Authors: Meg Gray
Emma nodded. Seth worked for a
consulting firm based in Portland and traveled to projects up and down the west
coast. With his work schedule, Emma scarcely had a roommate at all.
“When does he get back?”
“Tonight,” Emma choked out as she
swallowed her bite. She reached for her sister’s margarita glass and took a sip
to wash down the dry meat. Emma winced as she set the glass back down, “Geez,
Aud, did you forget to add the mix to this stuff?” Her eyes were about to tear
up when her sister whipped around to look at her, eyebrows knitted together.
Audrey looked angry, but then she smiled.
“Living with Mom and Dad has made you
soft hasn’t it? You’ve forgotten what a real drink tastes like.”
It was true, liquor of any kind made a
rare appearance at the farm in Orchard Creek. Their mother, Lucille, the
daughter of an alcoholic and abusive man, would wring her hands with anxiety at
the sight of an open container. It had been a while since Emma had had a real
drink, but still Audrey’s was potent.
Audrey snatched her glass away from
Emma’s reach. “What are you doing stealing my drink anyway?” Audrey tipped her
glass to take another drink and set it down near the sink. “I’ll mix one for
you.”
“No thanks,” Emma replied. “I’ve had my
quota for the night. Do you have any soda?” Emma could use the shot of
caffeine. She’d been pulling twelve-hour days since she was hired ten days ago and
it was all catching up to her. She could feel the exhaustion in her every move.
“Sure, there’s plenty out in the
cooler.” Audrey pointed to the patio. Emma picked up her plate and carried it
outside. The evening air felt fresh as the coolness of the night rolled in. She
reached beneath the layer of melting ice for a red can of soda and found an
empty seat at the patio table next to Finn.
The men talked about fishing, retelling
their best “it-was-this-big” stories, the distance between their hands grew
each time they told a tale. Emma sat quietly among them as she devoured her
dinner and listened to their banter. She loved to hear Finn’s stories about
pike fishing in the rivers back home in Ireland, not because she was a fishing
aficionado, but because of his deep Irish drawl, which thickened with each beer
he drank. He used words like angler and lough, which meant nothing to Emma, but
it didn’t matter, she loved to listen to him talk. His fierce green eyes were
all a twinkle and his dimpled cheeks flushed with excitement as he regaled a
tale about reeling in the biggest fish of his life. His hands gestured and
mimicked the reeling motion. The men cheered as he finished his story and told
of his triumph.
Emma popped her last bite into her mouth
when Audrey walked out from the kitchen, margarita in hand. Coming to stand
behind her husband, she settled her free arm on his shoulder and let her hand
caress his chest. She whispered something in his ear that even Emma couldn’t
hear, but his green eyes smiled as he lifted his chin and kissed her. Audrey
patted him on the chest before walking out to the lawn, to join the other women
and watch the children.
Emma watched her walk away, hips swaying
slightly. Audrey, her big sister, was so lucky. She had the most adoring and
perfect husband, two beautiful daughters, a beautiful home and a successful run
in her career. She was taking an extended leave of absence from her job to stay
at home and raise her children. All of her life Emma had been in awe of her
sister, who exuded perfection.
A mob of screaming little girls chased
two seven or eight year old blond boys. They ran along the heavily treed line
of the backyard, behind the garden shed and through the swing set, setting the
two yellow-seated swings in motion. Out on the freshly cut lawn Emma saw her
niece Lauren, barely twelve months olds, toddling behind her big sister
Chelsea, who was all of three years old now. Try as she might, little Lauren
couldn’t keep up. She tripped over her own feet, falling forward into the
grass. The tiny blades assaulted her soft rounded cheeks with their prickly
pokes and she let out a wail of distress. Audrey picked her up and dried her
tears. A second later, Lauren squirmed out of her mother’s arms to join her
sister in the chase once again and tried desperately to keep up despite her
unsteady steps.
Emma wondered if Lauren would always try
to keep up with Chelsea the way she tried to keep up with Audrey. As children,
Emma remembered following her sister around relentlessly trying to emulate everything
she did, hoping to glean at least a little bit of her sister’s perfection.
As much as Emma tried not to compare
herself to her sister, she never could escape their obvious differences. Audrey
was two years older, two inches taller, two dresses sizes smaller, and her hair
was two shades darker, a rich chestnut color while Emma’s was brown, plain old
brown hair. Audrey’s eyes were a deep rich chocolate brown, while Emma’s were
lighter, more like the color of rust found at the bottom of an old metal
bucket.
It seemed that in everything Audrey did
she excelled. In high school, she was a straight A student and star player on
the girls’ basketball team. Her picture made the front page of the Central
Valley Times nearly every week. Emma hadn’t inherited the athletic gene and
stuck to her love of music. She’d been an accomplished clarinet player in the
high school band, but no one ever featured her on the front pages of the
newspaper for her concert solos.
Emma didn’t resent her sister, she only
wished for a life as charmed as hers. Someday Emma hoped to have a husband as
wonderful as Finn, who was easily better looking than any man Emma had ever dated.
None of them—except maybe for Seth, but he didn’t count because they never
dated—compared to the ruggedly handsome appeal of her Irish brother-in-law,
who’d given up his family and country to marry Audrey. The two met while she studied
abroad in Dublin. According to both of them, it was love at first sight. It
only seemed fitting to Emma that Audrey would have a fairytale romance.
The fate of Emma’s love life was clinched
the moment she moved back into her parent’s farmhouse. She hadn’t had so much as
a date in over three years.
Orchard Creek’s most eligible bachelor
was Garth Simpson, a forty-seven year old goat rancher. Not that she had
anything against goats, okay maybe she did, but Garth was far from the romantic
suitor she envisioned for herself. The bright side of her being uprooted from
Orchard Creek was that here in the city her prospects would have to be
brighter. The waters were deeper and she would be able to cast a wider net.
Men surrounded her now. She looked at
the faces of her sister’s friends’ husbands. Did any of them have a single
brother or colleague to set her up with? Sitting up straighter Emma tucked the
loose strands of hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ears. She
knew she must look tired, but tried to cover it up by pasting on a smile. Maybe
one of these men would catch her bright and cheerful façade and immediately
think,
Aha, she’d be perfect for so-and-so,
and arrange a meeting
between the two of them. It was a long shot, she knew, but if she was ever
going to meet someone, get married and have children of her own she would have
to start somewhere.
She peered out of the corner of her eye
and saw that not one of the men at the table was paying her any notice.
Who
am I kidding?
Emma thought as she relaxed her shoulders and wilted into her
chair—relieved her pathetic behavior went unnoticed. She didn’t need a
boyfriend or a husband to make her feel happy, right?
Right,
she
reassured herself. She was only twenty-six, going on twenty-seven, and in this
modern age, she was still considered young. It would be years before she had to
worry about being labeled as a lonely old spinster. But that didn’t change the lonesome
feeling she had right now sitting in her sister’s backyard. She was the only
one here alone—no husband, boyfriend or child to attach herself to.
Sighing, Emma picked up her plate and
headed for the kitchen. There must be something better for her to think about
than the sorry state of her love life, like how she was going to manage her new
class of kindergartners. At last count her class was up to twenty-eight
students, practically double the size of any class she’d had in Orchard Creek.
Thinking about the little strangers she met for the first time this week, Emma longed
for the familiarity of her classes in Orchard Creek and the three-room
schoolhouse she’d left behind when another round of budget cuts had closed its
doors indefinitely.
In Orchard Creek, Emma had known all of
her incoming students before the first day. Some of their parents were her
classmates in high school while others had picked peaches on her family’s farm.
All of her students would have spoken English unlike the eight she had this
year that spoke German, Russian, or Chinese. None of her students would have
sat all day stuffed inside their coat locker and any one of their parents would
have called her back immediately if she called and left a message, especially
on their child’s first day of school.
Worried about the days ahead and how she
was going to cope with all of her challenges this year Emma dropped her plate
into the newly lined kitchen garbage.
Audrey had cleaned up all of the plates,
but the counter was still lined with empty beer bottles giving the kitchen that
pale-ale kind of smell. Emma gathered as many as she could and carried them to
the garage.
The garage, just like every other room
in Audrey and Finn’s house, was exceptionally well organized. Finn’s custom
workbench and tools were in the third bay behind his black utility trailer with
his signature green shamrock and McCormack Construction painted on the side.
The same logo was on his black pickup truck, residing in the middle bay. Right
in front of the truck, she found the red recycling box. It was already half
full with three wine bottles, an empty bottle of vodka, tequila and a pickle
jar. She gently added her load to the collection.
Emma brought one more armload of bottles
out to the garage before she returned to the kitchen and ran a sink full of
warm soapy water. She dipped a rag into the suds and started wiping down the
countertops.
“Auntie Em, Auntie Em,” a young voice shrieked
behind her.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Emma asked,
turning to see her niece.
“I have to go potty.” Chelsea bounced
from one foot to the other with both of her hands tucked in her crotch. She looked
like a curly haired leprechaun.
“Well, then, go. GO!” Emma prompted her
and pointed in the direction of the powder room. She chased after the little
girl to help her climb onto the toilet. There was no way Chelsea would make it
up the stairs to her retrofitted child-friendly bathroom. She needed to go NOW.
In the bathroom, Chelsea hopped from
foot to foot and struggled with the straps of her jumper. The poor girl
couldn’t hold it anymore and a large puddle pooled around her little white
sandals. Emma jumped back before the flood of urine reached her own shoes. Two
steps away in the laundry room Emma grabbed a stack of old towels that Audrey
kept in a cupboard. From the bathroom, she heard the wails of her niece as hot,
stinging urine streamed down her bare legs. The poor child was paralyzed,
afraid to stay where she was and afraid to move. Emma threw a towel on the
floor and stepped on to it skating to her niece and sopping up the puddle
before it reached the hardwood floor in the hall. She reached for the straps of
the jumper and in one swift motion pulled it to the floor. She hoisted the
sobbing girl onto the toilet. With another towel she wiped Chelsea’s legs and
pulled her sandals off, using a soft reassuring voice to let her niece know
everything would be okay.
Three towels later, the floor was mopped
up. Emma carried the soiled towels and clothes to the washing machine, set the
cycle, and pressed the start button. Next, she helped Chelsea off the toilet,
wrapped her in a towel, held her over the sink to wash her hands and told her
to stand in the hall and wait. She sprayed the toilet, floor and sink with
disinfectant and wiped everything clean. Scooping up her niece, green eyes
still brimming with tears, Emma carried her up the stairs to her pink princess
bathroom and started the water in the bathtub.
“Let’s get you washed, okay, sweet
girl?” Chelsea only nodded as Emma helped her climb into the tub. Emma knelt on
the soft, plush pink bath mat and soaped Chelsea’s legs and arms before rinsing
her off with cups full of warm water. Then, she sat back and watched the girl
push her rubber ducks around the tub.
“I’m done,” Chelsea spontaneously
announced and stood up, beads of water trailing to her feet. Emma pulled the
plug and the water swirled around the drain, making a slurping noise as the
final drops of bath water were sucked down. In Chelsea’s bedroom, a vibrant
palette of four different shades of pink, Emma pulled a pair of pink pajamas
from the dresser and was pleased when Chelsea didn’t protest. It was getting
late and Emma was sure she heard car doors slamming outside. The party was
breaking up.
“Could you read me a story?” Chelsea
asked.
“Of course,” Emma said. “As soon as you
brush your teeth.” She smiled and tapped her niece on the nose before following
her back into the bathroom to brush her teeth and then back again to the
bedroom. Chelsea laid a stack of seven books on the bed before she climbed up
next to Emma. With only the bedside lamp on, Emma started with the first book.
By the end of the second, Chelsea’s head had fallen on Emma’s arm and she was
asleep. Moving stealthily, Emma slid Chelsea down onto her pillow, put the
books on the shelf and switched off the lamp.