smart and working hard.” He paused to take a hankie from his pocket and wipe a disemboweled fly from the window glass. “He was forty-eight years old when I was born. My folks’d long since give up on ever having kids before they had me and my twin sister. My mama nearly didn’t make it through the birth, and the doctors thought we wouldn’t make it, either. Back then, they didn’t have all the medicine like they do now.” A chuckle slipped past his lips and he patted his stomach, which was thin and sunken like the rest of him. “As boy children go, I was a pretty poor disappointment, kinda scrawny, but my pappy never let me know it. He loved us both, just like we was strappin’ and perfect.”
Claude went on with the story about the farm where he grew up. I heard it only dimly. I was thinking of Edward, and what a good father he’d been to Teddy. He’d never made Teddy feel any less than perfect. It was sad that Rebecca didn’t know that part of her father. I’d so tried to discourage him from giving her up to her mother, but he let it happen out of guilt, as a form of penance for leaving Marilyn. There was so much Rebecca didn’t know, so much she didn’t understand about her father and the events of that year.
Claude was rambling on about the trains when Ifeoma walked in. I was glad it was she and not Betty who discovered him. Ifeoma must have been working an extra shift, which she often did. As far as I could tell, she was a single gal with no family to go home to. I supposed she needed the money additional work could provide. Perhaps she sent it back to someone in Ghana.
Bracing her hands on her hips, she frowned, towering over Claude like a parent correcting an errant child. “You are not to be here, Mr. Fisher.”
Claude smiled
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