A day after Claire arrived, the rain had dried and the hydrangeas
were purple and blue. Butterflies
flitted in the lantana bushes, and yet Dorothy was discontent for a reason she
could not name although actually this was self-deception on her part because
she could have named it easily enough, and its name would have been Claire, but
what kind of grandmother would resent her own grandchild even though she
squawked in horror when presented with a bowl of fresh strawberries, “They’re
not good to eat!” the obvious rejoinder being that of course they were good to
eat, that slugs don’t get that fat without nourishment, but Claire had no sense
of humor, and Dorothy could see that.
Claire was spending June with Dorothy while her mother “worked a few
things out.” Drooping and moping by the
big front windows, or wilting on the porch swing like melting taffy, Claire
complained about everything: there was no internet, there was no cell phone, Dorothy
didn’t have cable, there was nothing in town, nothing to do.
Eggs.
First thing next morning as a special treat, Dorothy woke
her granddaughter up to gather eggs, but Claire was no better a match for this
than she had been for the strawberries.
Getting out of bed, too sleepy even to be resentful, cocking her yawning
head and stretching her arms in a crooked Y, she asked, “What are we going?” Holding the wicker egg basket, Dorothy led
her sleepy granddaughter down the stone path to the coop. “It’s almost daybreak,” Dorothy whispered,”
and soon you hear the mockingbirds start up.”
Just then Claire shrieked.
Kicking a bare foot in empty air and hopping on the other, Claire’s
silhouette bobbed in the darkness.
“Look! Ugh, look! I just stepped in chicken crap!” Maybe this expedition would not be quite the
bonding experience she had hoped, Dorothy worried. Now, though, they were committed, and Dorothy
wiped Claire’s heel clean with the hem of her nightgown, leaving a brown smear
of poo on the floral cotton print.
Opening the pop door posed another setback. “Put your hand in there, honey,” Dorothy
said. “Quiet, don’t wake them.” Reaching into the nesting box, although the
sky was blueing in the east, Claire’s hand sank into such darkness, it was like
watching her draw on a long black glove.
“Shit!” Claire exclaimed, jerking her hand back as if it had
caught fire, “there’s something alive in there!”
“That’s just the hens,” Dorothy said, reminding herself to
be patient.
“Ugh, oh, ugh,” Claire cried, “I put my fingers on it.”
Velma, inside the box, made a chickeny burble, and Claire
shrieked again in terror.
“Why can’t you,” Dorothy said, growing angry now for true,
“why can’t you try out this one little thing, one little thing new, this one
time?” Xerxes, the rooster, roused from
sleep, opened one amber eye at them, saw it was too early for crowing and
closed it again. “You get – never mind
that now, just leave the egg basket alone, you just get on up to the house, and
you can just go back to being bored and complaining all day and I’ll won’t do a
thing to stop you.” Zinnias on either
side of the stone path seemed to part for Dorothy as she stormed back to the
house, like the Red Sea making way for Moses.
