Page 14 of In a Word, Yes

I won’t have it. The woman doesn’t need some strange, silly lady blubbering all over her lovely turquoise blazer.

I clear my throat. “Visiting my daughter and grandson. You?”

“No, ma’am.” Opal purses her lips. “No grandchildren.” She turns her attention to the patent leather purse on her lap. Unsnaps its gold closure. Removes a Kindle. The finality of her answer carries meaning. Any fool could see that. “Lord didn’t see fit to give me no grandchildren,” she says, looking straight ahead. “But that’s okay. That’s alright. God is good.”

I hum sympathetically. After letting a few moments pass, I say, “Well. I hope you had a nice time in Oregon.”

She lays her hand over mine. “Listen, child. You get to be my age, you just grateful you can still move your old bones.” A deep chuckle, then, “And to have somebody to visit, somebody who still remembers you. Mm-hmm.” Opal’s gaze holds mine. The whites of her eyes are more of a warm yellow interlaced with red veins. “Number your days, is what I’m sayin’. Yes, ma’am,” she says. “You be sure to number your days.”

I give the woman a slow, contemplative nod. Funny how just this morning I’d been reading Psalm 90, where Moses prayed those very words. No, not funny, and undoubtedly not a coincidence. Something warm bubbles in my chest.

Yep, you’ve got my attention.

Later, I look up from the bubblegum-pink notebook filled with weeks of scribbled thoughts for my next study. Next to me, Opalsleeps with her mouth ajar. Her lips move almost imperceptibly, as if she’s whispering her innermost secrets to God. Suddenly I yearn to hear her story. All of it.

How strange.

And then that feeling comes over me, the one I’ll never get used to. A grim sensation I can only describe as hollowness. I’m a jack-o’-lantern, scraped bare inside yet wearing a carved-out grin.

I’ve never been comfortable with silence, not the way my Roger is. Or Lucy.

Here I am, surrounded by all kinds of interesting people. Calendared out through next February. Gifted with purpose. And yet ... another wave of fatigue presses. And something else. A longing for something I can’t name.

Number your days, the ache in my chest seems to murmur. I close my eyes, and Lucy’s face appears, looking like it did in that moment in her living room when she’d shared so vulnerably. Green-blue eyes as penetrating as a river. My mother’s eyes. In them, I could’ve sworn I saw the child she once was looking back at me.

And I’d had the uncomfortable sense that once again she wanted something from me I didn’t know how to give.

Heavens to Betsy. Could it be that Lucy isn’t the only one who’s stuck?

Five

bugbear(n.): any source, real or imaginary, of fright or fear

Lucy

Bleary-eyed, I shimmy my toes into Nana’s soft pink slippers for the epic trek from my bed to the kitchen. Flipping on the electric kettle, I blink. How is this my teakettle? Its chrome belly gleams like new. The range top, too, is spotless.

Oh yeah.Mom.

My mother was actually here yesterday, in Charity Falls, Mary Poppins-ing her way into our daily life. Which means...

Now I’m fully awake. I wheel around.

And there it is.

Slightly bigger than a bread box and occupying prime real estate at the head of our little dining table for two, the only place I could think to lump it last night. I could hardly leave it sitting unceremoniously in the only free corner of my bedroom, hidden among so many potted plants.

Gah! Shrouded beneath a square of aged linen trimmed in colorful embroidery, Nana’s gift is actually here in our apartment.The embroidered sampler that has long served as its dust cover is itself precious. The folksy needlework Nana stitched along its border reminds me of the tablecloth that took center stage during every holiday meal in Nana’s simple rural home where Mom was raised.

On account of the secrecy and hastiness surrounding my exit from Salem five years ago, I own little of sentimental value. I can’t bring myself to think about all the personal belongings I abandoned, fearing I’d poke the bear named Devin if he knew I was leaving.

Unveiling the item concealed beneath the sampler deserves some kind of ceremony.

Warmth travels through me as I finger the cheery needlework, and then—voilà!—I yank off the cover with all the drama of a circus magician.

Sitting before me? Nana’s vintage 1940s-era Smith Corona Sterling.

Myvintage typewriter. Soot-black, rock-solid, and infused with childhood memories.