|
I follow her inside. The carpet is old and matted down and the walls are covered with faded wallpaper.
“I thought I’d just bring you the CD,” I tell her. “I live pretty close, so it wasn’t much out of my way. And my daughter and I made this bread. I had some extra so I thought I’d bring you a loaf.”
She takes the items from me and goes into the kitchen off the living room. “Have a seat on the couch, dear, I’ll be right out.”
When she comes back, she has some of my bread cut up on a plate. I take a small piece when she offers it.
“How old is your daughter?” she asks.
“Three and a half.”
“Oh, how precious! Make sure you cherish each moment. You think you have all the time in the world, but it goes by so quickly.”
I smile and nod. “That’s good advice. Thank you. And thank you for doing the interview for the radio station. You said some important things, some things the community needs to hear.”
“Thank you for caring enough to take this project on, and for letting people know my story. Sometimes I feel like I’m forgotten.”
I finish the piece of bread and stand to leave. “Are you okay out here?” I ask. I feel a bit weird about leaving her.
“Of course I’m okay. I’ve lived here for fifty years. I’m fine.”
She walks me to the door. “Please come back. Bring your daughter to visit. I love children.”
I tell her I will, and when Morgen’s in bed that night I tell Scott that I’d like to do as I promised. “Morgen would probably love to meet her,” I say. “She’s a sweet old lady. You know who she reminds me of? That little old lady who lived in the cockroach apartment building in Portland. Remember her?”
“I try not to remember that place.”
“I feel sorry for her, alone and struggling.”
“Bring her some more bread, then. You’re planning on making some more anyway, right?”
On Saturday, we do just that. We don’t have many ingredients, and we can’t afford to buy any more until my next payday, but we have everything for a loaf of banana bread. It’ll be good to use the over-ripe bananas anyway, so they don’t go to waste. I set Morgen up with her stepstool at the counter next to me, and she dumps the measured ingredients into the mixing bowl while I stir. She greases the loaf pan and I scrape the mixture into it and put it in the oven. While it bakes, Morgen gets dressed and sets herself up at the table to color an elaborate picture of squirrels in their forest homes with nuts stacked up around them. The banana bread is done before she is because she wants the picture to be perfect. I wait until she’s satisfied, and then we get into the jeep and drive out to Mrs. McKinley’s house.
“This is where she lives?” Morgen asks when we pull up.
“Yes, sweetie.”
Mrs. McKinley’s thrilled to meet her, and hangs her picture on the fridge. Then she cuts up the banana bread and serves it to us in the living room. Morgen looks around, wide-eyed, at the old wallpaper and the shelves filled with knickknacks. Mrs. McKinley watches her with a smile, then leads her around, showing her different items and telling little stories about the special ones. The silver spoon is from her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The vase she made in a pottery class many years ago.
“And what do you think of this little fellow?” she asks, taking a tiny ceramic owl from a high shelf.
“I like it!”
“Then you shall have it.”
Morgen cups it and rushes to show me her gift.
“What do you say?” I ask.
“Thank you!”
We promise to come back soon and then head home, where Scott’s outside working on the woodpile.
“Oh good, you’re home,” he says. “I want to go into town and hit the library before it closes to print off my résumé.”
“What for?”
“There’s two jobs in the paper today that I need to apply for.”
Morgen runs around the yard, and I lean up against the side of the cabin, next to the dwindling wood pile.
“Why?”
“We’re going to need to order more wood for the winter,” Scott says. “And we can’t afford it off your salary. We need more money coming in. There’s two evening jobs in the paper, so I’m going to apply for them.”
64/83 首页 上一页 62 63 64 65 66 67 下一页 尾页
|
