65

 

       ELVIRA

 

    The ground was always good here, I say.  Lorraine, do you remember the year Momma had the zucchini?  She just thought she'd try out a few zucchini to see how they'd do.  Heavens, we had zucchini the size of baseball bats.  Everywhere.  Had to give them away, and that was back when you didn't have a garden to have one and then give half of your harvest away.  No, you had a garden to eat and you ate what came up, and what you didn't eat, you canned.  We didn't even know what to do with it.  Momma had to get recipes from that old woman that lived down the street          what was her name?  Well anyway, we had cake and bread and boiled and anything you can imagine

    No, I don't remember.

    Oh, sure you          I bet you Daddy remembers that.

    I'm sure he doesn't.

    It was him that said they were as big as baseball bats.  He'd hold one up over his shoulder and swing it, and Momma'd tell him to quit fooling around, he's hit somebody, and he's make a face and we'd laugh.  I'm sure he'd remember that.

    His memory isn't right anymore.

    But he'd have

    She looks at me, and I stop.  I guess I do sound just a little silly.  At least I don't want to give her the satisfaction of saying so.  I'll ask him myself tomorrow.

    Anybody want anything from the house?  I'm going to take a few things in.

    Nobody answers.  Janice and Eric shake their heads, their mouths full.  Daddy sits there, intently scrubbing his plate with a piece of bread.  I look away before he puts it in his mouth.

    The kitchen is still a little warm from the oven.  I stop right inside the door and lean there, looking around.  It is so different that I catch myself thinking that this is a different house, and the old kitchen still exists somewhere, cracked wallpaper and toilet beside the icebox and all.  Lorraine does have nice taste; the cabinets are real nice.  I wouldn't have picked that color for the walls myself, but it's all very nice.

    She's moved right in.  It is her kitchen now.  There is a pump bottle of Jergen's lotion on the window sill.  In a few years there will be a mark there, the exact shape of the bottom of the bottle.  The sun will yellow the wood finish but will never have a chance at that little space; she only takes it down after dark, after the dishes are done.

    I put the butter dish away and close the refrigerator.  A magnet that looks like a bunch of grapes holds a grocery list to the copper-colored door.  She needs juice and bread and ground meat and Comet.

    There is a pretty arrangement of plastic flowers on the table.  Spring flowers.

    Yes, this is her kitchen now.  I start to go out, but something catches my eye.  There are scuff marks on the brand new woodwork.  I've seen them before, at her old house.  They are from banging the vacuum cleaner into the walls during one of her ferocious crusades on dirt.  She has wasted no time.