"I told my mother I would meet her at the Coffee Shoppe today after school. It is on the corner of your road. Do you want to come with me?" asked Louisa, adjusting the frame of her glasses. Jayme shook her head regretfully from side to side as she said, "No, I can't. Mom is working late, and I need to go home with Lizzie and Granna." With a shrug of her shoulders, Louisa said, "That's okay. We can walk together anyway. Let's go." The two girls began to walk, and Jayme was pleased to have company. Her usual walk home was accompanied by Jameson and his sister, Meg.
"Where are Jameson and Meg?" Louisa inquired as they turned the first corner and crossed the crosswalk.
"They are on vacation. Mrs. Dosser planned a three-day weekend in the Mountains, remember?"
"Oh yeah. Didn't they go out of town just a few weeks ago?"
"Yeah, she likes to do family stuff like that - says it makes them stronger," answered Jayme as she plucked a bud from a blooming tree overhead.
The girls continued to walk in the shade of the trees until, finally, Louisa parted to meet her mother, and Jayme walked the length of Pomegranate Avenue until she reached Granna's home. Jayme walked behind the house to locate Granna and Lizzie in the back yard. Lizzie always arrived home from elementary school before Jayme, and if the weather was nice, Lizzie and Granna would always venture into the woods together. Today, Jayme could see them through the trees. They were walking toward the pond.
Jayme entered the back door and put her school bag in her bedroom. When she made her way back down the hall, she glanced into her mother's room. There was her desk, clean, neat, organized, and new. Something about the desk was attractive to Jayme. She entered the room and took a seat on her mother's cushioned stool. Granna made the lavender cushion for Donna when the new desk was brought in to celebrate Donna's first semester of classes.
Donna loved to take pictures, and there were several pictures on her desk. Jayme lifted each frame to view the faces inside. She delicately touched each face in the family photo. She gazed into the eyes of her father. This was taken three years ago. Courtney still had braces. Lifting the new family photo, her eyes traced the images of her mother and Granna, who were surrounded by herself and her two sisters. Then there was the picture of the daughters with Granna. They were standing in the garden. Next, her roving eyes wandered to a newer face, Carter Newman. Donna had taken this picture as he was working on her car in the driveway. He was "her angel" that day. Here, he was holding onto the front of the car, his arms straight, as if he had just emerged from fidgeting under the hood. He had shyly smiled as she snapped the picture, saying, "Here I am, Ms. Independent, and I can't even fix my own car!"
A stack of papers caught Jayme's eye. Oh, that's right. The divorce, shuddered Jayme. Its final now. The bold signatures of Donna and Donald McGhee were clearly written. Jayme stared at the pages with a blank expression. Her heart was empty.
Standing to exit the room, she noticed a violet card stock corner protruding from beneath the paper stack. Hesitantly, Jayme lifted the card from the stack. Reading it silently to herself, she heaved a heavy sigh.
2 comments:
Popped in from SITS to say hi! I'm happy to have found someone else that writes!
Wonderful writing. Great to read something purely creative. Thanks for visiting my site. Very much appreciate it!
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